Costumes!

 I don't care how old you are...dressing up is fun!!  My kids have boxfuls of fabulous costumes with the majority of them coming from this place!  The A2 costume shop is at 107A Truong Dinh St in D3.  Even though it is a Truong Dinh address it is kind of tucked around the corner.  It is a treasure trove of amazing costumes and I will be stocking up before I leave.  At about $15 each they are a bargain.  They also wash up really well.  With Halloween just around the corner the place is full of pumpkins and spiders at the moment.  Fun!

We had book week covered with the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

And the Cat in the Hat

My pirates on our summer cruise.

They have adult sizes too.  This is Nick at last years Auscham Ball.

What can I say except chicks dig clowns!

Last Halloween.

This one is just beautiful!

My little mermaid.

Vincom Mark II is Open!

With great fanfare and the obligatory mind numbing loud music...Vincom number 2 opened on schedule yesterday.  I had my doubts that they would get it finished on time but in true Vietnamese fashion they must have toiled day and night to get the job done.  I would have to say, I entered with a rather negative state of mind as the building that was torn down to make way for this one, Eden Mall, was just beautiful and one of my favourites in the city.  On the whole, it was just as I expected.  More and more of the same expensive shops.  Fairly underwhelming if you ask me.  I'm not sure what I was hoping for.  Perhaps something with a few more shops for the average expat or traveller? Apologies for some of the fuzzy photos.  I was rushing around with just my phone.  Here is a sample of what you can find inside.

This was pretty cool.  They had their real Italian handcrafting shoe dude.

A lot of this.

This place was actually pretty good.  A few western sized things as well as quite a few kids clothes at "reasonable" prices.  More places like this would have been nice.

.....instead of more of this.

Vincom wouldn't be Vincom unless there was an escalator to nowhere.  They didn't disappoint!

There are a lot of opening special and you can have your photo taken with your overpriced goodies as a memento.

There is pretty much a whole floor dedicated to electronics etc.

This was like a big Harvey Norman.  It was one of the busier shops and the prices seemed reasonable.

Not sure if these are the same guys from Pasteur.  If they are lets just hope their prices remain the same.

A very small play centre for the kids.  It looks like perhaps you could leave the kids there while you shop if you were so inclined.

A few food places I had not seen before.

There were movie posters everywhere but as far as I can tell, no cinema.  Maybe they are going to put one at the top of the "escalator to nowhere"

Worth a look I guess.  Particularly at the moment as they have some opening sales on.  The food court was pretty big with some new restaurants.  I think maybe I am just still so sad that the beautiful Eden Mall has been replaced by yet another sterile shopping centre.  That's progress.........
Vincom Centre
171 Dong Khoi & 116 Nguyen Hue
Dist 1
Open 0900 - 2100