Arrived in Vietnam!

I am in Vietnam now! It was a lot of travel to get here, but now I am here and amazed.

My journey to Hanoi began in Richmond on Thursday. My flight was delayed 1 1/2 hours. When I arrived in Washington Dulles (a short 20 minute flight) I sprinted to my next gate and literally walked on to the plane. Whew. It was close! The plane was super small. I watched the movie "Happy Feet" and read a book. I was tired, but held off the urge to sleep as I knew I needed to save that up for the next flight. I arrived in LA around 7 p.m. Pacific time. It took forever to get my luggage. When I finally did, I had to locate a cart and then wheel my way to the International Terminal. Once there, I got all checked in and finally found my gate (about two hours after I had arrived at LAX). Most of our group was already there.

The flight to LA was long! I slept on and off for the first eight hours. I watched the movie "A Night at the Museum", read the rest of my book, watched "Extremem Home Makeover" and some other random TV. We had both dinner and breakfast served on the plane. Dinner was chicken, but I was too tired to really eat it. And breakfast was fritatta or a Vietnamese soup, which I did not have. I was lucky in that I had a window seat...much easier to sleep leaning against the window! And, the middle seat was open so I could spread out some. We were able to watch the route we were taking...for some reason we flew all the way up near Alaska, across the Bering Sea and then down the coast of Russia, Japan, Korea and China.

We arrived in Hong Kong without a problem. It was foggy and overcast, so I could not see anything at all. We then followed with a quick flight to Hanoi and had another breakfast on the flight. There was a little girl on the plane who was about 2. Looking at her, I could see that Ema is half-Vietnamese. This little girl had the same face structure and lips as Ema, although Ema definitely looks more mixed.

Going through customs in Vietnam was interesting. We had to talk with military personnel and they definitely looked the part of communist military. One sponsor was almost sent back to the U.S. as she misplaced her passport. But it was found on the plane, thankfully.

We had a one-hour bus ride to our hotel in Hanoi. all I can say is traffic is complete insanity. There are crazy motorbikes everywhere and people honk just to honk. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the traffic patterns. Crazy! There were just motorbikes all over! The homes we saw were mostly cond-style and built tall and skinny. They are only painted on the front. In Hanoi itself, we saw many different buildings with a French influence. We also saw a plaque commemorating the first downed American plane in the Vietnam war. We do have a Vietnam vet on the trip. He was stationed on a boat off the coast.

Our lunch was wonderful....best fried springs rolls I've ever had! We had crab and mushroom soup, then the spring rolls along with bun noodles and herbs, then fish with five spices, beef and rice for the main course and ice cream and black sticky rice for dessert. Now, we are going to eat dinner in 15 minutes! I took a long shower after lunch and then fell asleep for two hours. I had to drag myself out of bed. I'm exhuasted! But I should sleep well tonight and get on Vietnam's schedule by tomorrow, hopefully. We have a big day of touring tomorrow.

Observations so far is that Hanoi seems like a very busy city! Our hotel is really modern. Everyone speaks Englisgh at the hotel. There are so many different shops. One of our tour guides who is from the area said most of those shops weren't there before the 90's because of the communist presence (of the Russians, I believe). But Vietnam is still communist. There is a lot of different architecture here, so that is interesting. Our hotel is filled with amazing artwork and we're hoping to find the gallery that sells it all. It's still shocking to me that I am here! I can't get over that fact! I am really looking forward to sightseeing tomorrow. It should be amazing. But right now, I am really looking forward to going back to sleep! :)

Gage is going to call me around 10 a.m. Richmond time, which will be 10 p.m. here. It's the first I will be able to talk to him! It's the longest stretch I've gone without talking to him! I do miss them already and I can't wait for Gage to come here someday. It's truly amazing!

I will try to post each night after dinner. I know we have free Internet access here in Hanoi. Not sure after that. But I know there will be a lot to tell regardless.

take care.