Still catching up~Tues. March 11~our last day in Saigon

Tuesday morning Don went with Kim to pick up the baby's passport at the police station. When he got back, we decided to go for lunch and then to the book fair at the park across the street for awhile. We couldn't go far because we needed to be back at the hotel by 3pm to meet up with Ellie and Kim again for more paperwork. We walked up the street a few blocks to a sandwich shop we had seen earlier. Ordering food in a restaurant with a bunch of kids who don't know what they want is always a PITA, but throw in the language barrier and it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. We ended up with some food despite this.

William looks mad here, but he wasn't; he liked his triple-decker sandwich and iced yogurt. And of course Anna had to arrange her food just so and pose for a picture. She just got some kind of bread bowl thing with butter and strawberry bubble tea.

Pondering her next move...

The book fair was huge, and is an annual event here. I could have spent all day there. Food and snack booths, a stage for live entertainment at night, all sorts of educational products besides books. I got a couple board games for the kids with the words in both English and Vietnamese. One is sort of like a VN version of Monopoly.

We came back to the room to meet with Kim and Ellie, then Don and boys and baby stayed in the A/C while Lauren, Anna, and I ventured back out in the heat. We walked down the street a few blocks to check out a shop that had a top on display in the window that Lauren was interested in. Turns out this shop was VERY expensive, but we looked around anyway. We must have looked like white trash or something, because a clerk followed us around in a none-too-subtle manner. Everytime we'd look at something, the girl would come along after us and re-straighten the hanger we had moved. There was a mannequin in the window we were laughing about--she had a real cigarette shoved between her fingers, so I took a picture of it. The clerk immediately ran over and touched my arm and said "no". Gee, I was getting the feeling we weren't wanted there! Never did find that top Lauren was looking for.

Since our feelings were hurt, we decided to stop in this "green" food store and have a delicious fresh fruit smoothie. Anna had pineapple, Lauren had mango-strawberry, and I had pear. Yum! I hope that ice wasn't made from tap water.... getting a little careless here--hope Montezuma or Ho Chi Minh or whomever doesn't get his revenge. We also bought some dragonfruit to try from a street vendor.

We found this shop somewhat amusing. And I like the head with the cigarette too:

After our smoothies, we walked back to the book fair to look around some more. Lauren and Anna wanted me to put the camera away.

Bill, I think you would sell more books if you would only learn the proper way to display them:

There are lots of manicured trees like this here:

So William got his wish and we went back to the Diamond Plaza and had dinner at KFC that night.

The curious pretend-mashed-potatoes-and gravy-made-out-of-rice. I believe the chicken was real.

The bowling alley in the Diamond Plaza.

We had our dragonfruit for a bedtime snack. It wasn't as good as I'd dreamed, but not bad. Kids didn't care for it.

I got everything packed up and hit the hay--early flight the next day.