Jack at the Teddy Eco Village
posted by Ingrid John Jack & Amber Vietnam adventures at 6:07 PM
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Shirane San Lake
Jack and Jiji
posted by Ingrid John Jack & Amber Vietnam adventures at 5:42 PM
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posted by Ingrid John Jack & Amber Vietnam adventures at 6:44 PM
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Our sixth update - Happy Birthday to Jack
Once again it has been a very busy time for all of us. The focus of the last month has been the visit from John’s parents Reg and Noelene or Nanny and Poppy if you are Jack and Amber. Reg and Noelene spent nearly 2 weeks here with us and managed to visit most of the main attractions around Hanoi including the Museum of Ethnology, the Army Museum, the Water Puppets and of course lots of shopping in the Old Quarter. I guess their purchase of a couple of extra suitcases is testimony to the choice of souvenirs and great buys to be found in Vietnam.
Whilst Nanny and Poppy were here visiting we took a couple of days break and headed off to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is on the world heritage list and is absolutely stunning. It is an archipelago of more than 2 thousand rocky outcrops scattered amongst blue seas and loads of small boats. The area has become extremely popular in the last decade and there are scores of boats moored around the area each night filled with tourists checking out the sights. We took two nights and three days and cruised around the area with our friends the Butterfields. We visited some caves on a couple of the larger islands and also had a visit to a small village on one of the islands. The visit gave Reg and Noelene a great opportunity to view rural life in one of the more remote areas of Vietnam.
The main focus other than this was of course the 2nd birthday celebrations for Jack.
We had a wonderful party for Jack with about 15 of his friends from kindergarten and their parents too. At this age I can assure you – you cannot do without the parents in attendance to assist with the basics, feeding, nappy changes and general security blanket type requirements!
The morning was great weather for the fishing game we set up outside with blue water, small rods and little fish to catch (not real of course!). The children loved it and every time they caught a fish they could have a lucky dip into the barrels for girls and boys and collect a small prize – Barbie make-up cases for the girls and small trucks and cars for the boys. Jack ended up in the bucket at the end of the party - great way to cool off on a warm day.
We had all the typical party food with fairy bread, jellied oranges, baby frankfurts, sandwiches and fruit kebabs along with a “tigger” cake that was selected due to Jack’s love of tigers and being also in the class named “tigers” at school. Many hours of hard work went into the construction of the Tigger cake but it was much appreciated with a wow from Jack and oohs and ahhs from the rest of the crowd. A fun day was had by all and Jack certainly received many lovely birthday presents from all the family and friends. Amongst the many cars and trucks he received was also a parking garage, swim vest, new boots, clothes, bath crayons, dvd’s, a bubble extinguisher, magnetic Bob the Builder dress up for the fridge, books, blocks, tenpin bowls, abc flip a blocks and I am sure I forgotten one or two of the others too!
For those of you who know I love trivia competitions you will understand that I was greatly looking forward to attending the Hanoi Oi’s Netball Club Trivia Night. The club is quite social and they do actually play netball sometimes too, not that I participate in that side of things. They organized a great night out with around 150 people attending, loads of good questions, seriously tough competition and some terrific prizes to compete for. Our team, sadly, did not win but we did have a great night and possibly enjoyed one or two more drinks than we should have – this is of course, our excuse for not winning!
I guess in all children’s young lives a visit to the circus is somewhat mandatory and as there is not a vast array of children’s entertainment available we decided to take Jack and Amber along to the Hanoi Circus. It is a permanent fixture here in Hanoi and is considered to be of a good quality. I loved the acrobatics of which it was mostly made up of but I wasn’t so keen on the animals performing tricks. I will say that there didn’t seem to be any cruelty and the children all really loved it. There were monkeys, elephants, dogs and goats doing their tricks but the elephants were definitely the most talented and amusing of the group.
We recently attended the United Nations International School Spring Fair which promised many games for children and a great selection of international foods. As always UNIS does a terrific job with these events and it was really well organized and plenty of entertainment for even the little children. Our cookbook was on sale and we all did our time on the stand selling it to make sure we managed to sell our minimum amount to break even on the project. We managed to sell 250 of the books and now everything else after this is profit for the school. We hope they will spend it on something related to cooking for the children.
