Good Morning Vietnam!

We made it!  We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City after the 26.2 hour flight marathon.  We ate three dinners and no breakfasts in the 26 hour stretch, and we watched the sun rise twice in nine hours (once over snow-covered Mt. McKinley in Alaska and again as we descended into Taiwan).Remarkably there was very little sibling squabbling (thanks largely to "Mocking Jay," by Suzanne Collins - released on the day of our departure and blown through by both Foster and Brianna in the 24 hour period).

Scooter, scooters everywhere!  There are thousands of scooters at every intersection with people piled high.  There do not appear to be many road rules.  It makes for an interesting mess, and we were thankful to be in an enclosed taxi for the 7km ride to our hotel.  We only lightly bumped one scooter and one pedestrian enroute.  Yikes!  When the taxi pulled up across the street from our hotel, we wondered if we would actually make it across the road alive to check-in.  Fortunately, the driver and a hotel clerk sacrificed themselves for the ATPF.  They hopped frogger-like through the traffic and said, "Stay with me.  Stay with me," as we paraded across the road with our enormous suitcases.

The random method by which we had chosen a HCMC hotel proved to have worked just fine.  We had a reservation.  They had a room for us with all of the basics - bed, toilet paper, A/C and WIFI.  Things started off poorly, however, for Foster.  This child, who was far from enamored by the idea of spending a year abroad, had lugged his Xbox halfway around the globe.  He excitedly plugged it in at the hotel with an adapter but no power transformer.  With a loud pop and fizzle, Xbox entertainment was over before it began.  Now, the local electronics market is on the priority list for touring tomorrow.

We did the worst thing you can do for jet lag and took a seven hour nap.  We all woke up at midnight ready to eat and explore.  Nothing like checking out a new city at 1:00 a.m.!  Rats, bats and cats...oh my! We found banana pancakes and a resident magician at a nearby cafe.  The magician kept Nolan mesmerized for the entire meal.  The rats that were darting by on the street kept me flinching every time something brushed my legs.  We saw cats strolling along the powerlines (which are bunched together by the hundreds), and we were divebombed by bats on the way back to the hotel.  The biggest cultural trauma victim, however, was Nolan.  His cheeks were pinched repeatedly by young women.  Then he was chased down on the street and squeezed by one particularly enthusiastic fan.  He was not amused and has resolved to dye his hair black and scrape off his freckles to escape the paparazzi.