Busy Days

Bob and Judy left this morning to head south through Vietnam before flying home on Sunday the 21st. As Brian mentioned, they headed to Sapa a few hours after returning from Halong Bay so we only had Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday to do everything else they wanted in Hanoi. Thus no posts because we've been going a million miles a minute. So, to get you up to date...

On Monday, we had a low key day and hung around the hotel swimming and having fun. An finally decided she wanted to explore what we brought for her and she wanted me to do it with her - we had to take everything out of the closet and she was really excited about the sunglasses and jeans:



Tuesday, we had our "interview" at the US Embassy and got An's visa to enter the US. She's official now - the minute we land in Seattle, she becomes a US citizen. It was a breeze, they asked us if our application was correct and to sign a few things at the window and that was it. We didn't even have to go into the interview room.

On Wednesday morning, I headed to the airline office to see if we could get earlier flights. They said there was no availability so I went ahead and purchased An's ticket home (I wasn't able to buy it before showing them her passport and visa - it was being held and that's probably the one thing that has made me the most nervous on this trip...what a relief to have proof that she was on the flight with us). That afternoon, we went to the One Pillar Pagoda and the Museum of Ethnology. Both were beautiful places. In this picture, Brian decided to take An up to the Bahnar communal house:



He may not have been thinking about coming back down:


That evening we went to the water puppet theatre which was truly amazing. I know An got much more out of it than us since she could understand it (it was in Vietnamese of course) but it was a great experience. She pretended to conduct the music for most of the show. They even had a segment that showed Bob fishing:



This morning, Bob and Judy packed up and headed to Hue. Bob found a way for us to get An around in the airports:



After breakfast, we took the hotel shuttle to the Big C - a grocery/department store. It was an experience! The music in the store was deafening. I was happy to head back. When we got back we had a message that we will be able to fly home on Sunday. I was able to easily shift our Seattle-Boise segment so we'll be arriving on Monday instead of Wednesday now. We really do love it here - our only complaint is the heat and humidity - but we will be happy to get home!

One last picture of An and Brian - very hip on the streets of Hanoi:


Wendi