Day 2

Today we made the drive to the orphanage. It was neat to see the more rural areas of Vietnam. There is a lot of construction going on here, so we would see farmers tending their rice patties amongst heavy construction equipment. One of the roads we travelled was two lanes being widened to sixteen! We also saw the beginnings of Hanoi's first skyscraper. It will be 70 stories when completed. When that area is complete it will become the new center of Hanoi and the area where we're staying will become the historical area.
The drive lasted about 2 1/2 hours. Traffic was lighter because it is Sunday, so I'm not sure how long the drive will be for the giving and receiving ceremony. On the way, we were told the ceremony will be tomorrow. When we finally got to the orphanage, there was a woman standing just inside the doorway holding a baby that looked familiar to us, but we weren't sure. When we went inside there was a bed with three other babies on it. We looked back at the woman holding the baby and she was smiling at us. She said "Chung" (his Vietnamese first name, pronounced choong). That was all we needed to hear! I hope she wasn't planning on holding that baby much longer because we were comin' for 'em! She started speaking to us and soon realized we had absolutely no idea what she was saying, so she enlisted the help of Mr. Linh. She had been trying to tell us that he ate the most of any baby in the orphanage. She seemed very proud of this fact as she squeezed his arms and legs periodically throughout our visit while smiling and nodding her head, making sure we saw how she'd "fattened him up". It was very obvious to us that this woman cares deeply for Chung and we expect tomorrow to be emotional. Karen held Chung first. He had the cutest confused look at first. Probably because there was a camera in his face. Within two minutes though, he was fast asleep. As he was passed to me, he woke long enough to satisfy the urge to grab my nose and then he was out again. We were told he does not fuss and that he sleeps after being fed. He must have just eaten because he certainly wanted to sleep. Come to think of it, that confused look did slightly resemble the after Thanksgiving Dinner look! We are suspicious that his caretaker may have spoiled him, she told us when he cries we must pick him up right away and walk with him. We promised we would. We also were told that he and two other babies were "the naughtiest". Apparently when these three cohorts get together they are too much for one caretaker to handle! All too soon the time came to leave. Talk about a dirty trick, as if we hadn't waited long enough! Oh well, I guess we can stand one more day. Then he's ours for keeps!

May we have your attention please

IT'S A BOY!!!

First day in Hanoi Pt.2

We met some more of the hotel staff this morning. They are all very nice people. They have already made us feel so welcomed. This afternoon Mr. Linh took us to the Vincom Tower, a local mall, to do some shopping at the grocery store. Yes, this involved a cab ride. Even now, at night, we're still laughing in disbelief. I'm sure we'll get used to it soon. Before dinner we had a meeting with Mr. Dat, the facilitator that works for our agency's Vietnam staff. He said we will be travelling to Phu Tho tomorrow (Sunday) to meet Tanner. We are so excited! It's a 2+ hour drive each way and we'll get to spend an hour with him. Our giving and receiving ceremony will be Monday or Tuesday, the date has not been confirmed yet.

First day in Hanoi

We took a short walk after breakfast. These are just a few of the things we saw.

Driving to the hotel

So we've all heard the stories about traffic in Vietnam. Cars, bikes and buses driving all over....cross the street confidently and traffic will flow around you, etc. We've even seen video clips of the chaos of Hanoi streets. None of that even begins to prepare you for actually being in it. On the way to the hotel from the airport, we were literally clenching our jaws, looking through squinted eyes and squeezing each others hands convinced we were going to kill somebody. It really is mind blowing to witness what is normal driving in Vietnam is. We will try to post a clip this week. It is literally a horn blowing frenzied free for all. Then, all of a sudden, our driver appeared to be a little confused about where he was going. He pulled down this dark (it was the middle of the night) narrow street, drove a little way and then backed up backing through the intersection and continuing to drive in reverse down another alley. Needless to say we were a little concerned, not at all comforted by the fact that our driver didn't speak any English other than "o.k." and if he did he wasn't letting on. After he made a quick call on his cell he was again driving with confidence. We later learned the confusion was caused by the fact that there are two streets with identical or near identical names. Within a few minutes of the call we were at our hotel. Feeling nervous and quite overwhelmed with culture shock, we were greeted at the taxi by Mr. Linh..... Mr. Linh is a Godsend! He definitely made us feel a lot more comfortable. He took us into the lobby and quickly explained what his role will be during our stay, gave us his cell phone number, told us to go up to our rooms and get some rest and said all of our luggage is already there. We hadn't even realized it was gone!

All rested up...... mostly

Hello all.....We are ready for a longer post now that we've had some much needed sleep. Everything went pretty smoothly travelling the last couple of days. Our first flight left Buffalo at 7:15 Thursday morning on the smallest commercial jet plane we've ever seen. The plane sat two on one side and one on the other. Thankfully there was no delay on the tarmac in that plane, it could have gotten ugly really fast! They loaded us into the slingshot and sent us on our way on a short (again thankfully) flight to JFK in NYC. After a four hour layover we left for Seoul, Korea on Korean Air. That was a long one! Those of you who have already made that flight, I'm sure, remember how much fun it was. In theory, a 14 hour flight was going to be a great time to catch up on sleep. In reality? about the only thing that slept was my butt. I do have to say though, we have never met a friendlier, more accommodating staff than the people with Korean Air. We were very impressed with them. After finally making it to Korea, we found, much to our delight, that the seats at the connecting gate were perfect for napping! Our layover was only a couple hours and we finally found ourselves aboard our final flight to Hanoi. Then, a few minutes after we got into our seats, we found ourselves getting OFF our final flight to Hanoi! We were told that the mechanic said the plane could not fly. Umm...did anyone ask him before they boarded the plane? So now we're getting a pit in our stomachs. How long are we going to be here? Is the person who's supposed to pick us up at the airport in Hanoi going to hang around? ....But Korean air came through again. They got a new plane in, transferred the luggage, food etc., got the plane ready to fly and had us aboard in less than in hour! You can imagine how relieved we were. I would bet that delay would have been much longer at JFK (who by the way we were not impressed with in the least). That last 4 hour flight brought us to Hanoi and here we are.
Coming up......the ride from the airport to the hotel.

We're here!

Not real sure yet that this is going to work, everything is in Vietnamese when we view it. But we'll give it a try. We have just gotten settled into our room after a 32 hour journey. We didn't have any major glitches in our flights. We had a minor glitch in Korea, but we'll put up a more descriptive post tomorrow. We just wanted to let everyone know that we're here safe and sound. Talk to you all later!

Our journey begins

Welcome to our blog! We are keeping this blog to allow our family and friends to follow us as we travel to Vietnam to adopt our son. We plan to update daily, so check back often!