Enjoying a coffee....

This place has become my favourite for after lunch coffee here in Danang (Central Vietnam). I think you can see why.....

IMG_0734 by Biulu, on Flickr

IMG_0724 by Biulu, on Flickr

IMG_0732 by Biulu, on Flickr

Very nice place! Their fish look beautiful

Very Nice Biulu
Wish I had something like that around here.

Oh you are in Vietnam?  How lucky!  I've always wanted to go.

That french style Vietnamese coffee gives a good buzz!

Fores41 wrote:Very Nice Biulu
Wish I had something like that around here.

Hehe the coffee or the pond? You can get that at any Vietnamese restaurant or alternatively purchase all the supplies to brew or rather steep your own from any Asian Supermarket.

I am currently in Pleiku; Vietnam's coffee capital. Last night I bought 1 kg of coffee to bring home!

The pond is at least 20 meters long and the climate permits you to have your fish outside all year round. I am sure that many of our members would dream of this, especially our koi fan Steve. @SBenson11

It's become a common refrain in the "industry" to say the aquarium hobby is dying in North America and Europe. The collapse of the advanced info sources (books and magazines) and the way they haven't re-emerged electronically, the drop off in fish breeding as a hobby, the poor quality of the chain stores, the bankruptcies of mid sized stores, etc - all point to a serious decline.
The flip side is the hobby seems very vibrant in Asia. Is that the sense you get as you travel and see cool places like that cafe?

Looks like I got start enjoying coffee more.

GaryE wrote:It's become a common refrain in the "industry" to say the aquarium hobby is dying in North America and Europe. The collapse of the advanced info sources (books and magazines) and the way they haven't re-emerged electronically, the drop off in fish breeding as a hobby, the poor quality of the chain stores, the bankruptcies of mid sized stores, etc - all point to a serious decline.
The flip side is the hobby seems very vibrant in Asia. Is that the sense you get as you travel and see cool places like that cafe?

In the Asian countries that I know best (China and Vietnam) the hype of fish keeping is definitively over and replaced by the trend to keep a (small) pet dog. With its large population China of course still has a sizable number of hobbyists but the time that I was drooling over the plants I could get in Hanoi is definitively over.

When I was in Hanoi last year, I went to visit the 'aquarium' street. When I was there about 5 years earlier, the whole street was lined with fish shops, selling tanks, complete set-ups and a large variety of plants. Last year however, there was very little of that left. A few shops, still selling tanks and mediocre fish and almost no plants anymore.

I found a store with an owner that used to make great aquascapes. I recognised the owner but all he was selling now were some fish; no plants in sight. Through his son that spoke some English and my rudimentary Vietnamese, I found out that he quit stocking plants as nobody was interested anymore.

A similar thing I found in China. In front of the forestry department in Wuhan where I worked, used to be a large collection of fish stores where you could get large anubia plants for 50 cents, and nice platinum angels for the same price. They had specially heated parts in the store where they kept their tropicals. Two years ago, there was hardly anything left of it and the fish choice had been reduced once more to gold fish and guppies and of course some parrot cichlids, preferably tattooed

Hey Biulu, order me a cup of Coffee, I will be there in a few minutes.

I will bring some Koi food.

Steve

Oh wow, that is so beautiful, I would get up earlier every morning (and I am NOT a morning person) just to enjoy a peaceful cup of coffee there.

Sbenson11 wrote:Hey Biulu, order me a cup of Coffee, I will be there in a few minutes.

I will bring some Koi food.

Steve

Waiting for you here Steve! How do you like your coffee?

Biulu wrote:In the Asian countries that I know best (China and Vietnam) the hype of fish keeping is definitively over and replaced by the trend to keep a (small) pet dog. With its large population China of course still has a sizable number of hobbyists but the time that I was drooling over the plants I could get in Hanoi is definitively over.

When I was in Hanoi last year, I went to visit the 'aquarium' street. When I was there about 5 years earlier, the whole street was lined with fish shops, selling tanks, complete set-ups and a large variety of plants. Last year however, there was very little of that left. A few shops, still selling tanks and mediocre fish and almost no plants anymore.

I found a store with an owner that used to make great aquascapes. I recognised the owner but all he was selling now were some fish; no plants in sight. Through his son that spoke some English and my rudimentary Vietnamese, I found out that he quit stocking plants as nobody was interested anymore.

A similar thing I found in China. In front of the forestry department in Wuhan where I worked, used to be a large collection of fish stores where you could get large anubia plants for 50 cents, and nice platinum angels for the same price. They had specially heated parts in the store where they kept their tropicals. Two years ago, there was hardly anything left of it and the fish choice had been reduced once more to gold fish and guppies and of course some parrot cichlids, preferably tattooed

Oh this is sad. I have heard that there was a boom in the Asian hobby and investment was occurring in the commercial fish trade. Not so it seems after two years. In looking back at your previous posts on your Asian visits, these fish stores offered so much variety at such low prices. Hopefully some operations will survive. I see that many still offer fish on Aquabid, but whether they remain will have to seen. Maybe they will successfully find a market through online buyers.

Thanks for the update.