Day 6-Wednesday Morning/Afternoon

Today we got up too late for breakfast. Actually, if you looked at the posted time, we weren't late, but obviously they wanted to close early...


So instead we trekked over to Hoa Lo Prison, otherwise known as the Hanoi Hilton. It was built by the French during their occupation of Vietnam in 1896. It was used to contain the anti-colonial movement among the vietnamese. The site was the former location of a ceramic village.


Once North Vietnam was liberated, the Vietnamese used it as a state prison. From 1964-1973 it was also used to house american pilots shot down over Vietnam. Most notably was Senator John McCain, who was inprisoned there from 1967-1973. It really was quite interesting. Only about a third of the prison remains, as it was torn down to accomodate a hotel...

Here is the entrance:

Uniforms worn by the prisoners
This is how the male prisoners were housed. Their legs are shackled down on concrete.
A Closer Look
These are the public toilets
A better look. You have to squat over the hole... FYI we have encountered many of these during our trip....
Read the Sign and next picture...

These had to have been some SMALL people.

"Head Cutting Machine"
Air suit worn by Sen. John McCain when he was captured.... Random pictures on the way back to our hotel.

Statue of Ho Chi Mihn

Not sure what this is...

FYI-Per another family's blog, our G&R has been scheduled for Friday at 3pm...

Day 5-Tuesday-Ha Long Bay

In the morning we made the trip to Ha Long Bay. We had a good time, although it was a pretty long trip. I can honestly say that we are through will long trips, aside from picking up Chloe. It was about 3.5 hours each way. We don't regret going, but that much driving is really exhausting!

Here are some pictures of the landscape leading in to Ha Long Bay:



There is a fishing village on the bay that you will see a couple of pictures down. You can buy all sorts of seafood from them. What you are looking at right now is squid I believe...

Random pictures from the boat of the bay...
This is a cave that we explored. It wasn't discovered until the year 1994 when two little boys were playing on the bay. I guess a hurricane came through and while they were searching for shelter, they stumbled upon this opening.
This is a view of part of the bay from outside of the cave.

Random Bay pictures:

This is part of the floating village I mentioned earlier. The people live out here and get around by boat. They fish and give tours of the bay for income.

The children that live in this village did not attend school until the year 2000. A group came in and funded the building of a floating school so that the children could attend. I think they attend through primary school. It was either a group from the US or United Kingdom that funded it. The tour guide said that US, but it looks like the sign says the UK.

So we spent about 3-4 hours driving out here, 4 or so hours on the water, and then 3-4 hours back. Needless to say, it was a long trip. But it was beautiful out here and we had a good time.

Barter System

I am deleriously tired right now, so I will probably take a quick nap and then I'll post about our trip to Ha Long Bay.

In the mean time, I wanted to share a funny story.

As I mentioned above, I am super tired, so I don't know if things are just coming across extra funny because of it, but I don't think so.

So, for dinner we went to this resteraunt kind of across the street from our hotel. It had a mix of Vietnamese, Europeon, and Western Food. Mark gets a chicken stirfry thing, and I get prawns in Thailand sauce. I didn't care for mine too much, as the prawns had all its legs, tentacles, etc. Anyway, that doesn't matter, as it's not the funny part.

Our dinner came to 108,000 dong, including drinks and everything. One US dollar is about 16,000 dong. So our dinner came to 6.75. Anyway, we go to pay. Mark hands the girl 110,000 dong. The girl kinds of looks over at me and asks me if I have 3,000 dong. Apparently she doesn't have 2,000 dong to give us in change. I tell her we don't have that change. She looks around for a second, then kneels down behind the register and pops back up and hands us a pack of gum that has a 2,000 dong price tag on it and tells us to have a nice day! So we've now had our first experience of someone bartering with US!

Anyway, I'll post pictures of Ha Long Bay in a little bit! Hope everyone has an awesome day.

Oh yeah. G&R definitely won't be tomorrow. Thuy is hoping for Thursday, but we'll see...