About 5 weeks ago now my cooking classes commenced and I had such a great response to the program that I had to run a second class at the same time. I now teach three hours each Wednesday and Friday. The girls and one man are incredibly enthusiastic, loads of fun and a real pleasure to teach. They ask thoughtful questions and as my maid Chau translates all the recipes into Vietnamese for me we do not have too many language barriers to inhibit the learning process. We have made some true classics including sticky date pudding, bread and butter pudding, white chocolate and raspberry tart and just this week, mini Pavlovas. Of course we have been making main courses too but I think the girls love the desserts much more. They are always very excited to know what we will cook the next week and are a little sad that they will finish next week. I have had made some certificates of attendance for them which they are very excited to be receiving as education is very much revered here and any opportunity they are given to improve themselves is wholeheartedly embraced. I too have thoroughly enjoyed teaching them and the experience has been very rewarding for me. If we are to stay here longer I shall consider running the classes again after the summer break. I may even consider doing some classes during summer school for the children which would be focused on a different style of cooking – pizza’s, cakes and biscuits I think!
Following a bit of encouragement from a few of my friends I have begun writing a couple of regular articles for the Hanoi International Women’s Club monthly magazine. One of them is titled "Save My Kitchen – Save My Day" and is a column that I answer food and cooking related questions from the readers. I get a few questions each month and enjoy doing the research on those questions I can’t answer immediately. I have found some great recipes for using local ingredients too. The other is titled Gourmet Travel and is a one page short article on something related to food and travel. My first "The essence of cooking" was about the smells and types of food found all around the world that really remind you of a particular place and the next was "The Art of Airline Dining" about airline food which was a bit of a comical appraisal of the tragic level of food and service on most airlines. My next article will focus on the interesting interpretations of menus from the native tongue into English - something that amuses me around the world!
The little miss of the household has progressed to the next stage of her babyhood development and is now cruising the furniture and standing with some support quite comfortably. She has recently begun saying “mama” too and sounds really adorable. She is very social and loves it when the maids are here for cooking lessons as she gets a lot of extra attention from the girls. She adores her big brother and copies everything she can from him - good and bad! She is assisting Jack with the valuable lesson of "sharing"!!
Following his birthday when he received a shiny new tennis racquet, John has recently taken up lessons which is a great stress release and fitness activity for him. It is great as his job with Nortel is quite stressful and there isn’t much time for him to just do whatever he likes. He bounces out of bed early three mornings a week and heads of to the court, the other days he has been doing some swimming as we are fortunate enough to have an Olympic sized pool just a few doors away from our home.
We had a couple of adult birthdays to celebrate in the last months also. Kath Butterfield had her birthday and the girls enjoyed a lunch out, followed by an evening at the “Emperor” which is said to be one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in Hanoi. Bob Tilbury who is the husband of my friend Gayle turned 40 and we all enjoyed a great party at one of the café’s near home with plenty of good bbq food, loads to drink and great music, along with lots of good people; a fantastic night was had by all – a fantastic hangover was also had by all the next day!
The weather has been fairly warm here in the last month or so with some days topping the charts at around 40c and with the humidity it has made it pretty sticky. The kids have enjoyed their wading pool and I have been grateful for the air-conditioning, particularly when I am doing the cooking classes.
We are heading off to Japan for about 10 days holiday next week and I in particular, am very excited as this is a destination that I have had on my “must visit” list for some years but never been able to afford to get there. Now we are a little closer and have an R & R trip due we are going to take advantage of it and see a little of Japan. We will visit Tokyo, Kyoto, Mt Fuji ,Nagano and the alp areas. We will also take the opportunity to visit some old friends of John’s from his time spent living in Japan and catch up with his cousin Gillian who is currently living in Tokyo. So our next blog update will be filled with our travels of Japan.
Our fifth update - so much seems to have happened in the last month!
I must say life does seem to have been very busy this last month or so. My mum has just returned to Australia after a two week visit with us here in Hanoi. It was lovely to have her and the children enjoyed seeing their granny. We spent lots of time playing games and having fun with granny, not to mention a couple of nice lunches with special mango milkshakes for Jack! Mum took advantage of the local tailors and had a lovely new skirt, shirt and jacket made for her for a mere $50! and it looks lovely too.
