The Day Goes On

Day 4 July 18, 2007 (Disappointing News)

Written and submitted at 6:00am on July 19th

I awoke around 3:00 am (July 18th) and decided to start typing since I can’t sleep. I don’t know if I will ever get my sleeping schedule back on track. Logan came out of the bedroom shortly after me so we will be hard to reason with this afternoon.

The menu wasn’t that bad for Logan today. A majority of his meal was spaghetti with tomato sauce. This is the first restaurant were the sauce has a red color to it and not light orange. It must have been good because Logan ate two helpings. That was good too because we didn’t know when we would be eating again since we were still expecting to travel to the orphanage. This morning he escaped the yogurt again.

The English chap that went to the soccer game a couple of nights ago with us was seated at the next table to so I introduced him to Becky. He said he was leaving today for the airport in Da Nang to catch a flight to Thailand for the next part of his vacation. He said he would be there three more weeks before going back home. I don’t know what company he works for but the vacation time sounds great. At the table next to us was Joe, Amy and their little 4 month-old-baby Collett. We talked to them to get some information about the process since they were about a week ahead of us. Joe had recently left the Army after 13 years as an orthopedic surgeon and Amy is a stay at home mother. I had met Joe in the lobby when we first arrived and I remembered him telling me he just recently got out of the army, but during our conversation that morning, he said during boot camp he stayed in a hotel. I quickly asked if he was in the Air Force because I thought I could have misunderstood him. He said “good one” with a laugh. This was another classic case of Jeff sticking my foot in my mouth. Anyhow, we chatted with them for a while and decided to visit their room later to further the discussion. We are happy that everything seems to be going well for them.

When we got back to the room, we had a couple of hours to do nothing. This is the part we hate the most. Stuck in the room with three English TV channels. Becky got everything packed and ready (this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone) and Logan was watching one of his new DVDs. It was the crazy English Mr. Bean but the movie we bought was all in Vietnamese. He went ahead and watched it and by the sounds of him chuckling he must have thought it was funny anyway. After we (Becky) finished packing, we went to the room just above us to visit Joe and Amy again. They were able to give us the download on what type of formula the orphanage uses and where we could purchase it close to the hotel. They told us what to expect at the giving and receiving ceremony and how disorganized it seems. All in all they seemed to have a pretty good experience with it so that sounded encouraging. They let us use their device to download our pictures to our computer. It worked great so we shouldn’t have any problems posting and emailing our pics(with a little help from Becky’s sister Julie. Thanks Julie!). After a short visit, we returned to our room to get ready to travel to the orphanage.

Disappointing Phone Call

We were all changed into our long pants for the ceremony. (I am not looking forward to the several occasions we must wear long pants because the heat is just too much) We were ready for our 12:00pm meeting in the lobby for the big trip when we received a call at 11:30am that the officials were too busy for the ceremony and that it might be tomorrow. The news hit us pretty hard and we both sat there with nothing to say. We tried to make it sound like no big deal in front of Logan but Becky and I were about to explode. We changed back into our shorts and laid around watching TV trying to make sense of this. After about an hour, we decided it was time to get out of the room and go get something to eat. As usual, Logan tried to get us to use a taxi but we told him we only had to go two blocks to a restaurant called Little Hanoi.

Little Hanoi

This place wasn’t far from the hotel. Logan is not only learning how to dodge the traffic but also the street merchants. I just told him to keep his head down and keep moving. The heat wasn’t nearly as intense today. It was an overcast day with a little breeze but the ever-present humidity is there. It’s a good thing it was a little cooler because this restaurant is open-air. This place was recommended by several people because it serves soups and sandwiches similar to Panera (yeah, right). Logan again had spaghetti and Becky had a BLT/C (C= cucumbers) and I had a vegetable sandwich with gouda cheese. The meal was good and cheap. The price came to about $12 US.

Shopping

After we left the restaurant, we walked several blocks to the Intimex shopping center. We came here the day before but now we needed to get some of the formula that Joe and Amy suggested. We browsed the store found what we needed and picked up some additional Ritz crackers to go with our peanut butter we bought earlier because sometimes we need to snack on traditional food from back home. After we left the Intimex, we headed for the shopping mall with four floors and air conditioning that we went to the day before. It was just a couple blocks away. By taking our trip in smaller segments we were able to keep Logan’s pleas for a taxi at bay. We walked along the lake on our way to the mall. It was a nice walk with the heat not as bad, but I promised Logan we would take a cab ride back to the hotel.

We browsed through the mall and found a place to buy knick knacks for back home. We also realized that some of the prices at the mall were cheaper than on the streets so we realized we were going to hone our bartering skills on the street. We found an electronics store that had a device that looked a lot like a flash drive but our camera’s memory stick fits into one end of it and the other has a USB port that plugs into the back of our computer. It was only $10 US and the salesman said he would warranty the item if it does not work (at least that’s what it sounded like). On the next floor we ran into Tracy and Amy who flew in with us and were also scheduled to go to the orphanage until it got canceled. We all expressed how disappointed we all were but to alleviate their frustration they decided to shop their anger out of them. We departed our ways and all agreed to stay optimistic about the process. We finished our tour of the mall and grabbed a cab for our hotel. The cab driver tried to charge us $4 US for the ride but we said $2 US. He then said $3 US because there were 3 of us but Becky was quick to say Logan didn’t count. We started to walk away and he quickly agreed to our price. Logan didn’t seem to be bothered by this.

Back at the Hotel

We lounged around the room for several hours watching a couple movies on the TV. There are actually some good movies on every now and then. About 6:00 pm, Logan and I started to fall asleep so we got up and went downstairs to sit at the big picture window in the lobby. It is always extremely busy out the window. There were some men busting concrete from the building on the other side of the street. I sat and watched them for a couple of hours. They were behind a tarp with an electric jack-hammer and then eventually using a large sludge-hammer the break up the building wall. After the men were done pounding the concrete, I saw them set a scale on the street in front of them and started stacking the rebar on the scale before loading it on a hand cart. When it was full, the women pushed the cart full of rebar down the street. The street was filled with pedestrians, scooters, double parked cars, and taxis driving by. It was fascinating to watch because all this is going on a street that is only roughly 15 ft wide with the sidewalks roughly 5 ft wide, got the picture in your head? lol.

Logan and Becky both had their heads rested on the table so it was time to head up to the room. We all got ready for bed and hoped tomorrow would be the big day.