Day 8, Saturday in Hanoi

The real estate in Hanoi is very expensive and all the buildings are long and narrow in the old quarter of Hanoi. This means, if you don’t have a room at the front of the hotel, your room will not have any windows. Our hotel room has no windows, so we did not have to sun to help wake us up. At one point, when everyone was stirring, we looked at P’s alarm clock and saw it was 1:30 in the morning. Remembering that the girls had been playing with it, we checked P’s watch and saw it was 9:00 in the morning. We had slept a much needed 12 hours.

By the time everyone was ready to leave the hotel it was 11 AM so we decided to walk to a nice restaurant called Sesame. When we arrived we were asked if we had reservations and we said no. They did not have room in the inside of the restaurant but did in the court yard outside. So we ate our lunch listening to the sounds of Hanoi. What a great Vietnamese experience. I highly recommend this restaurant for anyone coming to Hanoi. We will be back before we leave to go home.

After lunch we walked back to the hotel Vy holding P hand and Van holding T’s hand I was leading the way. The side walks are narrow and often there are scooters parked on the sidewalks and people sitting talking and eating making the area to walk very narrow if it exists at all. Many times we found ourselves walking on the street dodging scooters.

We arrived back at the hotel and it was time for the girls to take a nap and P to fill out the I 600 paperwork. P left and T and I tried to put the girls down for a nap. They would lie down and snuggle with T and soon fell fast asleep. T is a wonderful big brother or Ahn as the girls call him in Vietnamese. The girls just adore him as they soon will adore the two Ahns waiting at home to meet them.

When the twins woke up and P returned we decided to head out and see the Doug Xuan Market in the Old Quarter. It was a short distant from the hotel but again hard to maneuver the streets not only because of the scooters and people but because it was now approaching 5:30 PM and the streets were beginning to bustle with people coming home from work. When we arrived at the market, we discovered venders packing up their goods for the evening. We made a quick walk through and left to discover the streets of the Old Quarter. We would return during the weekday to see the market. On our excursion through the streets we happened upon a little grocery store that would sell YoMost and yogurt for the girls and drinks and treats for us. Our outing was done and we headed back to the Hotel and to find a place for supper. We decided to try the R&R restaurant. It is owned by an American man and his Vietnamese wife. They served western food in a bar like setting. The food was ok and the service was good but if you are craving hamburgers and Mexican cuisine it was an ok place to go but I would not go out of your way to eat there.

We took a taxi to the hotel with a driver that took no mercy on anyone or anything in his way going down the wrong way on streets and flashing his lights to have drivers get out of his way. We were very glad it was a short ride from the restaurant and that we made it to the hotel safely.

Our day ended with showers for the girls and to bed. It had been a very successful day. The girls are warming up to me one step at a time. We started to call them by their American names and they are catching on very quickly to responding to their new names. Both of them are calling Mama instead of Me (May). I think it is less confusing for them. They both have been successful in staying potty trained and letting us know in their own way when they have to go and have staying dry all the time. Let’s hope this continues. Every day is full of new discoveries and adventures for them and us. Both girls catch on very quickly to routines and understand quite a bit of what we say to them.