Day 3: Saigon

Jet lag finally got the best of us, and we slept off and on all afternoon and evening yesterday. We completely skipped dinner. No surprise then that I was wide awake by 5am and wishing I had access to some coffee. I managed to drag mom to breakfast as soon as it opened at 6am.

Breakfast is a very fascinating thing. For starters, its more like dinner. The primary foods available are Pho (a noodle soup) and fried rice. French bread with butter and jam is also available and there are a few different fruits to choose from as well. This morning, I had a very interesting concoction that was 1/2 tea, 1/2 coffee (mind you, that was my own fault, because I picked up the wrong pot). This is hardly a Vietnamese traditional gift.

At breakfast we met the 2nd of the three families that will be traveling with us. This family just completed their G&R on Saturday. Now, they will wait in Saigon for us to complete our G&R and then we will all travel up to Hanoi.

After breakfast, we had orientation with a representative from the agency. She talked us through the schedule for the rest of the trip. I think, however, that I already blogged about this, so I'll skip the repeat. The most important part is that tomorrow is the day we meet the kids!!! We leave here at 8am.

I am told that it is unlikely we will have internet access in the province--so you should expect radio silence from Monday until Tuesday.


After orientation, we headed to the local "mall". It was similar to the market and yet very obviously western. Many of the same types of things were available -- lacquer plates and boxes, art work, clothing, chop sticks, figurines-- but whereas the market was a huge single story complex with a ceiling but no real partitions, the "mall" looked like a mall. It had three stories, escalators, stores, a coffee shop, and bathrooms. And it was air conditioned. Mind you, in any given "store" there were individual sections that functioned like market stalls. Each section had its own sales person and they were almost as persistent as the market sales people.


At the mall, we purchased some donations for the care center as well as some souvenirs to bring home. The sales people were determined to help, but had only a limited number of English phrases at their disposal. Several times, I had to pull out my phrase book to assist with communication. The sales people seemed fascinated with the book. Two of them actually asked to look at it. The best moment came when I was trying to help the other family in their search for postcards. I pulled out the book, we located the word, and when we showed it to the lady, she laughed, took the book, showed it to another lady, they both laughed, and then they finally found a third who pointed us in the right direction. When we crossed paths with these ladies 10 minutes later, they took one look at us and started laughing again. We are at a complete loss as to why "postcard" is funny, but we laughed because they were laughing.



In around the day's activities we have unpacked and repacked just about everything we own. We are going to maintain this room while we are out in the province, which means we don't have to take everything with us. Instead, we packed our smaller suitcases with just the things we'll need for our 36 hour excursion. It is amazing though, that with all we have bought in the past 24 hours, if we had to head home right now, we simply would not have the suitcase space to take it all. Mind you, once we make the donations to the care center, balance should be restored.

I just want to say thanks for all the comments. Reading your comments is as fun for us as you say reading the blog is for you.