Tet is the celebration of the Lunar New Year in Vietnam. It is considered by the population, who don't participate in religious holidays, to be the most important holiday of the year. For 7-10 days almost everything is closed and this includes a vast majority of normal services including police and city management.
The real benefit of this prolonged time off work is the fact that the roads have about 1/5 as many cars on them and the noise levels, even if just for short time, are kept very low. For these 10 days the amount of beeping of horns that I hear from my balcony are reduces by 9/10 and I will always be a fan of that.
There are also some wonderful displays that the city puts up on various properties around the city.
The love their flower arrangements here and there is no reason for them not to. This is wonderful and I just hope that the flowers were planted there, not just places there. So if someone comes by and maintains this it can remain in place for a month or so and that will be very welcome since it does beautify the area. I had to stand there for quite a while just to get a shot of it because of all the people taking group photos in front of it. There was more than one display as well.
This was the perfect place for them to put these things because it is across the street from the beach and in the giant footpath of a now closed hotel that just looks an eyesore for the most part. There is a lot of foot traffic here and now we have something for the people to actually admire on their way past it to the area where they will be relentlessly harassed by foot massage shops for the next two blocks.
I don't know who set this up or when they did so, but I would presume they are city workers who didn't get the time off. Perhaps the city has incentives of additional wages for their workers the same way that bars and restaurants do the same thing to entice staff members to turn up during a public holiday.
There are some downsides to everyone having the week off though and it is perfectly exhibited in this next picture.
This is just a block away from the floral arrangements and sadly, nobody is going to come by to pick this up for at least an additional 2 days. This is basically everywhere as well and if you've ever caught a whiff of some dumpster in the distance, that is basically what the entire city smells like. I guess this is just part of what is going to happen when nearly everyone has time off.
I am willing to deal with it because I live in a high rise and am well beyond the street stink.
Tet is something that you have to prepare for if you live here since almost everything is going to be shut or charging significantly more for their services if they are open. I managed pretty well this year and only missed out on a few things that I forgot to stockpile. Live and learn and make the correct choice next year I guess!