December 2018 featuring Ha Noi and Ha Long Bay

 Good evening and hello to all our followers out there.  I am attempting to catch up as much as I can before the end of 2020.  Better late than never so here goes.

Thankfully we have pictures to help us jot our memories.  We started of the month with a nice meal from one of the fanciest restaurants in Da Nang.  This Taiwanese hot pot was absolutely delicious.  At $20 USD a person I would say it was pretty darn tasty for the price.

Below is our friend Chris Stockwell.  He came from Boise Idaho.  He is a chiropractor with some products that he has in mind to improve and he's traveling the Philippines and Vietnam for ideas as to how to make the product better.

We couldn't help ourselves with the holiday decor. I asked my cousin to help me buy a Christmas tree so this year we'd have something.  I couldn't believe how small the tree was, compared to our 10ft tree at home.  He could've bought something bigger but that's not the complaint I want to focus on.  I asked my aunt to bring the tree out to me from the countryside and all she brought out were the branches and not the tree :). Being impatient I just used our coat hanger and stuck the branches on that.

Next time I'll just buy it in the city.  We found several shops with Christmas trees :)

We tried to get in the spirit of Christmas by making Christmas cookies but we needed more.  We needed a vacation inside our long term vacation.  

Christmas has been very commercialized in the last decade in Vietnam.

They're at every shopping center

Hanoi

We had to go up to Hanoi to renew 3 of the kids' passports so we decided to make it into a vacation.  We spent several days in Hanoi, met up with awesome friends and partied out Christmas Eve singing carols and eating American Christmas food.  Heather was a great baker.  It was amazing.  We love these guys...the McClellans

We saw some beautiful historical sites including the Hoan Kiem Lake and Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.  We saw a water puppet show (Dan's favorite part of the trip) and our friends took us to eat out at local favorites on their motorcycles.

We rented a nice high rise condo that has 30 stories for the week and it had a park outside, a grocery store, a shopping center, and a game center with child care included.  It was a nice comfy life.  Darion sang a cute song inside this apartment.  You can see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gC65tVH1ko&t=12s

The kids were pretty happy they had Burger King in Hanoi

Love the night life in Hanoi!

Below was the water puppet show Dan loves

Driving in Hanoi was pretty crazy with a lot of traffic jam.  Getting a Grab motorbike was a fun way to site see.

Outside the US embassy in Hanoi

Hoan Kiem's Lake

Before leaving Hanoi we met up with another set of friends.  These guys also came from the States.  They lived in Da Nang for a few weeks and we did a lot of fun things for them but a job brought them up to Hanoi.  These are the Murdocks. Riley and Corina.

We also met up with some BYU friends who live in this crazy huge fancy Pennhouse about 6000 sq.ft.  They hired a chef to cook us the filet mignon.  What a memorable night that was!

These huge scallops were mouthwatering...even more than the filet mignon for me.  I still dream of eating it in my dreams.

Ha Long Bay

After 5 days in Ha Noi we hopped in a grab and he drove us for 3.5 hours for $50 and went to Ha Long Bay.  Reena totally fell in love with this city.  The sidewalks were big and the city was very polished because of the amount of tourists they get each year.  Again we rented a high rise condo so we could do laundry, cook, and shop all in one place.  The condo was luxurious and beautiful, an interior designer's dream. I was taking notes as we go to all these condos.    When we got all checked in the girls and I walked to the local outdoor market and bought Christmas gifts for everyone.  It was Christmas morning when we woke up, quickly opened presents and hopped in a day cruise boat as part of the Christmas present and sailed for the whole day.  It was breathtaking...

Entertainment and food inside the boat

Outside we created our own entertainment and sang "We wish you a Merry Christmas" live on Facebook

It was breathtaking...Pictures don't do it justice!

                                        

                                        

We had the option to swim, kayak, or canoe out

We docked and hiked several caves nearby

It was the best day ever!  You could book an overnight cruise and see the sunrise in the morning but we opted for a bigger space to have our own rooms (parents/kids)

We played with Christmas presents, enjoyed the views of Ha Long Bay and Reena said she'd like to live here when we return to Vietnam for a Summer.

After Ha long Bay we went to Cat Ba Island and took a tour from inside our car.  We thought Cat Ba was beautiful but after seeing Ha Long it was alright.  We probably should've done Ha Long after Cat Ba.  Cat Ba was a lot smaller.

After 10 days of vacationing/schooling/working we came home to a very exciting Da Nang.  The streets were covered in Vietnam flags and honking and celebrating.  Vietnam had won the U23 Asian Soccer cup!!  Congrats U23 and Merry Christmas 2018.  See you on the next blog post.