Home Again.

I am back in Richmond and fighting some fierce jet lag! I crashed last night, but woke up at 3 a.m. This is going to be an adjustment for sure! I returned to Richmond around 9 a.m. completing almost 40 hours from the time I left the hotel in Vietnam to arriving at our house. Ema smiled when she saw me coming in the airport. Gage handed her to me and she was a bit unsure for a while, then she was fine. We came home while Gage had to go to work. Both Ema and I fell asleep for a while. Good thing Gage called to wake us up!

My trip was truly amazing and I can't wait to go with Gage and Ema someday. There was so much to experience, see, taste and hear. It's still hard to imagine that I actually went to Vietnam!

I really enjoyed Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). We found that many of the people who live there still call it Saigon. It's a busy city like Hanoi, but just has a better feel about it. Hanoi felt like it was exploding at the seams and just felt crowded. Saigon feels busy like a city. A lot of Western influence there as well. We even saw where they were building a Pizza Hut and saw a Pizza Inn. Crazy!

The weather was definitely the hottest we experienced with tempteratures in the mid-90's! And the sun is much more intense. But it was nice to feel some summer-type temps!

Our first day there, we went to China Town and then we were transported by the cyclos. That was fun....hot, but fun. The poor guys had to cycle us around for almost an hour! But it was a great way to see the city -- and the crazy traffic. I'm amazed we survived to talk about it considering some of the traffic we came across. It was amazing. There's a rhyme and reason to it all and it was easier to understand when we wre right there with it. But it's still crazy. I have never in my life seen so many motorbikes!!

We also visted the big market and I had my two personal shopping assitants with me....our tour guide Dat, who lives in Saigon and our tour leader, Andrew, who used to work for our company in the Bangkok office and now works for a travel group. He is Thai. The two of them took me around the market to find the things I needed. This was som serious power shopping as we only had 45 minutes! Gage wanted the dried plums and I bought those for him. I bought 2 kilos....almost 4 1/2 pounds!! and I bought that much candy as well.....good thing they were there to carry my packages for me! I also got to sample the various candies as I was trying to pick them out.

Our dinner was at a Chinese restuarant.....we had a few Chinese restaurants we ate at during the trip. One of the first dishes they brought us was basically the guts of a pig. Our tour leader quickly sent that back saying that the Americans would never eat that...he was right!! As usual, our meal was family style. We all got used to that....and using our chop sticks as well. The chop sticks were messy at times, but we all did it! Usually about half-way through the meal the would subtly bring us all forks.

On Sunday, one of the sponsors and I ventured out to the address given to me that Gage grew up in. We couldn't find the exact house number, but had two possibilities. Gage looked at the photos and said one did look familiar. I'm interested to show his Aunt Lucy the photos now! It was an interesting adventure for us. We walked through the narrow alley with motorbikes zipping by us. No tour guides to help us out. We found a pharmacist who spoke english and helped direct us. And then we found a lady (my new friend) who helped us as well. We didn't knock on the door, she came out to help us. It was very sweet! And honestly, we could have stayed there all day....I don't think she wanted us to leave! It was exciting to see the area and to show it to Gage! Tom, the sponsor who was with me, really enjoyed it as well. He said it was one of the highlights for him. We were seeing how people really lived. There were no tourists and definitely no Westerners. Our cab took us to meet the rest of the group at lunch....another buffet.

After lunch, the bus took Tom and I and two of my colleagues to the lacquer factory that we missed that morning. the factory employs disabled people to do the work. It was amazing to see it...especially the egg shell....for which they move each little piece of egg shell around.

In the afternoon, people had free time and we engaged in some more power shopping before heading to the beautiful rooftop bar for some drinks. Our dinner was on a dinner cruise boat. It was three-levels tall and just filled with tourists...mostly Chinese.

No Angelina sightings in Saigon. I would have never known she was there if people from the U.S. had not told me!

Our flights returned with no problems. It was a lot of travel, but I was so happy to be home again!

As I said, the trip was amazing! I have tons of photos that I will work on sharing in the next few days!

take care.