Amber's first birthday adventures in Vietnam

Unwrapping gifts













Amber's number 1 cake

Our 8th update - Amber's first birthday!!

The major news item for this blog update is of course the celebration of Amber’s first birthday. We had a small birthday party for her at home with several of her friends from mother’s group. Sadly at this time of the year many people head home to Europe for holidays and consequently many of our friends were unable to make the party but we had a lot of fun and Amber seemed to enjoy the presents and attention. Like most one year old children she really liked the wrapping paper the most.
I made her a number one cake (pink of course) along with fairy bread, fruit, sandwiches and cocktail frankfurts – all very popular with kids and the adults. She received lots of lovely presents including dresses, dolls, musical guitar, shape fish and a new car to ride around on. The car is a huge hit with Jack as well.
As you can see from the photos Amber is growing up quickly but not quite walking yet. She is happy walking behind the walker and riding on the Pooh car but not game to take the first steps without a hand yet.

Jack has been attending summer school at Morning Star and still loving his time there with all his friends even though many of them are on holidays at present. He is roaring around the house on Amber’s new car and even faster and more radical on his little Pooh car.

Our maid Chau has left us for a new more interesting job working with a children’s charity. I am very pleased for her as I assisted her with gaining the role through a contact of mine. It is something better suited to her university degree and I imagine far more rewarding than cleaning house, albeit she will miss the children and was fantastic in caring for them.
We have new maid named Hue who has just returned from working in Cyprus for several years as a nurse and housemaid. She seems very good and loves the children already.

Sadly as often happens in cities where expatriates congregate, they eventually finish their assignments and head home or to new destinations. This happened with our good friends the Butterfields. I miss Kath in particular and Jack always enjoyed playing with their three boys. We hope we will see them sometime in the future when we next visit Melbourne. Before they left Kath and I managed to fit in some frantic present shopping for all her family and friends, along with a visit to the Temple of Literature which she had not previously visited – that is the way it is when you live somewhere – sometimes you just don’t make the time to visit the tourist sights! We also enjoyed a lunch at Koto with the kids who strategically sat themselves right next to the dessert cabinet and I know that Jack practically ate the lot with his eyes. We had a goodbye luncheon at the beautiful restaurant “Wild Lotus” which has the most serene and calming décor I have seen in a restaurant in a long time. The food is really wonderful too.

At the end of June we took a four day break with a short holiday in neighbouring Bangkok. John had some business to do so we were able to tag along for the ride. For me it was interesting to see how much Bangkok had changed since my last visit there in 2001. It is one of those Asian cities that is constantly improving the infrastructure and seeking to achieve western standards – it has come a long way towards that and now the sky train has a pedestrian friendly walkway between Central Chitlom and Siam Square which is a great shopping and tourist area. For John, not having been to Bangkok for closer to 15 years it was a big surprise.

We decided to have a look around the city and took a ferry up the Chayo Prayha river passing many prestigious hotels, temples and floating housing structures still nestling the banks of the river. It is a busy waterway and is the heart of the city in many ways. We walked to Khao San Road, one of the places where I have stayed many nights and John spent much of his time there also. Khao San road has traditionally been the place of choice for backpackers to stay but is slowly changing with the rest of the city and now even boasts a Starbucks and several Irish pubs, 7 Elevens and other notable American outlets. The good old Khao San Palace is still there but much of the other older style accommodation seems to be long gone – I am not sure I like the change but no doubt many do. I did however, take the opportunity to visit a real supermarket, just like home in Australia with choices and all the things we are used to buying, not like the small shops here that have one choice of something similar to what you like. It was quite a shock to the system, luckily I didn’t have a large fridge or I would have bought much more!

I also had a chance to catch up with my old friend Khun Prapas who lives in Bangkok and have a lovely dinner with him – thanks again Prapas. It was so nice to see him again, it has been nearly 4 years since we caught up so there was plenty of gossip about what was happening in Steelcase whom he works for and I used to many years ago.

As child friendly entertainment venues in Hanoi are few and far between we elected to visit the Siam Paragon aquarium. It was beautiful and I suspect designed by the same organisation as the Melbourne and Darling Harbour aquariums as the style and features are remarkably similar. Jack certainly enjoyed seeing a lot of fish and sharks and it made a nice change from the hustle and bustle of the city.

As most of our holidays seem to go, one or the other of our children gets sick, this time it was Jack’s turn. He came down with a nasty virus and as we were about to leave for Hanoi we had to make a visit to the doctor at the airport who advised us to stay over as Jack was really not well enough to travel. Consequently we had to make a visit to the Bumrungrad Hospital the next morning to get him checked up and dosed up with antibiotics for the trip home. Poor little Jack was very much worse for wear on the trip home.

Little Jack didn’t really improve greatly on our arrival back home so we decided upon another visit to the doctor who diagnosed him quite dehydrated and weakened from the virus and admitted him to stay in the small hospital they have at the international clinic. Naturally I stayed with him, the accommodation for him was a portable cot and for me, the examination table! He had to have a drip for 2 days and a night so we spent rather a lot of time playing with cars and trucks. The only positive part of the experience is that the Sofitel Hotel Metropole does the catering for the in-patients – the best hospital food I have ever had – it was 5 star hotel standard, just missing the glass of wine! Anyway, more importantly Jack has recovered well and naturally did the right thing by passing on his virus to Amber who managed to fight it off well enough to stay out of the hospital.

Doing the tourist thing we agreed on a visit to the Army Museum which was very interesting. Jack in particular loved all the planes, tanks and missile equipment that are displayed in the outside part of the museum. There is a good deal of information liberally interspersed with Communist propaganda but it does give one another view point compared to our education on the subject in Australia.

Our next blog update will most likely be our last as we are heading off to China for a 10 day holiday. We will be visiting Beijing to see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We then head to Shanghai to take in the sights of the city and finish our holiday with a few days in Hong Kong staying at the Disney Hotel so we can maximize our time in Disneyland.

After that we will be ending our time in Hanoi and heading back to Sydney to find a new house to live in and resume our Australian life – not to mention catching up with our families and friends. We will certainly miss Vietnam and it has been a wonderful enriching experience with many challenges (particularly for John). I feel that I have achieved a lot in my 12 months here and could have done much more if we were able to stay but it is not to be at this time.
We will of course be sad to leave the many friends we have made here, some of whom we do not expect to see again and some we do hope will come to Australia for a visit and of course, you never know what might happen in the future.