Beef noodles at "Tương Lai" - will it help to find a lost friend?

Two years ago, I have posted a small notice on BBC's Facebook page in Russian to look for a long-lost friend. He was from Belarus and the last thing I heard about him was...exactly 26 years ago. In his last letter, of course, it was not an email, he briefly informed "I will be moving to Spain for my journalist's career...". That was all I knew. Two weeks later, after my note posted on BBC's wall, I got a message from a Russian girl, who is living in Moscow and willing to help me. To my great great surprise, with her help I found my old friend. This time I got from him an email...

                Where my friend treated me to a good "phở" before I left Vietnam. It was already three decades...


I'd love try my luck again, not in FB, but here in my blog. It could be very hard. I wouldn't say I want to find my friend from the childhood, but more - to remember him, to let myself going back to the old times, to soak myself in the memories. I didn't have any news about him since I studied overseas. Thirty years ago, my friend took me to this seemingly popular beef noodle store "Tương Lai" in Nguyễn Tri Phương street, on his bicycle and treated me to a big bowl of beef noodle. I still remember his words: "I saved my pocket money and I'd like to buy you a "phở", tomorrow you will leave Vietnam and I don't think you will have "phở"in Russia".
It was a true, I never had "phở" in Russia, in my incredibly beautiful city, St Petersburg (or we called Leningrad at that time), in my entire student years... and I never met my friend again, after that morning. His family was immigrated to France a year later.

                 The taste has changed, probably but the friendship hopefully remained...

In my first year in the university I actually received one or two letters from him, and what I learnt was - his family arrived safely to France, stayed temporarily in some province in South of France, with his brother, who lived in France for long. My friend seemed to enjoy his first summer in some vineyard over there, where he worked in waiting for a new school year . Did I write back to him or I was too busy with my studies, he - with his new life. And we never wrote to each others again, we lost our contact. Now I don't know his whereabouts...

                 We both went to this famous high school , but not in the same class... 

We were living in the same neighbourhood, we went to the same high school, but not the same class. I was majored in French and Literature, my friend - Math, when we passed the exams to the University. We were so different in terms of shape and character: he was thin, I was chubby, I was quiet and he - talkative!
How many years already behind my back, how many times I've been to France and travel from Paris down to Nice. I always wonder where is my friend, is he still in France? I never got the answer to that question. How much I wish to get it one day, how much I own him, not only a bowl of beef noodle that he spent all his saving pocket money to treat me, but also the true friendship that people nowadays is always looking for.

              The next door neighbour bought my friend's house, destroyed it, built a big house (green door)

I may or may not see my friend again as many other people already crossing my life. They came, stayed for a while and vanished without a trace. This world seems small but to find a friend from the past - seemed enormously difficult, I'm always looking toward to the future, exactly like the name of the noodles stall "Tương Lai" which means The Future!

                                Here is the photo of my long lost friend - Nguyen Trong Nhan!