Day 2 in Vietnam

I woke up at 5:30 am, Matt woke up at 5:00. His stomach said it wanted food so we had to run out immediately to get pho before his stomach changed his mind. His guide book said Pho 24 has excellent pho even though it's a chain. I would have to agree. I thought the 24 was referring to the hours per day the restaurant is open, but the hours are posted as "7am to Late". Although they are not open 24/7, they do deliver! Here's a picture of the deliver boy heading out. The new helmet law is actually being enforced!

Here's Matt eating his first bowl of pho.

Then we walked to the Saigon zoo and botanical garden. We were the only tourists there at 8am. It certainly wasn't crowded.

We made it back to the hotel by 9am, logged on and caught the boys on Skype at 10am. (It was 7pm in Homer, Alaska). That Skype is a wonderful invention. Remember the old days when we used to make it home from our vacation before our post cards did? Now we can see and hear our loved ones live! Chris sent us a wonderful email that he typed himself, phonetically. I love that stage when they write everything the way it sounds. Poor Riley is down with a stomach flu, we hope he feels better soon! Here's a picture of me in front of a giant water buffalo type thing. (PS, that's my purse under my T-shirt, I'm not actually pregnant.)

At 11am we met our new friends, The Curry Family. They are here from the Chicago area, picking up their second adopted child from Vietnam. We met their first adopted child, Minh, and their two older children, Maggie (15) and Blaine (13), who are all equally delightful. We all walked down to Ben Thanh Market together. They bought gifts for folks back home. I bought a knife to cut my mangosteen with. Matt bought candied ginger. Then we went to Pho 24 (different location) for lunch. Here's our new friends at lunch. No monsoon today, it's sunny.

Here's a picture of the Lancaster Hotel for our Pennsylvania Dutch family and friends.

In case you didn't believe me that there's a Texas BBQ restaurant here. If this was a video clip you would be able to hear country music playing.

Now it's back to the hotel for rest and elevating our poor swollen feet. I finished putting all the gifts in gift bags. We get picked up at 7am tomorrow by a van and head out to Bien Hoa along with the Curry family to pick up our children. Yea!