Coffee Corner

Out to Lunch said:
It is chrysanthemum tea usually served together with coffee -robusta. Vietnam is now the second largest coffee exporter in the world and has a rich and varied coffee culture that even Starbucks has not been able to crack. Saigon is a great place to be but it's better not to leave your camera on a coffee table since it will disappear fast. Considering your interest in architecture, while Hanoi is good for French colonial architecture Saigon is the place for Modernist architecture. Cheers, OtL
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Noted.

I was hoping for something more 'alcohol' than coffee. I was in Hanoi about twenty years ago, but I no longer recall what we drank back in those days...

Surely there must be a 'chaser' to go with one's morning coffee, especially when one is hung over or lethargic after a big night out.

Yes, as you wrote and as I now remember so well, the architecture is worth staying a few days to walk the streets with a wide angle lens to record the colonial heritage of the city. Until I went I thought most of the pre-WW2 buildings had been bombed into oblivion by American Air Force raids during the war - but then I saw how much had survived, and in a way my faith in humanity was restored.

I was in Saigon in 1975, just before the collapse of the so-called Republic of Vietnam. In late March of that year all the camera shops in Cholon were suddenly discounting their stocks of cameras if one was willing to pay in foreign $$. I had Canadian dollars which nobody elsewhere in Asia usually wanted, but in Cholon any or all foreign money was eagerly accepted. I bought a Nikkormat FTN and two Hanimex lenses. In retropect, I should have bought Leicas.

On April 17, 1975 I flew out of Saigon on a commercial flight. Oddly, it was half empty. Across from me a German came in with a large carry bag which he lavishly tipped the in-flight attendant to leave in the spare seat. We got to talking and he opened his bag to show me his stash of at least a dozen Leica bodies and as many Leitz lenses, which he said he'd picked up at bargain-basement prices from the Cholon camera shops. Back in Germany he must have made a killer profit on that lot.

Moving' on. What a relief that Star*ucks have yet to make inroads in Vietnam! Much the same has happened in Melbourne, where a fair few of the American 'industrial' quality coffee providores have closed up shop. Now and then I hung out in the Hudson's coffee palace in Lygon street, Carlton where I could go up to the first floor and sit on a comfortable sofasto read newspapers and magazines and sip (mostly forgettable) American coffee. Now gone. Yet the Italian coffee places go on and on. When one has a good product...
 
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Home coffee gear is not unlike camera gear and many other things in life. One can go down quite the deep rabbit hole if they wish, spending all kinds of money along the way. And just as with camera gear and the other things, some will understand this while others will not. While there are definitely far more elaborate setups than mine, after 20+ years this gear has now paid for itself many times over. I’ll likely use these units until they no longer work (I just recently purchased yet another rebuild kit for the espresso machine to keep it going strong). This pic was taken after a not-frequent-enough thorough cleaning.

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Sometimes the table on the terrace is my own coffe corner!

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