First Week in Hanoi~

Ok so we arrived Friday night July 31st at 10:00pm. The flight over was very long but both kids did really well. Neither one slept on the long flight over. On the plane every headrest has a tv monitor, so they were able to pick out movies or tv shows to watch. Lizzie found that to be "awesome". So by the time we arrived in Toyko it was 3:00pm but about 11:00pm US time. We all felt gross so we found some showers...felt great after that! But if course after a shower, my kids got really tired and crashed HARD on the chairs in the airport. Josh was so confused when we had to wake him up, he kept walking up to people to try and sit by them. I guess he thought they were his Mom and Dad :) The plane ride from Toyko to Hanoi was scheduled to leave at 6:00pm but it was delayed about 15 minutes, not to bad, but my kids kept falling asleep at the gate and really just wanted on the plane so they could sleep. When we finally got on the plane, we ALL slept the whole flight. Going through customs and immigration was a breeze in Hanoi, which was nice since at that time it was about 1:00 am for us and my kids have now been traveling for about 24 hours. One of the Directors of Southeast Asia met us at the airport and brought us to our hotel...felt sooo good to sleep in a bed. :)

Hanoi Towers the Hotel/Apartment we are staying in is a 3 bedroom service room, which is very nice but I can't wait to be in my own place. Saturday all of us just slept in, and then took a nap, then went downstairs for dinner and then off to bed again. :) On the 4th floor of Hanoi Towers is a restaurant called Jaspas. Is it not bad, they serve some western food and some Vietnamese food. They serve a lot of fresh fruit juices The watermelon and apple are my favorite. I mean it is fresh squeezed, yum. The glass comes out with the pulp on top and the juice on the bottom. The kids don't like it, but Steve and I do. The apartment has a mini kitchen but NO oven. LOL and I brought over some muffin mixes for my kids. Apparently most places do not have ovens and in August I can see why. hee hee But on the first floor there is a Citimart which sells some American food. That is where we get most of our food. They have the M&M's, pringles, Coke Lite, Oreo's, Ritz crackers, bread, milk, yogurt, even pancake mixes. Now Jaspas does make pancakes, but they don't taste quite the same. The other morning Steve, Lizzie and I went down for breakfast ( Josh just stayed up in the room) and I ordered a typical Vietnamese breakfast food called Pho-Ga. It is basically chicken noodle soup which you eat with chop sticks. I ordered it, Lizzie ate most of it, and Steve wished he had ordered it. LOL

Lizzie is doing really well over here in regard to the food. Some friends of ours (we met them when we came for a visit in April) had us over for dinner and served us rice, veggies and shrimp tempura. We told the kids the shrimp was chicken nuggets ( hee hee) and Lizzie ate a TON of them, Josh not even one. LOL So we told Lizzie it was really shrimp, she didn't even care, she just wanted more. HaHa! The other day while we were shopping she saw some shrimp and wanted to buy them and have me make them for dinner. Liz is also doing very well making friends. At the pool here in the hoel she will walk up to anyone (her own size) and say, "Hi, I am Lizzie. You want to play with me?" She met a little Chinese girl that didn't speak English, she met a boy from London and a girl from Australia.

Josh is doing really well also. He is learning to go with the flow. We haven't seen any boys his age at the pool, but he still has a good time. In regard to food, I think almost every night he has has either pizza or a grilled cheese. ( Kind of like being in the US) LOL Oohhh one night he had some rice. :) But by choice he will come around, it might just take longer. He is ready for school, actually they both are. We went to the school and the kids saw their new classrooms. It was really cool, on the bulletin board outside of Lizzie's classroom it listed all the kids name and the their country. She thought that was so cool. If I can remember them all, I think she has kids from; Singapore, Mayalsai, Korea, Australia, Sri Lanka, and 2 other Americans. I think there are some more, but I can't remember now. Joshua's classroom didn't have the kids name outside the door, but one of the teachers there told us some of the nationalities in his class. I believe they are: Sweden, Luxembourg, Australia, Mayalsai, Japenese, and he is the only American. Again I know there are more, I just can't remember them all. So school starts for them Monday, August 17th. Which is good as they are going stir crazy in the apartment.

The weather here....is JUST like Houston but WORSE!!!! I really would have thought that impossible, but my hair is living. HaHa From what I have been told Hanoi does have 4 seasons. I can't wait to see what winter is like.

We did get to go to a movie theater in town. It is in a mall type setting. Again, our friends took us. We saw Harry Potter and it was in English but had Vietnamese subtitles. AND you also had to pick your seat when you bought the tickets. HAHA We were early for the show so we walked around the mall. It was really neat, they had a ton of electronics and appliances you could purchase. A lot of variety. Now you can also buy some this this same stuff out on the streets. Near downtown you have streets that will just sell one thing. For example, one street just sells shoes, another jsut clothes, one just TV's. It is very interesting.

House Hunting has been fun. I really enjoy looking at all the houses here. Most have been 5 to 6 floors high, all are marbled or wood, but the kitchen's are small and not many have ovens. One house had chickens in the back yard and the car parked in the living room .LOL Lizzie thought that was so funny and wanted us to get that one. But I think we found one in a community called Ciputra. It is gated and looks very similar to an American neighborhood. The kids could ride their bikes down to the playground, and it has a pool and work out room.

Ok so last night we went to a Mexican Pool Party. :) Lia, who is from Texas (yeah) and went to Concordia in Austin, lives here in Hanoi and hosted the party. I met Lia when we came for a visit back in April. Well her brother Michael and her are born on the SAME day ( just diff years), so they make it a point to always be together on their birthdays. SO this year it was here in Hanoi. We had homemade tortillas, spanish rice, and fajitas. It felt like home...hee hee The kids met a TON of new freinds, Josh even exchanged some email's.

Church here is very different as well. We meet in a conference room in a hotel. Everyone participates and the kids even have a Sunday School. They loved it. Church doesn't start until 10:30 and usually afterwards we all go to a restaurant for lunch. Last Sunday we went to an Indian restaurant. It was very good, but VERY spicy.

That is all for now..keep checking back for more updates.

In CHrist ~

Steve, Amy, Joshua, Elizabeth