SPECIAL REQUEST

MOM OR JASON

Mark has a library book checked out that was due yesterday, although at the time I'm writing this, yesterday is today for you guys.... In other words, it was due on the 14th. Is there any way that one of you could take it back to the library? Someone's requested it so we can't renew it. It's called Striking thoughts : Bruce Lee's wisdom for daily living. It is either on the dining room table or Mark's desk. Thanks!

I forgot to mention this yesterday. I did a stupid, stupid thing. We (traveling families) were all sitting around this big table counting out money to give to Thuy for all of our fees. I had all my fees in seperate envelopes for each fee. I also had an envelope for the extra spending money, including food and hotel costs. At first everyone was going to expedite the passports, but then we all decided against it since its very possible it won't make any difference. So I had to make some different change for that fee, so I had to get out the spending money. Once I got everything counted out, I gave Thuy our money. Instead of counting it, she just sticks it with the rest of the money that she had collected from the other families. Suddenly I look down and realize that I gave her the wrong stack of money! And I hadn't previously counted how much spending money we had left!!! After a few minutes of trying to sort through who had given her what, I think we were able to work our way backwards and get our money back. I just wanted to kick myself! And poor Thuy! She felt so bad for it, and she wasn't even the one who did it!

Anyway, I think we got all the money we had started with, so it was ok. It's a good thing that Thuy didn't have a bunch of money to make change with!!!

So that's all for now. We are off to Ha Long Bay for the day. Hope everyone has a great night!

Day 4-Monday

We spent most of today doing some shopping. It's been very interesting bargaining with the various vendors. They say that you should ALWAYS bargain. The vendors always quote americans higher prices, and if you DON'T bargain, it makes them take advantage of more foreigners.

Mark seemed to be a street vendor magnet! They followed him and followed him! For example, this lady REALLY wanted Mark to buy a Vietnam phrase book. She quoted him 130,000 dong. We say no, so she says 110,000. We say no again, she says she'll give us the book and postcards for 120,000 dong. Again we say no. She asks us what we want to pay. We try to tell her nothing, but she keeps following us and offering us all sorts of combinations of items for all different prices. That's just one example!

For lunch we stopped at this little place that had all kinds of different foods. Both Mark and I got the Singapore fried rice. It was pretty good. I thought it was pretty interesting that it came with a salad, garlic bread, and two onion rings. Weird combination...

After lunch we went back to the hotel and rested for awhile. Then we walked over to the Somerset to go over fees with Thuy. We've decided against expediting the passports, as we're not sure it will make any difference in the long run.

After meeting Thuy we went over to a marketplace. We did a lot of shopping there as well. They had a dog butcher shop! They had whole skinned dogs! Face, teeth, everything! It was crazy!
From there we went to a mall like place and did some more shopping. On the way home, it started POURING rain. We were really soaked by the time we got back to the hotel. We just ordered a pizza to be delivered to our room and here we are.

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Ha Long Bay. We should have lots of pictures so be on the lookout!

SIDEBAR #1:
Certain people don't seem to be answering my emails...I'm a little curious how my Sammi and
Raj are doing!!!

SIDEBAR #2:
I was rereading my previous post and I must make a correction. I was trying to tell you how expensive land was in Hanoi. I mentioned that a 40 sq meter piece of ONLY land coast between 200-300 USD. And it all had to be paid for upfront. What I MEANT to say was 200,000-300,000 USD!!!!


Here are some pictures of our hotel. This is the breakfast common area.

These are some items that we purchased today--items that Mark did not bargain for...
The rest are just pictures of our room!

Day 3-Sunday

First, Happy Mother's day to everyone!!!

Today was made the 2.5 hour trip out to the orphanage. It was very long and bumpy! It was interesting seeing how people lived outside of the city. It's really amazing how simple the Vietnamese live. There were tons and tons of shops and houses all along the way. There were many, many cows and water buffalo's roaming the streets the whole way. Apparently, water buffalo are similar to cats in that they wonder around and then are able to find their own way home!!!

Also, land is VERY expensive in Vietnam. You will notice that most houses are very small, but several stories. This is because of the price of land. In Hanoi, a 40sq meter (430sq ft) piece of land will go for 200-300 US DOLLARS! That the land by itself, not including the house. So they have to build 3-5 stories just have enough room. Out side of Hanoi in the smaller cities it would go for about 100 USD for the land. Still really expensive when you consider that the average income in Vietnam is 300 USD per year! On top of all that, you have to pay for the land upfront, no loans!

