Tuesday, March 10, 2015

I did NOT sleep well last night – tossing and turn and WIDE awake from 3-5am!  Not cool!  I think tonight I will take some sleeping stuff tonight, which will (hopefully) help.

After some cereal (Special K, just like home, wahoo) we were on our way!  We decided to take one stroller and one bag worth of stuff we bought yesterday so it was manageable to maneuver.  Sidewalks aren’t sidewalks..they are usually full of parked motorbikes or people selling items/food or (this is the best) MOVING motorbikes.  They could be coming at you, coming from behind you, coming out of a building.  Anyway, my point being that it’s not a place you want to be bogged down with things.  We stopped at the bank first to exchange more money after shopping yesterday and Mom has a money belt for when we are carrying larger amounts of cash (pick pocketing..usually via motorbike..is big here so you need to be careful).  She had washed her money belt last night but it was obviously not dry enough because the two hundred dollar bills she wanted to exchange were a bit damp and the bank lady was NOT impressed.  Luckily her supervisor said ok and we were able to exchange.  They are VERY particular about the quality of bills you exchange, especially hundreds (which gets you a better exchange rate).  We have to go to the bank when we are home and specifically ask for the newest $100s they have.

After a quick stop at the coffee shop (yay caffeine) we were on the #3 bus with a stroller and a bag of goodies.

I did not miss the stop today and this bus ride was more enjoyable so we were ready to rock and roll.  The ladies were very thankful for the medicine we brought and Thoung was SO excited about his new kicks (which weren’t new for long, we think the workers end up taking the crocs for themselves/their families).  I think tomorrow after our walk we will put Thoung’s crocs back in our bags so he can at least have them while we are here!

Oh AND Thoung was feeling MUCH better which was awesome!  Cap LOVED his watch and we took Thoung, Cap and Katrina out for a walk.  

We gave Bob the digital camera and he went to TOWN.  He had no interest in coming out so I will be interested to see what pictures he took while we were gone!

On our way out I was interviewed by some people doing a story.  The guys English was pretty good, they had a microphone and a camera and he just basically asked how I felt about the kids! #celebrity

So apparently someone took a lot of time to teach everyone Gangnam Style.  Cap LOVED listening to it and shaking it and wanted nothing to do with any of the other songs, so it was on repeat.  

Thoung liked playing with the iPad and Katrina just always wants to walk, so at one point Mom, Cap and Katrina went off for a walk and Thoung and I played with the iPad.  

Then we realized we were late for lunch (ooops) so we brought everyone back in.

There were some other volunteers feeding the kids I knew, so I kinda hung around the head lady (I will learn her name) looking confused (ha) in the hopes she would give me someone to feed.  And oh she did.  It was some green puréed nonsense (yuck).  

Here is a picture courtesy of Thoung (I gave him my iPhone to play with). 

Puréed food = tough kid to feed, so the head lady showed me that I had to hold her head back a bit.  I HATE doing that, but 85% of the kids would probably choose NOT to eat (I don’t blame them it does not look appetizing) so it’s a hard balance of not wanting to torture them and wanting to make sure they eat.

Picture of meal time courtesy of Thoung 

We were slow and steady (more slow than steady) and it was a HUGE bowl of green stuff.  Everyone else was done and had already started cleaning up when we were about half way done.  I figured at some point a worker would either come over and say we were finished or tell the kid to eat, but neither of that happened because she threw up.

Ugh I felt so awful!!!!  Here I was trying to make the poor girl eat!  The workers didn’t seem fazed by it (my guess is it happens often and probably to her) but ugh it broke my heart.  Since I was already sweaty and dirty some green puréed throw up didn’t really bother me (and she got the worst of it) so the workers helped clean her up and change her.  Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get someone with real food – Im 0-2 on feeding, George didn’t eat well yesterday and I had to be replaced!  #volunteeringfail

The kids then go down for resting time so we headed out, back on the bus and back to the apartment.  My shower felt GREAT, and my PB&J was delicious AND I took a little nap.  I felt like I could have slept for days but I only took about 20 minutes so I wouldn’t get into a deep sleep.

Our plan was to head out to the touristy area (our old stomping grounds) and all was going according to plan until Mom realized she had NO CLEAN CLOTHES!  What the heck woman!

So as I said I love doing laundry and did laundry today (especially needed after my feeding fail) and apparently since Mom was wearing her bathrobe post shower she didn’t realize she gave me ALL HER CLOTHES to wash.  Silly Mom! 

It honestly wasn’t a big deal as I was able to do a little blogging and the wash was almost done. After a quick dry we headed out to our first stop – Dairy Queen!  This is the first year we have seen a Dairy Queen so had to check it out!  They didn’t have chocolate ice-cream (#fail) but the cold ice-cream was SO good!

We spent some time walking around to see the Post Office they recently repainted (a pretty ugly yellow color) and then ended up in our old stomping grounds, which we pretty much decided we were glad we left!  Too many people, too much noise, too many bad, uneven sidewalks.  We did, however, stop at Café Paris to get some bolognese (they have the BEST bolognese, I know, I know #comfortfood) and then we explored the new metro area.  We have heard mixed messages on when the metro line is supposed to be finished (we were last here in Jan 2014 and they hadn’t started) but it looks like they have been busy!  The metro line won’t really have any impact on us for a long time because according to the master plans it’ll be 2035? or something crazy before they build the line that gets us to the orphanage!  But anyway it was really cool to see how much construction has been done and how everything has already changed!

As we were looking, Mom had to awesome idea to go to the top of The Rex (the hotel where the press conference took place announcing the reunification of Vietnam in 1976.) which has an awesome rooftop bar!  We often would visit with Jemma (we miss you!) and it was a perfect location as it overlooked the entire construction area.

On the way up in the elevator we met a woman, Nancy, from Toronto and briefly chatted and then after we sat down Mom & I couldn’t tell if she said she was meeting a friend or her friend told her to visit The Rex so we asked if she was meeting anyone/wanted to join us and she did and it was fabulous!

She’s finishing up a 3-week tour in Vietnam and decided to venture out on her own (away from her group).  She’s traveled a fair amount so we had a lot of fun trading travel stories AND she seems like a person Mom & I could totally travel with!  It was a beautiful night so we had a great time.  While I don’t really miss staying in the tourist area (and especially the backpackers area) I do miss meeting people (Mom you’re fab don’t get me wrong) so it was so fun to meet someone new!

We walked back to the apartment (10 minutes maybe) and I have to say I was tired and a bit sore!  You don’t realize how much the kids drag you, jump on you (Bob) etc.  Tomorrow Long is going to come with us to the orphanage so we are both super excited about that!