We took a visit to the Hanoi zoo, which for anyone who has visited a zoo in a 3rd world or communist country you will know that these places are like our zoos were in the 1950's. Jack enjoyed seeing the monkeys, elephants, tigers (Jack's favourites) and bears but we adults were somewhat appalled at the state of the cages and the fact that visitors were still allowed to throw all sorts of food into the cages and at the animals. The place was more of a circus than a zoo with all manner of rides for children (most of them looking dodgily unsafe!) and even monkeys tied up for petting by the children - we didn't pet them as they didn't really look like you would want to touch them.
We all took a family weekend break with a visit to Sapa in the north west of Vietnam. Sapa is truly beautiful with scenery not typical of much of Vietnam. The area is very mountainous and is quite close to the border of China. The weather is cooler than Hanoi and has a shroud of fog over it for much of the time. The local people are the minority tribes of Vietnam and are known as the H'mong with sub tribes of these groups in each village. Their dress is quite spectacular, each village having a different colour and design and very different to the people of the cities. They sell lots of tapestries, embroidered hats and other trinkets and make their living from farming and raising ducks and pigs. Jack, Mum, John and his workmate Barry took a morning walk with the H'mong guide for around 3 hours and saw much of the country side and the local villagers. Amber and I were not quite up to the long trek, especially as I was unwell with a nasty cold. We took the train from Hanoi to Lao Cai just near Sapa and that was certainly an experience I don't want to repeat too soon with children! The small bunks were not very comfortable for an adult with a small child tucked safely into the wall side of the bed, the rattling of the wheels and the constant stops along the way made for a long tiring trip arriving at 6am in the morning. Still, I guess all these experiences are good to look back on later, however I could hardly say we were excited about the trip home again on the train!
Jack is really enjoying his kindergarten and will be going 5 days a week from the start of the next term in early April. This should be good as each day he gets out his little backpack and puts it at the door ready to go off to school! Jack is also starting to say many different words and even string some together to form a sentance or two, although at times it is difficult to discern what it is he is saying to us.
Amber is finally sleeping through the night all the time now and has started crawling and wanting to stand up as much as possible. She just wants to be like her brother and ride around on the "pooh car" at a million miles per hour. We are lucky we have such a large space for such car racing activities! Next thing she will wanting to go to school with him. She has progressed from puree to lumpy food now and loves sultanas for snacks. The only challenge with eating we have is that Amber prefers to blow raspberries whilst she has food in her mouth resulting in everyone within a metre radius ending up covered in her food - not very lady-like I say!
I have been busy as always. We have now completed the UNIS cookbook after we conducted a pre-cooking day here at our house. Yes, I am sure you thinking "what is goodness's name am I thinking to have children cooking at my house"! Pictured above, we had 8 children aged from 4 - 13 years old who came and made 9 different dishes and then all sat down to eat them for lunch. They made snacks, pizzas, soup, meatballs, potato fritters, chocolate chip cookies and some special "Banh Troi" which are Vietnamese sweets called "flotating cakes" in English. It was a great day, all the dishes were sucessful and the cookbook team got through a monumental pile of washing up and took hundreds of photos for the book too. The book is now getting printed and we will be selling it at the upcoming Spring Fair held at the school. (so now you know what you will be getting for next Christmas from me). It has been a great experience to work on such a project and I have really enjoyed and learned a lot too. Our team, above, will have a celebrationary lunch after the book is delivered.
Just so I don't get too complacement with my spare time after finishing that project, I have taken a role as the Advertising Co-ordinator for the Hanoi International Women's Club monthly publication. I look after all the businesses and individuals who place ads each month for goods and services. This is giving me a great chance to work with Microsoft Publisher and it will add to my computer skills for the future.
Following our cooking day I also had a lot of people asking for me to teach their maids to cook western style meals so I put a proposal to UNIS to conduct a course in the next term. They have accepted my proposal and I shall be conducting a one day a week course for 6 weeks with 6 maids coming to our house to learn western cooking. I have devised a series of menus incorporating meals that you could have everyday or make for a special occassion. I shall really look forward to sharing my passion for cooking with the attendees. I have also put a proposal forward to conduct some cooking lessons for 10 - 15 year old children during their summer school holidays. Apparantly many of the children do not travel home during this time and are looking for ways to fill their two month break from school. Based on the enthusiasm I saw with the pre-cooking day I believe I will have quite a lot of interest in this too. I hope so as I will be very happy to teach children the art of cookery. So my first paid work in Vietnam will commence!