Anyway, here are some pictures from our drive:

After the orphanage visit we stopped for lunch at an Authentic Vietnamese place. It was definitely an experience, I'm really glad we went!

This is a picture of the actual building that ate at.

This is what was originally brought out to the table. I forgot to get a picture, but a little later they brought plates of fish.

Apparently you take all this stuff and make kind of like a taco with it out of rice paper. (The bus driver showed us!) Mark wouldn't try it, but I was all about it, as you can see. He made fun of me for eating paper... I guess some of us are more adventurous than others!

This was a type of soup that you put with rice. I loved that the fish still had its fins! It wasn't terrible, although not sure I would eat it on my own.

And last, but not least, we do have baby pictures!

We stopped at a big orphanage first because that's where one of the babies were. The orphanage itself was kind of nice. By nice, I just mean clean and well taken care of. We were taken into this room that was filled with babies on bamboo mats with mosquito netting surrounding them. We didn't see many older children, as I assume that school was in session.

There were these two little boys that just broke my heart though. They were probably both around 5 years old. I assume that one of them never got adopted because he had club hands. The first thing that he did when I walked in was slowly walk over to me and put his arms around me and hugged me! It totally broke my heart. He was smiling ear to ear and didn't want to let go of me!!! The other boy was very quiet and reserved, he just kind of watched what was going on.

After that, we traveled another 15 minutes to the smaller orphanage and met Chloe! She was just so much more beautiful and precious in real life than you can imagine looking at her pictures! I can't even describe how it felt to see her in person for the first time. She is definitely a tiny little thing. Most of the other babies from our group were younger than her, but she was the smallest. The baby from the other orphanage was the only one smaller than her. But she is just the cutest thing, and she looks very healthy. She didn't cry the whole time! She was very awake and alert and looked like a genuinely happy baby.

You could tell that her nannies really cared about the babies. We asked one of the nannies if we could take her picture with Chloe and you should have seen her face light up!

We found out how to pronounce her vietnamese name. It's kind of hard to write, as vietnamese is a tonal language, but here goes. Luong = Lu ah.

I know you guys have been waiting, so here goes!

Mark is a little squinty eyed in the picture, so I'm sure he's going to be thrilled that I posted this, but I thought it was a cute picture of her... :)

Here's a picture of Chloe with one of her nannies.

And finally, the first family portrait!

I think today will be a day filled with sightseeing and shopping. I'll post more later...hope everyone's having a great day!

Night 2-Day 12

We went to dinner at this place called Al Fresco. It had western food: ribs, burgers, pizza, etc. We got a pizza called Spicy Chicken Delight or something like that. Not very Vietnamese. But it was good. We also had calamari to go with it :) .

So we are leaving at 9:45 tomorrow to make the 2 hour trip to the orphanage to see the babies. We'll get to spend an hour or two there. We'll be taking lots of pictures then. Unfortunately it looks like the G&R ceremony won't be until Wednesday at the earliest, possibly Thursday. Seems like things keep getting pushed further and further. Hopefully this will be the last delay that we have to deal with.

So we ended up staying at the Heart Hotel. There definitely is a lot of noise here. This afternoon we had to put up with the sound of a jack hammer going at it. Fortunately noise doesn't bother me too much, so it wasn't a big deal. Other than that, I think this hotel is great. It's clean, has nice furniture, the refridgerator is always stocked, free breakfast, WIFI in the room, not much I can complain about. It's nicer that most hotels I've stayed at over in the US.

I'll fill you in on everything once we got back tomorrow...hope everyone's day goes well!

Day 2-May 12th

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEAH! Wish we could be there, but wanted to wish you a happy birthday.
Today we got up and had our first meal in Vietnam.

The hotel includes free breakfast. We each got this huge piece of bread that I guess they give to everyone. I ordered Chocolate Pancakes and Mark got an omellate. The pancakes weren't really pancakes though, more like a dough thing.


