February meant Lunar New Year...a celebration that starts and lasts as long as an American Christmas Holiday.
New Year's Eve in the countryside did not have the same flavor it had when I was living there. We used to have fire crackers crackling all night long. Nowadays it's not allowed anymore due to safety reasons. It changes the mood and excitement of New Year's Eve. In the city the country celebrates with fireworks like Western New Year but in the countryside kids light candles along the rice fields. It is quite cute and fun for the kids.
You can imagine that food is a huge part of this celebration. Thank goodness the Vietnamese's diet consists of a lot of fresh vegetables or else I would be in trouble.
My parents favorite thing for this holiday is coming back to visit Vietnam and walking through the rice fields they used to work in. It's so awesome to have my kids walk through these fields as well. They visited many of their neighbor's homes and we tagged a long for the treat.
We went back and forth from the country to the city for entertainment and rest. The heat of the countryside as well as the mosquitos was overwhelming for the kids.
When we go back to the countryside we stay at our usual 5 star hotel where we get a buffet breakfast. Oh how I miss this place so much. We can get really nice hotel rooms for $30 here. It's amazing. It has a swimming pool, tennis court, and soccer field. How awesome is that?! It has a rooftop restaurant where we celebrated Ronin's birthday. The staff knows us by names and we are so well loved here because they don't get very many customers.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g3389844-d8568669-Reviews- Muong_Thanh_Grand_Quang_Nam_Hotel-Tam_Ky_Quang_Nam_Province.html
The inside of the hotel. Nicely decorated for Tet
We took my parents to our favorite theme park in town....Sunworld! @$25
per membership for a whole year, of course it is our favorite theme
park. It's got a tons of rollercoaster rides, theme park rides such a
ferris wheels and indoor play arcades for the little ones.
Our hearts still belong to the countryside because of the people we know so we spent the majority of our time during the Tet Holidays here.
By my old elementary school they built a little community pool. I hardly recognized it.
We swam in it for 3 hours.
We tried visiting some of our expat friends during the Holidays as well because they are away from family and most of the businesses are closed for 2 weeks straight for Tet. I love this picture. I love how tiny my aunt is compared to our friend Amadou.
For Valentine's day we asked my aunt to help watch the kids. We flew to Hanoi for a night and then continued on to Hong Kong. We decided to join my parents in Hong Kong since that was their layover on the way back to America. My sister Thao helped get their ticket and decided that they should take 4 days to explore the area since they've stopped over in Hong Kong so many times but have not toured Hong Kong. For us it was our 3rd time in Hong Kong so we were able to take my parents around to see things.
Hong Kong was quite the expensive trip. Things in Hong Kong are not inexpensive. My sister Thuyen had some hotel points so she got us a nice hotel room. What a nice treat that was!
We took my parents to the peak via the amazing Victoria tram. What an awesome experience that was seeing houses stacked up along the hills. So amazing!! That in itself was the experience.
At night we had nice strolls along the pier...just the 4 of us. It was super relaxing not trailing along the kiddos even though we miss them a lot. There's pros and cons for having the kids. They are our little friends and having them come with us on our trips meant we don't miss them so terribly. I know...we're softies.
A trip to the Hong Kong temple, too of course!
And of course! My favorite!!! Trying out local cuisine
Dan wrote our names on their board so when we return we could see if it's still there :)
On our last day we went up the Ngong Ping 360 via cable cars. WOW the majestic beauty of Hong Kong is here!
So many beautiful scenery and as always super hard to say goodbye to my parents for the next several months. It was a wonderful trip overall.