In the spirit of our previous theme of bringing you one or two classics from the Vietnamese language interpretations into English we have a lovely menu John enjoyed on a visit to Danang for business. I know he feels that I sometimes give him this for dinner but you will all know that is just no so! It is great to note that the environmental awareness of eating endangered species is alive and well......
I have also begun my Vietnamese language lessons. My teacher Ms. Hanh comes each week for two hours and then I do my best to practice the rest of the week. I do quite well at the market with buying things and getting the prices and can tell you how old my children are, what they like and don't like, order a meal and tell you where I come from. So far, so good, but it is definately a difficult language with six tones and a grammar structure more like German than English. So Xin Ciao, Chi co banh mi khong? to you all - that is hello and do you have bread? Of course I look forward to being able to conduct more of a conversation in the future!
Recently the government opened the Hanoi Citadel for a few weeks giving the public the opportunity to view General Giap's bunker. General Giap was the head of the North Vietnam Army and the bunker was the centre of operations during the war for the NVA. We saw the South Vietnam Army operations when we were in Saigon, but this one was much smaller and less equiped than the south. It obviously didn't affect their ability to conquer the Americans though! The citadel has some lovely old buildings and houses some wonderful treasures from the past also. It was a great opportunity to see things we would otherwise not have the chance to do. John, in particular, enjoyed it immensely.
I went on a 1/2 day tour with the girls from the Australia/New Zealand group and we toured a tapestry making factory. The factory, beyond our expectations was housed in a lovely building with magnificent grounds more suited to a palace home than a working environ. The girls were all lined up strapped into these archaic looking weaving looms, some with the old Russian pattern cards assisting the changing of the various loom sections, others were completely manually changed by the operator. Their feet and arms shuffled the wooden beams underneath like some sort of complex aerobic routine. They worked bent over the looms, totally focussed on their tassles and braids without much more than a basic light above them in what would be termed "Victorian" in our country but was considered to be quite good conditions here. Like nearly everywhere you go the people were still smiling and genuinely looked contented with their lot. I have visited other places where pottery is made and the smiles are always on the faces of the workers.
The month of February could'nt pass without celebrations for John's birthday. The lucky fella managed to make it last nearly a week. He begun with a pancake breakfast, a special family dinner with chocolate mousse cake and raspberries and finished the week with a dinner party for 14 friends. I of course worked solidly for 2 days preparing all the meals for the buffet dinner including osso bucco, pesto salad, goats cheese tart, potato bake, salads, sticky date pudding and a white chocolate marscapone with fresh raspberry tart for desserts. I can safely say I would have paid quite a lot of money for a dishwashing machine if there were one to buy that night!
John got a world map framed and a tennis racket for his gifts. The tennis racket should come in good use when he begins some coaching he has wanted to do for some time. It should give him a good opportunity to get some fitness in as a relief from the long working hours he does.
Our fourth update - Chuc Mung Nam Moi - that's Happy New Year (Tet) in Vietnamese!
We have just experienced our first Tet celebrations. It is now the Year of the Dog 2006! The preparations and traditions that go along with Tet are certainly something to see. The sense of excitement is something else and no one seems to care about anything except Tet. The street near our home was full of small, beautifully manicured mandarin and cumquat trees ready for sale. Now that Tet has passed and they are all sold it looks quite bare. The tradition is for each family to buy a tree for their home, bringing prosperity to the household. The other main road leading to our home is home to the flower markets and was jam packed with the traditional peach and plum blossom trees and branches abloom for sale everywhere. Along with bunches of all sorts of beautiful flowers there were magnificent Singapore orchids for sale also, it was tempting to buy many of the arrangements. It really was so very pretty to see. The people selling their wares at this time literally camped on the roadside during the week before Tet.
It is expected that all families will get together at this time of the year and celebrate just as we do at Christmas with lots of special foods and gifts for the children. Children are given "lucky money" red envelopes and children give their parents gifts of food, wine and cigarettes to be shared and offered to guests when visiting on the first day of the new year. Lots of time is spent by the women in the family doing the "spring clean" of the house in preparation. It is a time to clear old debts and start afresh for the new year to come. We gave our driver and maid a special basket of goodies and their children lucky money envelopes as part of the celebrations.
Amber and Jack did their bit by giving some of their excess toys to the "Toys for Tet" appeal for the needy children in the poorer parts of Hanoi.
