I woke up at 9 a.m. this morning. There was some kind of construction and it was super noisy. Even with noise-cancelling earphones blocking my ears, the noise level woke me up right away. I wish the woman at the hotel would say something to them.
In the end I actually woke up at 12:30. I had a meeting at 1, so I hurried to take a shower and get ready. Lately I’ve been going to bed around 4 a.m., and I can’t help thinking that’s not good. I want to get myself together properly.
Yesterday I finally started TikTok and posted a video saying I’ll speak daily diary entries in French.
I ordered pizza and chicken for delivery, but what arrived were two hamburgers. Totally mismatched. I asked for a refund and thankfully Grab refunded me. Yes—free lunch! (lol)
After that I did a bit of work at the hotel but got sleepy, so I took a nap. I went out at 5 p.m. I was looking for a cafe and found one open until 11 p.m., so I decided to go there. First I went to TP Bank to withdraw cash. In Vietnam TP Bank is the only bank that lets you withdraw without fees. But maybe because it’s popular, ATMs kept announcing 'insufficient cash, not possible' as I tried them. I finally managed to withdraw on the third ATM.
There was a bookstore nearby, so I looked at books for the first time in a while. I found Robin Sharma’s The Wealth Money Can't Buy and started reading it — it was really easy to read and said really fundamental things, so I decided to buy it. It was 340,000 dong, about 1,700 yen, so reasonably priced.
Then I went to a pho restaurant for dinner and recorded some French there. As always, the combo of beef pho and coconut water was perfect.
After that I relaxed at a cafe near Ben Thanh Market.
Jazz was playing inside, and it’s tucked away like a hidden spot, so the entrance is really narrow.
I really like cafes like this — they feel stylish.
There are 24-hour cafes in Vietnam, and they’re often packed with lots of attractive couples. It really shows how important 'concept' and 'space design' are. Conversely, I feel a cafe can become popular if it satisfies these two things: 'experience' and 'space.' Honestly, the taste of the coffee doesn’t matter that much. What matters is how interesting the space is and what kind of experience you can have there.
So yeah, today was time to post a diary on Note and do some work. I think it’s okay to have days like this. If every day is active you’d get tired, after all.