After breakfast, we and another family went walking around the city looking at different shops, getting an idea of what we want to buy. It's definitely a different world out here. It's hard not being able to speak the language, as a lot of people come up and try to talk to you.

We had a couple of beggers following up around for awhile, and man are they relentless. (although harmless)

We decided to try to make our way to the Somerset Grand to check at the market they have there. We really had no idea where we were going and were relying on directions from people who really didn't speak English. We got totally lost! Then of course we got stuck in a torrential downpour, although it only lasted a few minutes. After an hour or so we finally got our bearings and made to the Somerset. We decided to have lunch there as well. Mark had a chicken, bacon, and tomato panini while I had a chicken and avacado sandwich. Both were pretty good and I would say pretty american. One interesting thing was that you have to pay extra if you want your drink diet...

After lunch we made our way back to our hotel. On the way we discovered a salon a few doors down from our hotel. We went back to our rooms and then Mark and I ventured back to the salon. I had a manicure and pedicure while Mark got an hour massage. For the massage, manicure, and pedicure it cost a total of $18. The manicure and pedicure weren't anything special, in fact I could have done just as good a job if I had done it myself. Had I paid for it what I would have had to pay back home, I would definitely not have been satisfied, but at $9, I couldn't complain. The hour massage was only $9 as well. At that rate, we are definitely going back before we leave!

Now we are just hanging back at the hotel. We are supposed to meet the other families along with Thuy and her sister Emmy for dinner at 6. I'm not sure where we are going, although I hope it's somewhere vietnamese.

I'm pretty sure that we are going to have an orphanage visit tomorrow. We're pretty excited about that! Our G&R ceremony has been pushed back though. Originally we had been told that it would be on Monday, which is why we had to get here so early. But the morning we left we found out that they wouldn't be able to do it that day. We're being told that we will definitely have it by Wednesday, possibly Tuesday, but we'll see. I'm not going to get my hopes up...

We made it...Finally!

Wow, that was a long trip!

Our flight from Indianapolis to Chicago started off on the wrong foot. We had checked all of our bags then went to go through security. Apparently I didn't read the rules good enough because we had a bunch of liquid, gels, and pastes that we couldn't take along with us. I guess they all have to be in containers less than 3oz. We ended up losing a jar of vaseline, and our baby shampoo and lotion. So looks like Chloe won't be getting a bath! :)

I knew we were going to be in a bigger mess because in another carry on suitcase were all of our toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, etc.). We got caught with that stuff as well. Luckily the airport people were nice enough to repack our stuff, stick all the unallowed stuff in this toiletry bag we brought, and they went down to the baggage area, found our bags, and put them in there. However, I asked if I could have the other stuff that they confiscated back, they said no. Thieves!

So our flight was about 40 minutes to Chicago. Not bad. Once we got to Chicago things went pretty smoothly. We met up with Ally and her family, and Lucy and Joe (other families traveling with us). It was nice to have others to talk to during our layovers.

So then was our flight from Chicago to Japan. Twelve hours. Honestly the worst twelve consecutive hours that I've spent in a LONG time! I never thought about what 12 hours in the air actually would be like. Our seats were super cramped, I never got comfortable one time during that whole flight, my feet were super swollen, got a bunch of busted blood vessels on my arm... I was honestly ready to be done flying for the rest of my life after 2 hours! I never thought that flight would end. I'm not sure how much it would have been to upgrade to first class, and I know that before we left I would have said I had no need to, but after this, I think I would pay a lot of money!!! I am just dreading the thought of making the return trip, and add on top of that with a baby...although I know in the end it will be all worth it.

Plus sides of that flight, they fed us. A lot. And made sure we had something to drink at all times. I got to watch two movies...Music and Lyrics & Freedom Writers. Both were good.

Once the flight was over, we had a few hours layover in Japan. I have to say that the people at that airport and the crew on Japanese Airlines were so, so friendly. We had a great experience as far as that was concerned. Not only did we get great service, everyone was always so friendly and wanted to make sure you were completely taken care of.