As just about everything shuts down during the Tet celebrations we decided to take a well earned break (well John earned it anyway!) We headed south to the warmth of Phu Quoc Island off the coast of Vietnam and close to Cambodia. The island is relatively unspoiled and has many lovely beaches. We stayed in a nice resort with a lovely pool and beach side accommodation. Both Jack and Amber loved the water and we all loved having the sun on us and not having to do anything at all. We took a tour to see the north of the island and a veiw of neighbouring Cambodia at the same time. I certainly enjoyed not having to cook for a change and we indulged in plenty of great seafood dishes that were the local speciality. John took a motorbike ride one afternoon and had a good look around the south part of the island, taking in the sights of the beaches and some little villages. As always with travel, one can find a great example of the English language interpretation and we think this one is a classic!
Whilst we were away on holiday Amber reached another of her milestones in her babyhood. She cut her first two teeth at the bottom front and she also sat up unassisted for a few moments - long enough for Daddy to take a photograph anyway.
Amber is still enjoying her mother's group friends and I am certainly enjoying the friendship too. We recently took an afternoon tour to a nearby ceramic village. Many of the shops in town are supplied by this village and it was nice to look around where they make the goods. I bought a small milk jug and sugar bowl - I am still searching for the "perfect" teapot, believe it or not it is hard to find just the right size, shape and colour that I want.
Recently, John had to go to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) for business and we were lucky enough to be able to go along with him. On reflection I am sure John would have preferred to have had a seat to himself on the plane; rather than sharing with Jack who will eat all your meal, drink all your drinks and generally annoy the passenger in front with the constant opening and closing of the tray table. Mmmmm....travelling with children (what fun!) We all stayed at the Renaissance Hotel by the Saigon River which was really lovely. The city is really quite different to Hanoi, it is more westernised and definately less Communist feeling but seems to lack the historical type culture that is present in Hanoi. It has a distinct vibe of excitement to it and the trafffic is heavier but seems more orderly or trained in the western style of staying to one side of the road and waiting at red lights!
Whilst we were in Saigon we visited the Reunification Palace which was very interesting. We had a guided tour and there was much to see of the previous South Vietnamese leadership. The building has a cavernous basement area where the "American War" was managed from. We saw the tank that famously crashed through the front entry gates of the Palace when the North Vietnamese Army arrived to take over.
Our UNIS cookbook is coming along well and we are at the final editing of recipes stage and close to launching into our pre-cooking and photography stage. We will have some of the children participate in the pre-cooking session to be held at our house. We will photograph them doing the cutting and preparation tasks and hopefully the finished results will be good enough to photograph too. The activity book is nearly complete and ready to go to print which is a great achievement for the whole team. It is amazing how much work goes into the production of a recipe book. It has been a great learning experience for me, in particular, the international recipes submitted from the parents are full of new ingredients and I have some new ideas for our meals at home.
Jack is still enjoying his time at kindergarten and has just recently started to say a few words - dirty, dog, danger, oh dear and more (food) are some of the frequently used. He does tell you that the dog says "oof oof" some of the time too. He seems to really enjoy the singing and art at kindy and gets his little back pack out each day ready to set off on our walk to school.
We are all looking forward to Granny coming to visit in early March, particularly Jack and Amber who will have another dedicated attention resource. We will be taking a couple of days holiday together to Sapa, in the north of Vietnam to have a look at the wonderful scenery and visit some of the local minority tribal villages of the H'Mong people. I am sure John will take some wonderful photos for us to add to the blogsite.
Our third update - It's Christmas and New Year 2006:
Well we certainly have been busy over the last month since I last updated our blog site so here goes with all the latest news and photos!
Thankfully all our personal things have finally arrived from Australia and we are able to make our house a little more like a home and Jack was delighted to see all his toys arrive safely. He was quite concerned some one in customs may take a liking to his Pooh car however, everything we shipped arrived safely and in one piece.
I have joined the Friends of Vietnam Heritage group and recently attended a food tour which consisted of a small but dedicated foody group eating our way around the "old quarter" and Dong Xuan market area for the whole of a Saturday morning. Amber came along with me in the baby carrier too. It was great to sample some of the local street food and specialities that were on offer - some of them were too extreme for my tastes - yes I put a stop to eating snake wine before midday! I did however taste a great pancake filled with mushrooms and insect juice and then some sweet and preserved fruits which were lovely. The organisation also offers spiritual sessions, historical and architectural tours and viewing of off beat Vietnamese films and theatre so I hope I will be able to see much more in the future.
