Day 2 - browsing, hotel, supper

Pictures as we browsed and walked around the old quarter of HaNoi...which is also the part of the city where we are staying. 

First one is of Mom with some flowers, of course!  Second one is of me carrying fruit & wearing a hat like a Vietnamese woman.  A street hawker came up and plopped it on my shoulders with a laugh and John & Mom took pictures.  Afterwards, she shoved a bag of pineapple in my hands and demanded 150,000 from John.  That would be about $7.25USD.  Waaaaay too expensive for just that.  But this was on our first day and was one of the experiences that helped to wisen us up, and so we call this my $5.00 picture and then enjoyed eating the pineapple for supper. :)

In the afternoon as we walked, we found the old Claudia Hotel where we stayed for both adoption trips.  We were excited to see Mrs. Thuy again and visit with her for awhile.  She closed down the hotel shortly after we had adopted Jesse & Joy 12 years ago because her husband died.  She did not want to sit around and have so much time to think & miss him, so she opened a clothing shop instead to keep busy.  She now travels a lot to Bangkok, China, and many other places to buy the clothing for her store. 

After 7 hours of walking around the old quarter, shopping,

getting our first tastes of VietNam, we were all soooo exhausted!!!

We crashed at the hotel for an hour before we went over to the homestay for supper.

Here are pictures of a room & bathroom in the

Rising Dragon Hotel where we are staying.

Needless to say, we are all very thankful for these rooms!

They are clean, the AC works, and we have

water, western style toilets, and an elevator!

Here is a picture of the staircase at the hotel...

it can become a bit cluttered when taking the stairs.

Here is the street that the homestay is on: the bamboo street

People park their bikes right on the sidewalk and sit in small

plastic chairs along the sidewalk.  Many times, pedestrians must

walk in the streets because there is no more room on the sidewalks.

Our First Supper in VietNam!

This was a type of welcoming meal.  Together with us at the table was a single older gentleman who has been in VietNam for a few weeks and is staying for a bit longer; twin sister & brother and their friend from England; and the homestay family.  Binh, the homestay father, spoke about many Vietnamese traditions regarding food, chopstick etiquette, and traditional customs at the table.  There were many types and tastes of foods and for the most part, we enjoyed them all.

A friendly? gecko decided to grace us with his presence during supper.

We got to watch him stalk a spider and then zip down the wall to catch and eat it.

Of course, we are told that they are more afraid of us than we are of them....