Highlights from Hanoi

At some point during our stay I began writing down highlights of the trip so I could remember everything for Jordan's scrapbook. Some are funny, some serious, some lifechanging, and some just stuck in our mind for whatever reason.

• Driving to our hotel from the airpot. Even though it was dark, we could sense we were in another world


• Eating something orange and squishy at our first breakfast and having no idea what it was


• Our first taxi ride. Think no lanes, hundreds of scooters, no rules, lots of honking, making a left turn in front of oncoming traffic and you get the idea


• Noting a bicyclist carrying live pigs in a basket on our way to Vinh City


• 1st sight of Jordan at the orphanage. Obviously we will never forget it. He was wearing a red coat that was obviously a girl's coat, and it is going in my cedar chest.


• Observing how much the orphanage caregivers cared for Jordan. They had tears in their eyes as they said goodbye. Even the orphanage director was crying as he held Jordan one last time. It was a very emotional and wrenching departure, as Jordan was reaching for his caregiver and crying very hard


• 1st sight of Jordan's smile. It was a few days in coming, but well worth the wait. Jordan's smile can light up a room


• Jordan pulling the lamp over on himself and breaking it at the Dae Woo


• Johnathon emerging from the bathroom at the Kim Leim with the toilet seat over his arm


• Mr. Le telling me I would be very busy, very busy (the above two items proving his point)


• Our visit to the zoo. Mostly sad as we observed the condition of the animals, but amusing when a monkey grabbed a man's camera and climbed to the top of the cage to dismantle it


• 1st time Johnathon and Jordan actually played together. It was a very odd game; Johnathon yelled "no, no" and pointed his finger at Jordan and Jordan laughed and laughed


• Jordan biting my toe (very hard). I guess I need to watch my feet when he is crawling around


• Taxi ride with 3 screaming babies. This actually happened more then once. Not much to do but laugh. It did remind the taxi drivers to take the shortest route (something they often do NOT do)


• The squat toilets on the way to Vinh City


• Discovering our hotel had chocolate icecream. I ordered 2 scoops via room service and informed the family mommy was going to eat her icecream in peace


• Johnathon yelling in his sleep, "my toys, my toys." Losing your place as the only child in the family while in a foreign country and living in a hotel is quite a lot for a 2-yr-old to handle. This often was displayed in nightime behavior


• Walking John and Johnathon to the taxi to take them to the airport on November 5. A night I NEVER want to repeat.


• Finding a page of scribbles in the hotel Johnathon had drawn after he went home. I immediatly tucked it away. What a find, it was like gold


• Watching a lizard emerge from our hotel bathroom. I thought it was just that particular hotel (which we did not linger at), but this event repeated itself at a later date. In fact, in the perfect send off, when I was checking out of our last hotel there were 3 lizards climbing the wall behind the front desk


• Our taxi getting stuck while traveling down a narrow street in the old quarter. We ditched the taxi and walked


• Our trip to Halong bay


• Jordan spitting up all over me (which time? there were many)


• Hearing screams in the hall and suspecting we had just received the cal
  

There it is in a nutshell. We will never forget Oct/Nov of 2007!

Jordan and I are home and we are a family again!!!!!!!!

We are home!!!!!!!!!

I know many are wondering what happened to us. I have a lot of catching up to do, but thought I better post the best post of all - WE ARE HOME!!!! We got the call Wednesday morning, Nov. 14 to come to the embassy for our 2nd interview in order to receive our visas. There was screaming in the halls of our hotel, and it was happy screams. My flight left at 11:40pm thursday night and I was up the next 48 hours bringing Jordan home by myself. I would not advise anyone to travel around the world alone with an active 12 month old, but you do what you have to do. Thankfully he slept much of the trip. I plan to update the blog and I will just date the posts with the date they would go with, so stay tuned for more pics and posts. I am still sorting through pictures, but am taking advantage of being totally turned around and using my nights to work on that.

Pictures from Hanoi

Here are a few more pics. Somewhere I have more pictures of the countryside. Can't get my hand on them right now.

Not sure what is happening here.

Nothing like a pack n play to keep them contained

Jordan with some of his loot from his 1st birthday

Shopping at the Big C. (I don't know why they call it that)

Last night in Hanoi

We arrived in Hanoi on October 13 (arrived 2 days early by choice) and had our second visa interview today, November 14. All but one of us are leaving tomorrow. Did we expect to stay this long? NO. Is international adoption always glitch free? NO. Is it worth it in the end? YES! We met many families who were in Hanoi longer then expected. Processing through the US embassy is rough right now and unfortunately we felt the effects of that. We received word about 8:30am that we were to go to the embassy today for our 2nd interview and there was screaming in the halls (happy screaming). For some of us, we received this wonderful news just when we thought we could take it no longer. It is hard being alone in a foreign country, cooped in a hotel room with an active 12 month old. Anyway, we decided to celebrate by ordering from Alfrescos (they deliver) one more time. This is a restaurant with Mexican and Italian choices and I recommend it to families looking for other food choices. The convenience of delivery cannot be overstated. Here is our "party." Oh yes, Mark went out and bought us cheesecake for the celebration.

Halong Bay

We decided to get out of the hotel and visit Halong bay today. It turned out to be a good decision. Halong Bay is one of the main tourist attractions in Vietnam and is a body of water filled with limestone mountains. There is a myth about the descending dragon that goes along with it, you can google to find out more. For $45 dollars we had our own private minivan, our own private boat, 4 hours on the bay, lunch, and admission to the caves. It was well worth it. Many of the hotels promote the overnight tours, but there is a day tour, which is more doable with new babies. We did not realize this at first. Here are a few pics:

The typical boat

Inside the caves

Hotel living

Here are a couple of pics of our "home." This is our room at the Dae Woo, one of the 7 hotels we stayed in. The rooms were all pretty much the same size so this is basically what it was. I considered tidying the room up before I took pictures, but decided to show the accurate view. Hotel living with a 1 and 2-yr-old is not on my top ten lists of things to do, but we got by. We will never complain about our house being too small again.

Yep, we are still here

Nothing new except we have been wanderers lately. We were not able to extend our room reservations at the Daewoo Hotel, so we had to move yesterday. We moved to hotel #5, but we did not stay more then one night. Let's just say we came, we saw, and we went. Sometimes these things happen when traveling overseas. It is peak season right now in Hanoi so finding a hotel is really difficult, but our agency helped us find better lodging and we are not in a very nice hotel. John and Johnathon leave in about 3 hours to go home. After much thought we decided Johnathon needed to go home. We have been here a little over 3 weeks now and that is about all a 2-yr-old can take. The other husbands and siblings left Friday night but John was not able to get a flight until today. I have tentative reservations to leave this coming Thursday night and am sure hoping I can do so. I am cautiously optimistic we will get our 2nd visa interview tomorrow or Wednesday. From now on my computer time will be with a 12 month old on my lap so I don't know how well I will be able to keep the blog up. I might have to finish when I get home. I don have some more pics to post later. Keep checking, I'll definately post when I am coming home.