I have been busily working on the Activity book for the UNIS International Cookbook and our team will be presenting our final draft of the book this week for approval prior to print production. I have now "mastered" MS Publisher and have been able to create crosswords, workfinds, mazes and lots of other learning activities associated with the art of cooking for young ones. We are madly collecting the recipes from the parents of the school and will begin the formatting of the recipe book in the next few weeks. We are adding in information on cultural celebrations and typical table manners so it is proving to be interesting for us also.
John has been working long hours on his project and we are heading down to Siagon (Ho Chi Minh City) next week to join him whilst he works on another aspect of the project. He is enjoying the challenge but I am sure I spotted a couple of grey hairs it is giving him! Still he has been getting plenty of photo opportunites on our tourist visits.
Jack participated in his first Christmas school concert for the end of the year. Dad was wondering all the time just how they might get a group of 20 month old children to sit in one place at one time let alone produce a song or two! Congratulations to the teachers who achieved this and got Jack to take on the role of the little drummer boy and drum along madly to Jingle Bells and Merry Christmas to you even if he didnt quite keep in tune all the time. A good time was had by all and we were certainly the proud parents.
For those of you whom did not see Amber and Jack's Christmas card doing it Vietnam style you can now view them in their cute little conical hats.
We also attended the British Embassy Christmas Party which was held on the terrace of the Hanoi Hilton Opera Hotel. A lovely venue and a great night with Christmas Carols, traditional food and Santa giving out presents to the children. Most of our friends went along for the evening and we all had a good time.
Jack attended his first official birthday party at an Australian friend named Finn who turned four this year. There was lots of fun and games, food and other kids to play with. A good time was had by all although Jack didn't quite understand the concept of pass the parcel, no doubt it won't be far away until he does though.
Amber has graduated onto solid food in the last month and is enjoying apples, pumpkin and zuccini so far. Initially I was having some difficulty in getting her to eat and was becoming frustrated on one occassion so I put the food down and went back to my other tasks. I returned a few minutes later to find Jack competently feeding Amber with the spoon and what's more, Amber was eating it! Sometimes it is worth leaving the tough jobs to the kids!
For those of you who know how difficult it can be to get a baby to take a bottle, we have finally after many trying months got Amber to take a bottle of formula - woo hoo!! now I can take a break from feeding every once in a while and we hope that the extra food may get her to sleep longer in the evenings as she is still waking every four hours for feeding - very exhausting after nearly 6 months.
Fortunately Santa is a wise old guy and managed to find us here in Hanoi, we put up our tree and decorated it together, put our stockings over the fire place and just knew that Santa would know where Jack and Amber lived. Jack decided to practice the art of chimney sweeping just to make sure there would be a clean entrance for Santa.
Amber is fast becoming a real little girl and has her first doll for Christmas from Granny amongst many other presents she also received from Santa and other relatives.
Jack received his first tricycle from Santa this year and is very happy with it, it includes a special basket to carry Teddy (affectionately known as Eddy - Jack can't say "t" yet) and lots of bells and lights at the front to make good noise with. Jack also go many other presents from Santa and relatives this year too.
We had a traditional "US" style Christmas lunch this year and were joined by our Australian friends the Butterfields and their three boys. We ordered in our turkey and trimmings from a local restaurant. I had very little work to do on the day. What a great idea I say! Kath made a wonderful chocolate pudding with real chocolate sauce and we had fresh prawns from the market for entree. Lunch which was enjoyed by all!
We had our first official visitors to stay just after Christmas. Jane and Kevin stayed for around a week and we joined them on some of their tourist ventures. We all went along to visit Ho Chi Minh however the children were not allowed to enter so just myself, Jane and Kevin made the pilgrimage to Uncle Ho. The building is certainly austere and you definately get a sense of the communistic order as you are not allowed to speak, get out of line, dilly dally or ask "is he really dead" when you pass by his casket. He is guarded by around 40 sentries at all points and the mausoleum is sterile and cold as you would expect of this type of place. The grounds around are beautifully manicured and his home is simple and wonderfully preserved. The original timber woodwork is magnificent and it is certainly a very meagre surround for such a person of note.
