Another Thursday in Hanoi

Hello all,

Today was a low key day in Hanoi for us. Barbie's parents and sister took a day trip to the countryside and we spent the day mostly at the hotel. It was good to not have to get prepared for the day very quickly.

After breakfast and a bit of laying around we went to the old quarter to a street that sells decorations. It is interesting in the cities here. It seems that certain types of businesses congregate together. There is a street with hardware stores, one with bookstores, one with silk shops and tailors, and even one that primarily sells backpacks. I guess if you like comparison shopping it is a good thing. We went to buy some silk lanterns for the kids' rooms. This past November we attended the mid-autumn moon festival which was sponsored by a twin-cities vietnamese association. While we were there the kids thought the lanterns were pretty cool. so we picked up three for about $1.50 apiece.

We took a cab back to the hotel (stopping by the bakery at the Fivimart for some baguettes and croissants for lunch) and then stayed at the hotel for the afternoon. The girls (all 3 of them) took naps and Thomas made noise during their naps. After that, we had the kids run around on the hotel tennis courts with their toy balls.

It has been kind of a rough day with the kids (Thomas stayed up late last night goofing around with his grandparents and auntie), so we decided to have a western treat for supper. We went to one of 3 KFCs in Hanoi. The food was pretty close to the same as the US. I think the food was good for our souls. The KFC was the busiest restaurant in Vietnam that we have been to so far.

Tomorrow we will travel to a silk village nearby. We will see the process all the way from worm to necktie (I think). It should be interesting.

Barbie and I are starting to get a little anxious (one of us probably more than the other) about when our paperwork will be finished up so that we can go home. At this point I think that we will be fairly disappointed if we aren't able to go home on December 16 as originally planned We haven't yet heard anything from our visa pre-application. Today we learned that after we get this preapproval (by email) we must submit a lot of paperwork at least 2 business days before we can have a visa interview. Allegedly the visa is granted on the same business day as the interview. By my calculation, that means to me that if we don't get our visa pre-approval by Tuesday (or wednesday possibly?) of next week, then we we'll have to come home later than December 16. Tuesday is only 3 business days away from us, so we are kind of sweating it. We both know that in the long run an extra week or two or three isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it would be nice to know when we might back home. If for nothing else, we want to get Julia into the environment that will be her home so that we can help her start getting used to her new environment. Now she must think that the hotel room is our home (and she seems ok with that).

A Julia note, now she is giving us kisses. She is at the same time a stinker and a charmer. We are blessed to add this great kid to our other two blessings.

By the way...we are struggling with our internet lately. I'm surprised to be able to be posting this (I hope it works!) We haven't been able to read comments lately, but we hope that will resolve itself soon.

Take care and enjoy the snow in Minnesota.

Doug