Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Here are some of the fruits brought to our breakfast table in the hotel restaurant each morning. I don't know what the spikey red things are called, but they sure are good! So are the funny brown things. And the green things. lol.


William, Don and the baby at breakfast yesterday (Wed.)
Wednesday morning after breakfast, Don stayed at the hotel with the kids while Lauren & I went with Ellie and Kim to baby's medical exam at a hospital clinic in HCMC. This exam is required to get her passport; basically it's a very general examination to determine if she's healthy enough to fly. Here's Lauren holding the little munchkin in the taxi on the way to the clinic. I never thought I'd ever allow a baby of mine to go in a car without a carseat, but there you go. And in crazy traffic too.


Kim (holding baby) and Ellie in the clinic waiting room.They are our agency's staff here in HCMC. They are so nice and this adoption could not have been accomplished without their help. We'd be totally lost without their help.


The doctor and nurse who did her exam. I told him about the way she's constantly pulling and scratching at her left ear and could he check if she has an ear infection? He said to put Benadryl cream on the outside the ear and have her wear mittens. ?? Nary an otoscope in sight. Okay....
She really enjoyed getting weighed and measured. And when I guessed that she weighed about 15 pounds, I was correct. Kind of little for 8 1/2 mos. old, but within normal range. The 3 to 6 month size baby clothes fit her just fine.



Outside the clinic, just one of several areas of scooter parking. These pictures were all taken outside the hospital.





After the medical exam, we went to downtown HCMC to get her passport/visa picture taken and then to the Vietnam Airlines office to purchase our tickets to Hanoi. We'll need to stay in HCMC until her passport is ready on the 11th, and then we'll fly to Hanoi early morning on the 12th. So we're free to sightsee until then. Here is a picture of the People's Committee in downtown HCMC. Communist government building; I don't think we'd be allowed to go into it.

After we got back to the hotel, we met back with Don and the kids and had lunch and hung out in the room for awhile. Baby was doing some pretty good crawling on the floor; if I (or Lauren) ever figure out to upload video clips, we'll put it up. Later in the afternoon, we decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood. Here's that pink church we saw from the restaurant balcony.

Some of the neighborhood buildings. I need to go check out that Kodak store because I accidently (stupidly) plugged the battery charger for the camera batteries into the outlet without using a converter, and I fried it.

We found this picture in a restaurant window amusing.

Streets of Saigon.

The green building is our hotel, the Evergreen. Good choice of paint color.

Closer picture of the Evergreen. You can see the restaurant towards the top with the balcony.

How'd you like to be an electrical lineman here?

So after breakfast this morning, we are going to do something touristy--not sure what yet. I'm so glad we brought all the kids along. Some said we'd regret it, that it would be too hard. Yes, it would be easier to get around without them, but they are learning so much. This is an eye-opening experience for all of us, and one we'll never forget.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The pictures are all very nice.
Looks very busy around town.
Time to give the name up folks,she and her are getting old.
Have fun Uncle Rog

baileygp said...

Sue...I'm loving every minute of your blog. I'm so glad you have your baby girl. Personal question-since our girls were in the same orphanage, any sign of scabies? I'm so worried about that. Feel free to respond privately. And it can certainly wait till you get home ; ) Enjoy and safe travels!!! Grenda