We also visited the Cho Hom market for a taste of the Vietnamese style home market where you can purchase all sorts of fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood (live and dead), dried unidentified objects, homewares and ready to eat tasty snacks. We all sat down for a few "nem" the rice paper rolls filled with dried beef, fresh and vegetables and enjoyed them immensely, taking in the hustle and bustle of the place. Jack managed to eat 2 himself and only stopped because I didn't give him anymore. Jack seems to be showing traits of eating whatever comes past him, tasting first and then asking what it is! One of his favorite fruits are the small sweet mandarins which can be found just about everywhere for around 1.50 per kilo and they have no seeds - his record for consumption is 6 in one minute!
We all took a quiet afternoon out to visit the Hanoi botanical gardens which must the only place in the world that one can fish in the ponds - I have certainly never seen this anywhere else in the world. The gardens are very pretty and have lots of flowers and birds and plenty of peace and quiet - not something found easily in this city. Our family photo was taken there - only a shame that Amber fell asleep at that very moment. The one of Jack in front of the flowers shows just some of the beauty of the gardens.
We all went to see the Hanoi Water Puppets one evening which a beautiful show with traditional music and puppets set in the water. It is quite different and is one of the most traditional arts to see in Hanoi.
We certainly enjoyed many good nights out at great little Vietnamese restuarants and loved having visitors, so come on all you other freinds and rellies - come and stay.
Jane and Kevin joined us for our New Years Eve celebrations which we held at our house inviting around 10 of our friends to come for drinks and nibbles. A very nice night was had by all and it gave us a good chance to get to know some of our new friends a little better and charge in the new year without having to worry about getting home.
Thanks Jane and Kevin for coming to stay with us, it was a real pleasure to see you both and I shall look forward to hearing about the rest of your travels down south and to Cambodia - we wish you safe travels and much fun.
We visited the Museum of Ethnology recently to learn more about the diverse ethnic groups that make up the Vietnamese populations and to see some of the different types of housing that are used throughout the country. The museum has life size replicas of the housing set in large open garden spaces which are great for exploring. As we have often found, Jack and Amber become the star attractions for the locals which can be a little overbearing at times but they don't seem to be too fazed by it.
With the coming Vietnamese New Year celebrations (TET) in late January we have booked a family holiday to an island called Phu Quoc. It is in the Gulf of Thailand and a province of Vietnam. We are told that almost everything in Hanoi shuts down for the TET holiday and naturally our maid and driver have a holiday at this time to celebrate the important occassion with their families so it is a good time to take a break. We are all looking forward to a good break and some sunshine and beach play time together. Whilst booking our holiday we considered other locations in Vietnam and John was taking care of the arrangements for us all. He was speaking with the travel agent and inquiring about a place called Vung Tau, however, as many words in Vietnames are written the same but pronounced differently, John was mispronouncing the name and the staff were becoming quite bemused by his request. Finally they advised him that he was asking to go to the moon - naturally they were unable to assist with his request!
Our second edition of the Vietnam adventures:
Jack has now started his new kindergarten (Morning Star International) for 3 half days per week and seems to be enjoying it very much. They have a curriculum of singing, playing with toys, reading stories and outside play as well as morning tea and lunch time incorporating some social activity skills with eating together. We are pretty sure that Jack's favourite part of the day is the eating bit! He has a new "Cookie Monster" backpack to take his change of clothes and drink bottle with him each day.
Of course Amber is too young for school but is growing up fast and has included her latest photo for you all to see. Amber is currently engaged in much tummy time as she has mastered rolling from her back to tummy but not quite back again. She has been getting enormous amounts of attention from the locals every time we go out as it is tradition for the Vietnamese to keep their young babies in confinement until they are nearly one year old and so she is quite a novelty.
I have joined several mothers groups to cater to both Amber and Jack's social network requirements and both have a mix of mothers from all nations. One of our mothers groups meet at a large villa complex with a great playground for children to romp around without getting in the way of hectic traffic and the other for the littler ones meets at someone's home each week. Like home these mother's groups are a great support network and fantastic for information on where to buy and these best places to take children.
I have made friends with a girl who is also involved in the Hanoi International Womens Club and I will get involved with a charity function or two and help make a contribution to the local needy groups with a little Australian baking of Anzac bikkies for hampers. There is a monthly coffee group that meets and makes a small contribution of 100,000 dong ($9) each so we can raise some much needed funds for schools in poor areas to have basic things like toilets and play equipment. It really makes you realise how fortunate we and our children are in Australia.
