Arrived in Hanoi

(Posted for Sarah by Laurie since she can't access her blog)


Saturday- We are here at the Horison hotel. Our in country flight was wonderful. We flew business class and the seats completely recline. The babies did fine. We have to pay for the internet here. We bought it as a package rather than per day since it was cheaper. The bad part is I cannot access my blog. So, if you are reading this now it means that I e-mailed this to one of my friends and they posted it for me.Joanne took us to a fabulous, quaint little Vietnamese restaurant on Saturday night. If you are in Hanoi, I highly recommend it. We ate on the patio in the back. It felt in closed thought with the stone walls, trees, and umbrellas. Everything was lit by candles. The food was a buffet style, but very fresh. There was lady making the soup, a lady rolling spring rolls, a man barbquing quail and seafood kabobs. I love fresh spring rolls. It uses rice paper which looks like white transparent sheets of paper, rolled with rice, shrimp, some kind of lettuce. These are not cooked. I asked Joanne to give me some of her recipes. Hopefully, she’ll bring them to the VORF Ohio picnic on Memorial Day. For starters I’d like to learn how to make really good fried rice, Pho, and spring rolls. Then I can add more dishes as I learn.Restaurant info for adoptive families: Brother’s Café 26 Nguyen Thai Hoc St telephone number 7333866 www. brothercafe@fpt.vn It is about a 5 min drive from the Horison.

We did almost get t-boned by a motorcycle driving home from Brother’s Café. The motorcyclist actually slammed on his breaks, slid sideways and his arms brushed our car door. This was a fairly fast speed. This isn’t the first time we’ve brushed against people.The worst time for me was today when I thought our driver was going to plow into a little girl riding her bike. It was closeThe cutest thing happened on our drive from the airport. Eastin kept looking at Kyna and belly laughing. We have seen a huge difference in how they react to each other in this second week. Since they came from different orphanages it took them awhile to get to know one another. Now they interact with each other a lot. They roll around on the bed in the morning talking baby language and swatting each other. Yesterday, I caught them holding hands. I think they’ll probably form a strong bond.Sunday- The breakfast at this hotel is wonderful, too. I had two bowls of pho soup—yummy!

We all had a hearty breakfast and then started off for Ha Long Bay. It is about 3hr drive each way, but so worth it. Joanne booked us a private tour. She doesn’t care to be around strangers. The babies slept most of the drive there. Then we boarded a pirate looking ship. It had a top open deck and enclosed bottom deck, but we opened the windows. There are not words to describe the beauty of HaLong Bay. It is national geographic pretty. Huge limestone formations jut from the waters. The boats all look like old pirate boats. This is done on purpose as it would in America. They use the wooden type of boats. We toured a inside a cave at one of the formations.We also stopped a floating fish market. They catch the fish/ creatures in the bay and put them in cages. It was interesting seeing the different kinds of fish. We took video and pics of it all. Wyatt and Ellayna will like seeing it.

Joanne bought bags of pineapple on our way to the bay. Joanne says it is the best pinapple in the world. I have to agree, can’t image anything sweeter. The pineapples are small, about the size of a softball. The vender have the skinned with a short stem still attached. We had pineapple after pineapple for our lunch. Then we bought another bag for the way home. Half a dozen costs $1. I WISH we had these at home. I’d rather eat those than an apple. Kyna got a taste of one and know she goes nuts if she sees a pineapple. We let her slurp on it. Her feet and arms kick constantly with excitement.It was a long day. We were gone about 10 hours. The babies did excellent. Eastin fussed some on the way home, but not that I couldn’t control. It was so worth the drive. HaLong Bay was on the number 1 thing on my list to see in Vietnam.

So far I’m doing good with my list. I have two more to go and I should get it in done in the the next two days. Water puppets (Monday eve) and visit the Old Quarter for site seeing and shopping (Tuesday).Monday- It is Monday morning now. I think our last interview is this afternoon. We should here from Quoc soon. If that happens we could get the babies’ visas on Tuesday, fly out early Wednesday morning, which puts us home early in the morning on Ohio’s Thursday. We were scheduled to fly in early Sat morning, Ohio time.I’m anxious to get home and yet feel a tug to explore. We just got to Hanoi, and there is a whole city to learn about. It is cooler here, really refreshing. In fact, my 6am swim was like a polar bear swim. It took everything I had to get in the water. It’s funny we are comfortable in the evenings, but people here where jackets.More later, going to get breakfast.

Monday- We had our last US interview appt today. Basically, just paying another fee and signing some papers. Our babies' visas "should" be ready to go on Tuesday at 4pm. We are seeing about leaving Wed morning, putting us in Ohio early Thursday morning. If not we'll stay with our original dates, leaving her Friday and getting into Ohio early Sat morning. Communication is terrible here at this hotel. We haven't been able to even access e-mail. I cannot get on my blog at all. I hate being disconnected.We went to the Old Quarter and had lunch along the lake and then watched the Water Puppet show. I wish Wyatt and Ellayna could have seen it. Viet loved it. I did buy the folk music that was played at the show, only for $2.I need to get to bed. Eastin is up a lot at night (7 times last night) and I'm worn out. Kyna gets up once for a bottle. I don't think Eastin feels well. Once we're home, things will get better. I discovered a tooth poking through on bottom for Kyna. Eastin is working on a top one. I think Eastin may have some acid reflux. He is so much stronger than when we first got him. He holds his head up better and tummy time is easier for him. Kyna does very well with both fine and gross motor skills. Eastin will catch up in time. It's amazing what two weeks has done for him. I imagine two months will be unbelievable progress. His spots are fading so he looks better, too.Good night!