Party Prep in DaNang, Vietnam: Balloons, Flowers and Bakery Treats (Part 1)

Hi friends, it's Susan here in Da Nang, Vietnam, and today is birthday edition. Somebody has a birthday coming up in 2 days, and I am headed out to do my birthday party planning. So I have this philosophy on birthdays, and it's actually something that I learned from one of my coworkers years ago, and we were talking about birthdays and how they can be kind of stressful, and they can be stressful for the person having a birthday. Sometimes people get down, or they don't know what their friends want to do, and they don't know who's going to plan something, and friends don't know what the birthday person wants to do, and the birthday person saying, "Oh, I don't care, I don't want to do anything," and it just, and the friends might not have time, and it can bring up just a lot of confusion and just kind of funky feelings. And he said he and his friends group decided, once you turn 40, the way you handle birthdays is the birthday person plans their own birthday, and they pay for it. But you do whatever you want.

You want to take a small group of friends out to dinner, you want to go to an event, you want to have a birthday party, whatever you want to do, you plan it, you do it, you pay for it. Everyone's happy, nobody's left wondering, nobody's stressing about anyone's birthday, and I love that. So my birthday being in two days, I am hosting a birthday get-together, and it's kind of doubling in my mind as, like, Friend Appreciation Day. So I'm really excited about it. It's supposed to rain really hard here for the next few days, so I reserved an upstairs area at a restaurant where I've had two parties in the past, and it's a casual, fun, it's in the neighborhood, and they have pizzas and hummus platters, and it's covered, and it'll be absolutely perfect, casual. And now I'm headed out to pull together a few things to provide at the birthday get-together. So let's go!

So the first thing here is flowers. So I thought it'd be really nice to have some flowers on the table, and there's various flower shops around town. I've never bought flowers here before, but I passed them the other day, so let's take a look and see what they have to offer. That's pretty, that pink and white one. That's 700K, so that is about 20, $28 US approximately. This one's 500K, it's about 20. Really pretty. Hi! Those are so nice too. So I'm thinking on the table, the restaurant will have, like, flatbread pizzas and finger food and hummus plates, and I'll put out some assortment of fresh flowers, like some roses and lilies. So the roses here are 15,000 Vietnamese dong per stem, and that is like 50 cents, 6, well, what's that, 60 cents, something, something around there.

It's 26,000 Vietnamese dong to one US dollar, and these are 15, one, five, so that will be very easy to come by on Friday, the day of the get-together, and just scoop up a handful of roses and put them in water and take them to the event. So I think I'll just come back rather than preorder, and then I can choose what is there on Friday, and that'll be fun. That'll be a fun thing for me to do during the day on my birthday, also come check out roses. Here's the street that I'm walking down. Isn't this so pretty? It's very green, and earlier today the sun was out, and it's, I did a long walk. It's really warm, but the cloud cover's coming over, storms coming into town, so you see more gray skies and some cooler breezes, so it feels great. It's probably 3:30 in the afternoon about now. We're headed back to another flower shop I believe is along here. Let's see if we can find it.

So while we're walking there, I have another life philosophy that kind of folds into this, and that's that when you're feeling down or kind of sad, a little bit upset, which we all do, that the best way that I found for me to get myself out of that is not try to think through it, but to go give something that's going to bring someone else joy, and that in turn makes me feel good. The active giving and seeing their smile or their face light up or their surprise. And it doesn't have to be expensive, it can be something small. It can be individual stem flowers that you give away to a stranger, that you give away to people in your building, leave on a friend's doorstep. It can be, I've been before at, like, the local, it's called Full Market, it's like their version of 7-Eleven, and just feeling down and kind of bummed. I thought, okay, how am I going to get myself out of this? I need to do something where I'm going to give, and that's going to feel good, and that will brighten my spirit.

So I just grabbed a bunch of little mini candy bars that they had for sale along, right around by the cash register, put them in my bag, came back and handed them out to the people who worked in my building, and put some on the cleaner's cart. And you can just feel your mood rising and a smile coming to your face, and then people are like, "Oh, thanks so much for the little candy bars." It's literally as simple as that. So planning this birthday, I'm thinking, are there little treats, or can I make it beautiful with flowers or balloons, or have a little party favors that are going to make me feel really good and really excited about pulling my group of friends together, so I do not see the other flower shop, so the next step we're going to do is go get on a Grab motorbike, and we're going to go to a party store. I've never been there, I just saw it online. It has 4.9 stars, 600 and something reviews, so let's go! We have arrived at Ruby Decor.

Let's go take a look. I've done something similar to what I'm doing now the last couple years. I feel like I have friends here from so many different groups and so many different events over the years that I've been here that I just love to see everybody. And so if I get, have an opportunity to pull people together who are in town and just all laugh and catch up, especially for me right now because I've been out of town for a month, it'll be a great catch-up, regrouping. The place that I'm going to has a Latin band that'll start up about hour, hour and a half after we get there, so this is fun for me, and so that's what I'm doing, and I just feel like it just works out great. I'm going to Ruby Decor, and we'll see what kind of party supplies they have. I'm really just coming here for balloons. It's always fun to have a bouquet of balloons at an event to kind of mark the space. Let's go check. This is definitely a balloon shop. All the balloon options.