Our last flight was from Japan to Hanoi. This was a 5 1/2 hour flight. I was super tired by then and just wanted to sleep. What was nice about this plane was that the armrests moved up and down. Our flight wasn't that full, so there were a bunch of extra seats. I was able to find an empty row of three seats, pull the armrests up, and sleep. That was nice.

Then finally we arrived in Hanoi. Man, is it humid! Even with air conditioning on!

Thuy met us at the airport with flowers, which was really nice. She had three vehicles ready to transport four families to the hotels. Three of the families (including us) are staying at the same hotel, while the fourth family was at a different one. However, somehow there was a mix up and we ended up at their hotel instead of ours! But we finally made it and here we are!

Observation:

So I've seen pictures and video's of the traffic in Hanoi. But its really something that you have to see for yourself! It's crazy, crazy, crazy. We are driving to our hotel, after 10pm, and there are motorbikes everywhere. And they just go anywhere. There were lanes, but cars would just drive down the middle! We saw one guy on a motorbike with his chihuahua as his front passenger, which was pretty funny.

Anyway, I think we are going to try and get settled and I'll write more tomorrow!

NEWS!

So we are officially leaving for Vietnam on the 10th of May! We will get there Friday night at 9:50pm. That means about 10:50am friday local time. So we will have been in flight (or laid over) for about 25 hours!!!

We will be (hopefully) posting pictures and updating as we go, so be sure to check back here frequently!

Also, we are having a little celebration thingie this Friday, the 4th from 5-8 or whenever at my Mom's. Anyone who is reading this is invited, if I haven't talked to you, feel free to call me or my mom.

Our flight back is scheduled for June 1st. We will arrive back in Indianapolis at about 3:30pm on Saturday the 2nd. That time is subject to change, as if we get done early, we will try to fly back early. If things get held up, we'll be later. Actually I will be later, as Mark HAS to make the flight back so that he can work Saturday night. So there's a possiblity of us coming back seperately. Hopefully that doesn't happen though!

Sneak Preview

Here are my herbs: Cilantro, Basil, Marjoram, and Parsley. I'm also going to be planting some Spearamint and Chives.

These are my tomato plants.


These are a shot of all of them!

On the left are my sweet red peppers, on the right are jalepenos.

These are my melons-cantaloupe.

I'm thinking about ripping all of this out and using the space for some of my herbs and produce. Thoughts???

Can anyone tell me what kind of flowers these are? Daffodils maybe?

Random Mumblings...

In light of recent comments, I am back to post something new. I am having a hard time thinking of things to say that others would find interesting tonight, but I'll try.

I am really excited about my (future) farm. Really, everyone should be quite impressed with how I've done. In between working a kazillion hours at work, I've been taking pretty darn good care of my plants!

My basil, marjoram, parsley and cilantro are growing awesome. So are my tomatoes, red peppers, melons, and jalepenos. Today I decided that I needed a few more plants just in case some of the others didn't make it, so I planted 20 more. (4 tomatoes; 4 jalepenos; 4 melons, 4 red peppers, 2 zucchini, and 2 cucumbers).

I know that really I should start small, but as most of you know, a lot of times that isn't in my vocabulary. I also want to go look for some leaf lettuce and asparagus. My problem is that I have all these plants now, and I really don't know how to take care of them once I actually put them in the ground. I really hope they turn out well. It will be completely awesome to have fresh produce.

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As most of you guys know, things have been pretty hectic in our lives recently. Hopefully that will slow down for me after the next few weeks. It seems like i just get home in time most nights to want to relax and get ready for bed. I don't have time to do a lot of the things I really want to get done.

That being said, Mark has been pretty awesome in picking up some of that slack. He's had to start doing a lot of the grocery shopping, dishes, etc. He's been taking care of a lot of things that I just don't have time for. So, I just wanted to say I really appreciate that!!!

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Well, I'm kinda tired so I am going to get some sleep. I'll post more later. Hopefully this tides anonymous over until later... :)

Have an awesome day!

"We witness a miracle every time a child enters into life.But those who make their journey home across time & miles,growing within the hearts of those who wait to love them,are carried on the wings of destiny and placed among us by God's very own hands."--- Kristi Larson