We are also embarking on the production of an international children's cookbook which will represent cooking from all around the world, recipes suitable for children to make or assist with parental supervision. I am going to be helping with the assembly, recipe testing and measurement tables for the book. We will also be creating an activity book that the children can use whilst they are waiting for their recipe to cook.
We (including the children) have made our first move into the social life of the Vietnamese in our attendance at a wedding of John's work collegue Thanh. The wedding ceremony was held separately and only the family and close friends attended this, whilst we joined the party at the reception. These receptions are commonly known as "scoff and off" affairs as we found upon arrival at 5.30pm dinner was served immediately and everyone including the bridal party had finished and left the venue by 7pm! Our group of westerners continued our evening at Jacc's Bar with a couple more drinks for the evening. The family photo was taken at the wedding, as you can see we are all spick and span with new haircuts and our best outfits!
We have moved into our new home in Tay Ho which is very large and has loads of room for Jack to run around and play. We have ordered some new furniture and look forward to it's arrival very soon along with our shipment of things from Australia. John will take some photo's of the place when we have it all set up.
Since we have now employed a lady named Chau (pronounced Cho and pictured with our driver Thanh) to help me with the cleaning, shopping and looking after the children, I decided to brave the local market to buy some seafood for dinner. Chau and I went to buy a fresh fish - so fresh it was still swimming around! I had to select the one I wanted and then it was weighed, knocked on the head and scaled for me to take home. I also wanted some prawns which a young girl was carrying around in a basket and these too, were still alive and kicking so I purchased about 20 of these for the princly sum of $3 AUD. I took them all home and cooked them for dinner the same evening - couldn't really get any fresher than that.
We are off to the Hanoi International Women's Club annual bazaar held at the United Nations International School. The event has stands from all of the 75 nations represented at the school selling their wares and local foods. These events help raise much needed funds for the local community and an opportunity for the different nations to get together and trade local secrets! A picture of us above (minus Amber who is too short to reach) is at the Russian diplomatic stand. All of the embassies had a table selling their countries typical wares.
We are expecting our first visitors with Jane and Kevin joining us for post christmas and new year which will be great for us to have some company from good old Australia. We look forward to seeing you both.
This is our first edition of the blog site for our family Vietnam Adventures.
Our adventure began around one month ago when John departed Sydney to begin his role with Nortel in Hanoi for a 12 month assignment. During that month Ingrid, Jack and Amber set about arranging for packing of the house, vaccinations and shopping for items that we might not be able to buy in Vietnam, not to mention, saying goodbye to all our friends and family.
Thanks again to Simon, Michaela, Kimberley and Charlotte for putting us up in your home for our last few days.
Thanks also to Granny, Nanny and Poppy for home relocations and baby sitting services in the last few days - we couldn't have done it without you.
While trying to settle into a new job, John was also looking for a house for all of us to live in, arranging for furniture, cars, drivers, maids and medical support.....really he was not doing too much work as he was so busy doing all of that!
We have secured a new house and inserted a photo for all to view where we are living and how large and wonderful the house is - it will be the best home we ever have! We will be moving into the house in the next week or so and are very excited.
In the meantime we are residents of the Sheraton Hotel in a two room suite which is quite palatial however as you can imagine not nearly enough room for a little boy to demolish everything in reach. We are busying ourselves with shopping for furniture and looking around our new city. Jack is busying himself with working his way through the children's room service menu and making excellent headway as all of you who know Jack will not be suprised at all. All of our household goods and more importantly, toys should arrive by the end of November.
John has arranged for a Ford Everest which looks like the much derided four wheel drive vehicles that we love to hate. It will come with a driver who will look after our needs each day. I hope to assist the driver with learning more English and I hope he will assist me with learning some Vietnamese.
Jack will be starting kindergarten for a couple of half days a week in the next week and is very much looking forward to unlimited space, toys and other children to play with also. The kindy is called Morning Star International School and they have children from all over the world going there so it should be an interesting experience for him.
Jack and Amber have attached their latest photos for you all to see how much they are growing.
Stay tuned for regular updates!!
posted by Ingrid John Jack & Amber Vietnam adventures at 9:00 PM
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