Oh, cute. I'm thinking, oh, hold on. How cute that is. I'm thinking just a basic, a basic bouquet of balloons, just kind of mark the space off and kind of show it's a birthday party. I better just check everything out while I'm here to make sure. So this place has the lit-up, let me see if I can go down, the lit-up letters. Can you imagine? I think that's a little too much for me, but that could be really fun for a special occasion. So it looks like you can rent those. Cute. Okay, let's go find the front and talk about what to order. Actually, here we go. So here's the menu. I need to put this in a Google Translate. Here's what I mean by not always accurate.

It says round, regular round ball. The next one is "the ball is round." The next one is round glitter ball, heart, star, silhouette, and then "silhouette of a hunter." I think that's not quite right. Let's try that again, see what comes up. A deer, a fish. See how Google Translate, "I am a player." That's okay, because I'm not planning on getting anything special, just the regular round ball. Let's see that. Here we go, gas safe, hydrogen gas. Okay, just finished the order. I put in an order for three bouquets of 10 in bright colors, because there's going to be a Latin band there that night. I almost had two bouquets, but I thought no, just do three, because there's other people there, you can hand them out. Balloons are fun. So they're all, like, red, white, yellow, hot pink, and kind of Latin dance themes, especially if it's a cold, not cold, if it's a rainy night, it'll add a little brightness. And then I saw these sitting here, so we added one of these to each of the three balloon bouquets, because how cute are these?

Aren't those just happy and fun? So we have the three balloon bouquets of 10 balloons, and the balloons are not large. Let me show you an example. Hopefully they don't pop and scare me. So this is four right here, so 10 is not huge, and then delivery was about a dollar 50, and I'll show up at the restaurant. So off to errand number two. Oh, and for those curious, the three bouquets of 10 plus one of these in each bouquet, and delivery is about $35. All right, I called a Grab. Next we're going to go to Bắc Mỹ An Market. Oh, although I see flowers across the street. You know, there's also a big flower mart here in the city, but just for simplicity, there's a bakery I want to go to at Bắc Mỹ An Market, and they also have lilies and roses, and we'll check out today's selection.

Lilies last so long, I might be able to pick up some today and have them nice and blooming and open for Friday. This is the street that I'm on right now. My Grab should be driving up any minute, and it looks like rain. It's supposed to rain later. Oh, look at this, delivery, just delivering on a, hello, a little wheeled cart. Hello! We're now arriving at Bắc Mỹ An Market, and I'm going to be headed right there. Look at all these flowers. So, Bắc Mỹ An. Okay, thank you. In my hood, very familiar, I've been coming here for years and years, had dresses made here, but all kinds of things. I have my favorite mì Quảng lady also, and I was just thinking on the way over that getting a little hungry, and I haven't had mì Quảng in a while, and if she's open, why don't we stop for a little snack.

So I'm walking through. I just passed the seamstresses and the stacks of fabric, shoes, clothing, large, covered market. These stalls are closed for the day, see, these are open, and then we go through to the food section. It looks like, is she, oh, I think she is. It's this girl right here. Hi! Sit down here. So I'm just taking a seat here at this table with the bench. She's just the cutest thing, always a bright smile. Here's her menu up here. I also get phở from her, and here's the market. I'll double check the time. I want to say it's about 5:00, so it's probably pretty busy outside as well.

We'll go check it out after I eat. Food first. This is what was just put down in front of me. We've got chopsticks, we have some chili, these are like paper napkins, more napkins here. The time is actually 4:30, so that's why it's not quite so busy yet, but from another half hour, hour, this place will be pretty packed, so I'm glad I stopped by now. And that's what it looks like. Quail eggs, some meat, rice, onions, peanuts, very delicious mì Quảng. These lights are harsh. That's okay, I know you're here for the food, not for how I look under harsh lights. So oh there's also bean sprouts in here, like, seriously. And this will be about $1. One of my favorites, very, very popular local dish. The sauce in this is so delicious.

It's on the bottom, so I'm just stirring it up a bit. I'm excited. I've not found a good mì Quảng right around in my neighborhood. I need to look a little harder. I tend to go for the good old standby, phở. Bon appétit! Okay, we're done with an early dinner, and I'm going to head outside, and around the perimeter of the market is where the fresh fruit and things like fish and different meats are sold. Inside is prepared food, phone cases, shoes, clothing, and this is what I'm walking through now. Here's the butcher area. This is really bustling early, early in the morning, not so much come 5 PM, at least inside here, but you see all kinds of fresh seafood. Fish, oh, so much. Out here is lots of vegetables.

