Hospitality

Today I thought would be a surreal day, since I had woken up at about 8:30am after my phone finally ran out of batteries at 3am watching at least 120 episodes of Jake and Amir (youtube them, funny guys). I sleepily threw on a tee and my 501s, before rushing brushing my teeth and heading out the door, not sure of what to expect. All I knew was that my brother was cashing in his Medicare Teen Dental voucher after he had just received his retainers a few days earlier. To digress for a moment, it turns out the other week when I had my own teeth cleaned, mum had accidentally given the dentist my brother's voucher instead of my own, so this time around he used my voucher. Anyway, Dad, my brother and I went down to Cabramatta at about 9am to go to said dentist. While he was off getting his teeth cleaned, Dad and I walked around John Street for a bit, where I eyed out a Nikon F60 for sale at the photo store for $390, nice little blast from the past. Soon my brother was done and we dropped him off at his friend's house for some sort of assignment - probably to game or something, and Dad could not help but notice we were literally 100m away from our family friend's house, Bob's house.

It was the first time I had visited his house in almost two years, twenty-three months to be exact. Bob's mum was surprised at how much I had grown since I last visited, and noted that I looked grown up now. She asked me to clear their fishpond of algae and to feed the fish, which was fun. Watched the little koi eat flakes of fish food. Bob's mum suggested I have a pet.

Once we were inside after she had finished hanging up the laundry, Bob's mum offered Dad and I eat some buon bo hue. Sure thing, I was rather looking forward to it. While we waited, she made some Vietnamese coffee, which I am not exactly sure entails, but seems to be an espresso coffee, black, loaded with sugar and ice added. Usually it is made with condensed milk, but I chose to put just normal dairy in mine. I asked why Vietnamese people used condensed milk, and it seems to be very much a cultural thing as much as an inherited dietary intolerance to dairy milk. According to Bob's mum and Dad, when the French occupied Vietnam, a mini cultural revolution occurred and the French had taught the Vietnamese to make coffee with condensed milk due to a general lack of dairy milk being available. Also, the lack of contact with dairy milk meant it easily caused stomach troubles, at least for them I suppose. Either way, Bob's mum got a pretty good ratio, and I thoroughly enjoyed the coffee - another 3am sleep today.

The bun bo hue was soon at the table. I remember as a child, I particularly disliked the cut of meats used in the dish, but given my recent dietary history, I was not so picky this time around. Bun bo hue uses fattier and more tendon based cuts of meat, a mix of cheaper soup bones and scraps of meat. I remember wanting lean cuts of beef and refusing to eat it even if it had what I always believe to be veins in it - still not 100% sure what it exactly is. Anyway, this bun bo was more on the side of pork, and I ate it without hesitation. Bob's mum is a really nice lady, good cook too. I do not often receive such warm hospitality, but then again, rarely did I visit this family friend of late. Of course, she asked me about HSC and uni, all the usual banter, but the emphasis of conversation was more about the food and how I was going, which was a nice change.

What did I eat next...hmm...after a glass of orange/mango juice, I sat down with Bob and his brother Bill to watch MTV Classics. They had a top 50 countdown of Hard Rock Anthems, and when I switched on there were 40 songs to go. Hell yeah! Another channel, forgot what it was called had a top 100 countdown of 80s hits. Could it get any better? I switched between channels alternatively and got to watch some favourites such as Van Halen's Jump and Guns 'n' Roses' Paradise City. Eventually, Bob's mum again offered me even more food, this time red bean soup. It had clear rice (gluten jelly thing) balls with a cube of coconut in it, bits of ginger and of course, red beans. So delicious.

After a while, Bob started improving some jazz on his piano, so I decided to be musical and play his dad's guitar. Acoustic Ibanez, made in Japan from back in the day. The strings were completely rusted and I also managed to break his B string, oops. All of this while Bill was playing Nyan Cat on the laptop.

We were waiting for my brother, and he was taking his sweet time, so we ended up staying to about 3pm after arriving at just after 10am. My brother walked over at about 2:30pm and Bob's mum saw it ample opportunity to offer us Costco apple pie. It was rather extremely sweet and the apple was quite soggy, but oh well. Dad said we were leaving just as the solo for Pearl Jam's Even Flow started. Dammit.

I hope I can somehow return the hospitality later on, but Bob's mum sure as hell is a nice woman. So kind and nurturing - never seeming to run out of food either. Bloody hell, Bob's dad had to take the visit to the most Asian of levels (translated into our modern day vernacular by the way):

"Minh."

"Yeah?"

"Got a girlfriend yet?"

"...No"

"What? Not yet? C'mon son!"

To which Bob's parents and Dad discussed the best time to get a girlfriend. Lol facepalm.