Update

Sorry to be slow to update the blog; the internet connection keeps quitting, and uploading pictures has been painfully s...l...o...w lately. I will just do an update for now and then hopefully come back later to add more pictures. Sunday morning, we all took a taxi to the War Remnants museum. There were several captured U.S. fighter planes, tanks, big guns etc. that the boys enjoyed. I told Don to go tell the guard that these items belong to us and we'd like them back now please, but he was too chicken. lol. Inside, there were many, many photographs from the war with the US, and also from Vietnam's earlier war for independence from France. Some of the pictures were pretty graphic. This probably isn't an attraction I'd recommend taking younger kids to; they were pretty bored by it all. But very interesting for war history buffs. After the museum, we went to downtown HCMC and had lunch at a place called Saigon Underground. Pretty good burgers, pizza etc; sort of like the food you might find at an Applebees or TGI Fridays.

After lunch, Don took all the kid's back to the hotel to relax and watch movies while Lauren and I made another attempt to conquer Ben Thanh market. Easier without kids, but still very crowded and hard to navigate. We did pick up some Ao Dai's for baby in several sizes so she will have one to wear each year for Tet or pictures. I also got some chopsticks, a wall hanging and a few other items, but we were getting burned-out pretty quickly with the crowds, the smells, and the beggars. How do you say no to a woman with a child saying "baby hungry."? There were quite a few hungry babies around the market.

We also stopped at a shop that I'd heard about that has hand-embroidered baby clothes, "N-Kids", and let's just say that baby will have *plenty* of dresses to wear this summer. This shop is across the street from Saigon Center. Everything was so adorable, and mean Lauren made me leave before I could spend all our money.
Bucket-o-crabs (alive and winking!) at Ben Thanh market:

Fancy-vegetable-making at the market:

Who needs a drive -thru window? Just drive right up to the counter!

After our shopping, we headed over to the Rex Hotel for a drink in their roof-top bar. Lauren doesn't drink, but she wanted to try this since the drinking age in VN is like 15 or something, and she'll be 20 in about a week. I was very disappointed in the drinks though; quite expensive, and I had about the worst Pina Colada I've ever tasted. It was warm, for Pete's sake! I like my Pina Coladas icy and slushy. Lauren had a White Russian--I tasted it too and it wasn't good at all. She didn't finish it.

Then we went to a salon and had manicures and pedicures with foot massages--what a nice treat that was! And very inexpensive compared to what it would have cost in the US.

We got back to the hotel around 9pm Sunday evening--the kids were in bed and Don was thrilled to view our purchases (cough, cough). Lauren and I got some pho from the hotel restaurant brought to our room, and we crashed.

Yesterday morning (Monday) we arranged to use the hotel van and driver to take us to the nearest "decent" beach, Vung Tao, about 2 1/2 hour drive from our hotel. We arrived around lunchtime, had lunch at a very casual Vietnamese restaurant on the beach, and spent the afternoon there. I'll post more about it later, hopefully with pictures, but we're going to head out for a while right now to the park across the street where they're having a book fair.