They always have really good fresh vegetables out here, and an abundance of it. Down this way is snacks, so what they'll do is they'll buy the snacks in bulk and then they'll repackage them in smaller serving sizes here. A lot of those snacks. And some of these are, you pay by the weight, like this. You just scoop up one of these metal cans, scoop it up and you pay by each scoop. Okay, well, where we are going, let's just make our way here through the market. All that fresh fish. Hello hello! My friend who is a cook loves coming here, used to come here daily to get, hello, fresh seafood and have it for dinner. Should be things that were caught today. So much to see. See, I'm going to get out of the way here, everyone's coming through, buying their dinner. A gal that I buy from frequently over the years is this gal right here, because she has turmeric already chopped up over there.

She has garlic chopped. Anyone who has ever chopped up turmeric, you know it turns everything orange, your fingers, your fingernails. So over there, let me see if I can get a little closer. Onions garlic turmeric, all freshly chopped, and she'll just scoop it up in a little bag. She's got lemongrass, peppers, ginger shallots. People are usually just buying what they need to cook dinner for tonight. It's common to, hello! This is my favorite coconut guy. Hello! I ordered coconuts from him for delivery. He'll cut them open, dump the insides out into a bag, scoop the insides out, tie the bag and zip them over to my place. So I'll buy like 5 or 6 at a time, because you can either drink them, put them in a smoothie, or put them in the freezer and freeze them and pull them out when you need to.

I'll come back. I see a seamstress there working away, and let's head on into this bakery. And I was here yesterday, and I bought a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie and a, like, a shortbread, then they all came individually wrapped, and they were so delicious. Oh, let me see what I can sort out for a group. All right, so here we are at the bakery, and my friends are in for a treat. We're getting chocolate chip cookies, we're getting lemon drizzle cake, and there's this shortbread caramel. It's shortbread with a layer of caramel, with a layer of chocolate on top, and it is insanely good. It's my favorite thing here. So they're going to individually wrap them, they're going to make them tomorrow and deliver them to the restaurant on Friday, so I can just set out a platter in lieu of a birthday cake. We don't have to deal with plates and utensils, and if somebody wants to eat it there, they can, or they can grab and go, and if there's any leftover, I can hand them out.

This is what they have. That's so good. Look at those, they're in a little Mason jars. This, she took the lid off of it. It's this lemon drizzle, like, sponge cake, that the smell was so delicious. Brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and then they're hard to see, but there's the shortbread caramel chocolate bars. Of course, run into old neighbor DJ here. His parents are Australian, and they started a restaurant here. He's got a cool e-bike, he let me ride it around the block. Just told me about the two new dogs he got for his birthday. He's an only child, so told him he's got it made there. Oh bye! And now, going to pop over to get a fresh coconut open up. Look at that. Okay, yes. I'm getting a cold one, so what they do is they, yeah, they open them and scoop them out, put them in the cooler, so that's nice and cold. I can have it right now. Hi!

Getting ready to pay, she came over and she's investigating my camera. Did I? I've known these guys for years. No, I just shared with him that I have a YouTube channel, so he just found it. He's a new subscriber, and now you can watch yourself on YouTube! I got this, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Oh hey! Hello hello! Always the biggest smile, so fun. All right, we've got balloons ordered, we had a snack, a meal, we got dessert, little takeaway treats ordered, I have a fresh coconut drink, and now the last step is to go check out the flowers. So I'm headed back to the market to go see what kind of flower options they have. Right now we are looking at these beautiful flowers. I just picked out some lilies. So these stems, these roses are 7,000 Vietnamese dong for one, that's like 25 cents, but I don't want to buy them now.

We're still two days in advance, so I'll maybe come back here on Friday. So I'm buying this massive, this bouquet, not a bouquet, stems of lilies, and he's giving me a rose at the same time. So sweet. He was asking me if I wanted one, I said oh, not today, so I want to come back when they're a little fresher, and it's like, no, it's okay. How sweet. Here's the nice young gentleman that's selling me the flowers. I just told him I'm a YouTuber, and he's a, took my information down, he's going to subscribe. And I got to say, if I was just having a regular little birthday get-together, it would not be nearly as fun for me as feeling just so excited, like, what can I do to host and have a good time, make it special, have something to give to the friends. It's, the errands are fun, the people are nice, really good experience. Now it also just makes me really look forward to the event on Friday. It'll be fun.

So that about wraps up all the errands I need to run today. Quick recap, we got balloons, got a snack, got bakery items being delivered, I have flowers here. I think I'm done, and it's made it so fun. There's something about, instead of waiting around for other people to do something or ask you what you want to do and hem and haw and wonder, just take the reins, make a decision, and it's been really fun for me to run these errands, and I'm really looking forward to celebrating on Friday and seeing everybody, seeing everyone who can make it. We're a little worried about the rain, if it's pouring, I don't know, we'll see, we'll see what happens. It'll be great no matter what. Thank you for joining me today on birthday errands, and stay tuned for the get-together!