Back from Halong Bay

This will be quick as I need to get to bed since I'm going to the airport with Lauren in the morning. We got back from our 2 day/1 night trip to Halong Bay. As usual, we took lots of pictures, and I hope to post them tomorrow sometime. We got back to our hotel at around suppertime, so we went to Bobby Chinn's restaurant to have dinner and celebrate Lauren's 20th birthday (on March 20). Then Lauren, Anna, & I went shopping in the old quarter for a couple hours while Don took the rest of the kids back to the hotel. More later.

It's all about the Ho

This morning we went to Ho Chi Minh's museum and mausoleum. These people REALLY love their Uncle Ho. The museum was one big Ho-fest. A guide took us thru the museum and told us all about his accomplishments, good deeds, prophetic capabilites, and other god-like qualites. I had the distinct and uneasy impression that anyone who made a disparaging remark about him would be taken out back and shot immediately, but maybe that was just me being paranoid. It was way too long and boring for the kids, especially since our guide's so-so English made listening intently quite difficult. But even the kids seemed to understand the reverence required, and they were quiet and well-behaved during our tour. Unfortunately, the mausoleum, where Uncle Ho's preserved body is laid out for viewing (the main attraction Lauren wanted to see in VN~those of you who know her will understand), is closed on Fridays and Mondays. And today was Friday. Lauren was not pleased, because we'll be out of town all weekend (trip to Halong Bay) and then she leaves for home Monday morning.

Here are just a couple of pictures from the museum:

In the background is the closed-today mausoleum where his body lies. (note Lauren's p.o.'d face and body language):

Also on the grounds is the famous One-Pillar Pagoda. We didn't have time to really look into it's significance because we needed to get back to hotel to meet Kenny and Martin to go to our visa interview, so here are some pictures, and if you want to know more about the place, I guess you'll have to google it:

We ordered pizza to be delivered to our room for lunch, left Lauren in charge of the kids, and then Don, the baby, and I went with Martin & Kenny to the US Consulate for our visa interview. We went with another couple and their baby who are also with our agency. We thought we'd just do the interview today, and then have to return for the visa on Monday, but when we were called up to the window, there really wasn't even an interview at all; he just asked us if the information on our I600 was true and correct, and I had to sign a paper. Then he said that we could just wait there and our baby's visa would be ready in about an hour! How easy was that? We are now free to leave Vietnam with our baby and return to the US. So we got acquainted with Sarah and her husband and baby and soon the visas were ready and we went back to the hotel.

Here's a picture of Martin (L) and Kenny (R) with us in our room:

Sarah had told us about a bigger, better Citimart down the street several blocks, so Lauren, William, Anna & I made a supply run. The store is bigger than the one in our hotel, but I still couldn't find any damn bagels. It does, however, have a very good supply of items that fall into the category of "What the hell is that?", so it all evens out in the end. Here are a couple pictures of our walk back home:

Need a tv?

William making her laugh:

We walked a few blocks to the restaurant we *wanted* to dine at last night, Quan An Ngon, but last night, since there was a 20 minute wait for a table, we went to the ant-ridden establishment next-door. Tonight we got a table right away, upstairs on the balcony. Very cool place. And cheap! And very, very good! Yay, we have a winner!

Our waitress liked Thomas:

My spring rolls and coconut sticky-rice, which were excellent. And baby's foot, which was a little chewy:

The view from our table was so tropical-paradise-ish:

Tomorrow morning we leave at 8am for a 3 to 4 hour drive to Halong Bay. We'll stay overnight there and return late Sunday afternoon, so I won't be able to post again until after that.

It was cool and cloudy today, so these pictures aren't the best, but this is the view from one of our windows. The tall building is the Melia hotel. Such a contrast in this city between the modern and the very old.

Hello, sunshine!

We got a slow start today, mainly because I was trying to upload pictures again, so it was lunchtime before we left the apartment. We went to the Citimart grocery last night to get some breakfast foods, so we're good there, but for lunch we decided to try the Green Tangerine, highly recommended by many other BTDT adoptive parents. It's located over near the lake in the old quarter, but we took a taxi today instead of walking. Some foodie pictures:

This is what Don had; can't remember what it's called, but he said it was outstanding:

I liked most of what I had; the scallops were a little fishy tasting IMO, but the stir fry beef was pretty good. Appetizers of spring rolls and breaded shrimp were just ok.

Lauren got her hair cut at a salon in the shopping center in our hotel this morning. She wasn't all that happy with it, but I think it's cute.

This is apparently a 'green tangerine'. It was Don's dessert, and I didn't hear him say if he liked it or not.

The waitress spoke to punkin in Vietnamese, and you could tell she understood the language, at least she seemed enthralled. She couldn't take her eyes off the waitress as she spoke, and then she happily went to her and held on tight. I will admit, I was jealous. I imagined the baby thinking, "Finally! You have come to rescue me from these aliens and take me home!"

After lunch, we walked around the old quarter for just a little while; so many shops I wanted to explore, but the kids aren't into shopping unfortunately, and the sidewalks were crowded with people and scooters, and it was difficult to walk around. So we made our way back to the lakeside and grabbed a taxi to the hotel.

Bear with me as I post a bunch of pictures of the hotel for my adoption friends who are waiting to travel. These are of our 3 bdrm/2 bath villa. (Disclaimer: the unit looked alot better before we dumped all of our stuff in it.) Here's the living/dining area:

Small balcony off the kitchen:

Kitchen:

Entryway, looking down the hall towards the bedrooms and bathrooms:

Master bedroom (king bed; pretty comfortable):

Another view of master bdrm:

Master bath (tub & shower):

Bedroom #2 (queen or double bed; I'm not sure which):

Bedroom #3 (2 twin beds):

Bath #2 (shower, no tub):

These are pictures of the children's play room on the 5th floor. Looks like an empty apartment with some toys in it:

We then were going to go next door to the infamous "Hanoi Hilton", the former POW prison where John McCain spent many years during the VN war, but we arrived just as it was closing at 4:30pm, so we'll go back another day. We can look right down into it from our rooms. Some of it was demolished when they built the Hanoi Towers, where our hotel is, but what remains can be toured. Here is a picture of the hotel from below:

Outside wall of the prison. There's broken glass cemented into the top of the wall, as well as electric fencing.

Here's where we went for a late dinner. It's within walking distance of the hotel. Check out the menu item in the right column, 2nd one down. William wouldn't order it though.

A couple of Tiger beers (Vietnamese) to start things off.

Fake smile; he thought he would be getting beef fried rice, and so did we. Our waitress spoke no English.

Don decided to be adventurous and order the "Fried Crap". Turns out it was just plain ole' carp. Don't ya love translation errors?

And Richard never would have guessed his hamburger would be topped with a fried egg. If only I had captured the look on his face when he saw this. Priceless! Luckily, fried eggs can be removed quite easily.

"I'm just happy I don't have to eat any of this stuff!"

Actually, we were all moderately content with our food until Anna noticed 2 ants crawling on her bread. And then I found a dead one in my rice. Ok, appetites now killed. This caused Thomas to immediately pass out. Or maybe it was because it was late and he was just tired, I'm not sure. Anyway, we paid our bill and left without complaining, because the food was cheap and they wouldn't have understood us anyway.

Tomorrow we have our interview with the US immigration to get lil' darlin's visa to enter the US.

Hopefully, that will go smoothly and we'll get her visa probably on Monday, then we'll be free to leave the country with her. Our flight home is on Wednesday.