This is my 100th unique #officeoftheday setup since I started on my digital nomad journey almost 1 year ago!
Today I am at Koko Green which I found by searching healthy food in Da Nang and ended up here.
If the difference between a sky bar and a rooftop bar is how high you are then this definitely feels like a sky bar as I’m getting productive 17 floors up today. I’m sat here on the 17th floor peering out over Da Nang, Vietnam at the San Marino Sky Bar.
It’s just for residents but it features an infinity pool, a bar and a wall of floor to ceiling windows with laptop sized desks peering out over the landscape.
Today we moved out of our respective hotels/hostels and met up in the closest laptop friendly cafe, Lamenda Cafe.
It got off to a rough start because the cafe exists in the bottom of several AE Hotel buildings and somebody had moved the map marker from another branch which resulted in a wasted taxi fare for my friend. We got set up quickly though in the plush surroundings and opened her laptop to plan the next location. In the end, we booked flights for that evening to take us up to Nha Trang, got an amazing apartment and had lunch and dinner there before heading off to the airport.
It was a good day, even including the knockdown, drag-out that the Vietnamese family had behind us over a defaulted family loan. Prices are on the high side but the WiFi was good and the tables had great seating.
Also, I got to share my table with three funky jazz dudes.
After leaving it to the last minute to extend my stay at my last hotel, I ended up having to pick another one. Ace Hotel was just around the corner, priced right, had a desk in the images and… well that was the entire criteria I was looking for.
I spent the day sat on the bed working with this wallpaper in the background which genuinely span my eyes out. I think I might have spent a few hours just locked in a transcendental gaze with it. I went on a journey with that wallpaper.
WiFi was strong though and the bed was comfy. Didn’t even end up using the desk that drew me in there in the first place.
This was another one of those businesses so effectively tucked away that I’m amazed we weren’t the only ones sat in there. I’d actually come to this location a few days before to meet my friend after failing to realise there was more than one L’Usine. After walking up and down the street a few times and finding no L’Usine it came to light that I was at the wrong branch anyway. Still, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t find the wrong branch. It was alleyways again.
This time my friend was already waiting for me and had predicted her foreign friend would have trouble so she had snapped the alleyway for me that I had to go down. It was named something completely different and it wasn’t until you had walked a long way into it that you saw the first sign pointing the way.
We had been lured back because she was given a free coffee voucher at the last L’Usine, but it wasn’t a hard decision to make. The food was great and the WiFi was strong.
After dinner, we decided to put in a few more hours at the laptops, but we definitely needed a boost. After walking around looking for a suitable coffee chain we settled on Mr 8 Coffee. It looked like a tiny 1 table coffee shop at first before we headed upstairs, where it looked like a slightly larger, tiny coffee shop. Big enough to set up a laptop so we were happy.
My friend convinced me to try egg coffee, which sounded like it was going to be some kind of raw egg but was actually a tasty sweetened experience more like a blended egg custard. We also spotted two names that had very funny accidental meanings in English which left us with the serious giggles.
Then I spotted another set of stairs going up and when I poked my head around the corner it turned out it wasn’t a tiny shop at all, there was a full-sized coffee shop layout, with another 10 or so tables and even a merchandise shop up on the third floor.
We found an entertaining spot that looked out onto the roundabout below and I mostly just wrote blog posts rather than getting anything done for my clients.
My first taste of L’Usine was a literal first taste. As soon as I walked into the shop part of the business I was greeted by my friend who eagerly directed me over to a food cart. Turns out they were preparing for a new menu that day. In exchange for filling out a small form with my opinion, I was invited to sample 5 of the potential menu options. It was a delicious start to the day.
We spent the entire day there in the end, devouring coffees and smoothies before moving on to sharing cakes and a salmon bagel.
Update: Just looked it up and L’Usine means The Factory.
This is a family-friendly cafe is in the posh area of Saigon, over in district 2. Upon arrival, we were teased between the choice of sitting over in the side with the childrens park or sitting in the quieter area. There was an attractive looking table that caught our attention in the kids area but just as we were about to set up one of the wait staff asked if we had children with us. We said no and he told us we couldn’t sit on this side then.
My friend said something in Vietnamese to him and I just had a gut feeling I knew exactly what she said. “Did you just tell him I was a big kid?”, I asked. “Yes”, she laughed, “but he still says no.”
I guess it turned out for the best as we moved to the quiet side and got an equally good quality table, near to a power socket and away from the distractions of playful children.
The first time I’ve posted two #officeoftheday shots on one day. I feel like a digital nomad lothario, getting around town like this.
The second stop of the day was The Maker which was set inside a huge block of apartments, which have since been converted to a myriad of small cafe’s, fashion shops, and other establishments. It’s a complex building, wrapping around on itself in interesting ways.
The entrance to the building is down a small non-descript alleyway. Something that really caught me by surprise to start off with but I would later realise is actually standard practice for many of the commercial buildings in Ho Chi Minh City.
I’m being guided around Ho Chi Minh City by a Vietnamese girl that I met while travelling.
The first place she has brought me to is a trendy cafe called The Workshop. It’s popular with coffee snob hipsters and co-workers alike. Ordered a blend that I did not comprehend and a filter that I couldn’t discern, but I still felt very cool doing it.
The photo shows my leather bound beaker that I decanted my fancy coffee from. Also part pictured is a plug-socket friend I made who asked if he could plug into our extension cable.
If this means anything to you, I picked from the pour-over category and went for a Kalita Wave.
I’ve found an amazing hostel that is converted from a 100-year-old cinema. It’s further down south than I have been before in the Bang Rak, Silom area of Bangkok so there are some new nice places to explore as we well.
This hostel is amazing and I plan to write more about it but right now here is my #officeoftheday from a really well-themed hostel:
I’m back in Bangkok and feeling quite stylish here at MovyLodge. It’s a great hostel and I wrote a little bit more about it in my Back in Bangkok blog post.
I’m happy to be settled in here at Nubian Hostel. It is one of those stylish new builds that have sprung up in many places and absolutely wipe the floor with most traditional style hostels.
The only problem is, it doesn’t have 24-hour check-in so last night after my flight got in late I found myself in one of those very same traditional hostels, where you feel a bit icky about touching anything. All the quilts were floral randomness and they had a pile of mismatched, donated towels to use. The shower was hanging off the wall and the beds creaked really badly.
Anyway, let’s just forget about that place. I’m here now and today I have decided to set up on a small table in the corner, overlooking my new kingdom. I’m booking just for two nights at the moment but I can see myself extending for the full 10 days tomorrow.
Probably upcoming #officeoftheday shots are on that sofa peeking on the left and out in the secluded area, you can see (or imagine) through the windows.
Finally found a few moments to catch up with everything after an amazing week off, on holiday with my parents in Rome, Italy.
Parents flew home and I stayed on in Rome one more day to recover before heading over to Athens, Greece.
If you are reading this in the future my review for this hostel might be out there by now but for the moment I will just say this turned out to be an amazing hostel and I wish I had got to spend more than one night.
I’ve got a bit of space here so I have treated myself to a dual monitor setup today for my last office location in Cologne.
It seems I would have had a bit of a problem with the sunlight but by the time I have finished posting this and getting settled in its now cleared up.
