Where Are We??? What Happened?????

It has been one whirl wind here. This whirl wind picked us up and dropped us in Ho Chi Minh City. We flew out of Charlotte Saturday at 6 pm. We arrived at LAX at 11:00pm and with the clocks set back 3 hours, we had 5 or so hours to kill. We were not to leave until 1:45am for Hong Kong but the time went by really quickly. By the time we got off the plane and into LAX, the only food places opene were fast food. Good old Mickey "D's" You guys know how I love fast food.

Then it was off on the 15 hour Flight to Hong Kong. First of all, for those of you that were worried about me being scared to death(including myself) , I will have to say that I was pretty brave. It is amazing the bravery that comes in a bottle of medication. LOL With 2 Ativan and Tylenol PM ....I could fly all night. I will say 15 hours of flying is awful on the back and legs,(and sanity) No isle seats for Norman and I and you know granddaddy long legs needs his space......One time Norman even said "Jayden must be a pretty special litttle boy to put up with this" LOL
The Airline was wonderful and boy do the Asian airlines know about Customer service.

We arrived Monday morning, 10am in HCMC (Sunday night 11pm EST) .After we picked up all of our luggage, we headed out to find our way to the Hotel. Right before we left I had hopped online and made a reservation at the Omni Hotel. We did not have time to wait for a confirmation letter because we were flying out that very night. We just hoped that they got our reservation and that the Omni shuttle would be out front of the airport when we arrived in HCMC. We walked outside into the heat of mornin in front of the Airport. There were hundreds of people holding up signs for people's names and names of different hotels and other boys trying to get anyone needing a ride, into their taxis. A few times I thought Norman was a goner.. We waited and waited with a no show on the Omni shuttle bus. Norman decided to walk up to a young man who held a sign for a hotel that looked ligitimate ,(Now mind you, there are hundreds of young men waving signs) and asked how he could get the Omni shuttle. This young man's face brightened and he said "Yes Yes Our Hotel was the Omni, but now we are the Movenpick Hotel". He said that he would run and call the shuttle. Well I had been reading about all of the scams to watch out for, so when this shiney new BMW drives up and starts putting our luggage in the back seat, I thought that we were being taken by the mafia or something. The 15 minute trip to the unknown and nameless Hotel was unreal. I do think that I could describe the traffic, and mere words certainly would not give the experience justice. I did learn #1 driving rule around here is.....Honk and drive. .....and what- ever you do NEVER STOP! There were thousands and ,I mean thousands of scooters everywhere. No traffic lights and no lanes in the roads that I could see. When we arrived, what we thought should have been the Omni, in reality was the Movenpick. But it wasn't a scam after all. That can only happen to my hubby. The Hotel didn't have our reservations but had rooms. The internet sight had said breakfast included but we do not get that either.... No worries......good thing I brought instant grits. Besides, they fed us so much on the plane flights that we may never want to eat again. Well .... I will save some news for Norman......We are well.... not too sleepy and are trying to stay up until at least 9pm or so tonight. Here is a note from Thuoc and this will kinda give an itinerary of what is to come.....or should I say we pray will come next.....

Hi,

at 8h am 17 Sept we going to meet you at Omni (Ummmmm I better let him know about the hotel's name change) hotel then we go to Can tho (180km distance from Ho Chi Minh city), we stay there one night, 18 Sept 6h30 have brekfast, at 7 am we will go to the floating market, 8h30 we return to go to the province ( 65 km distance from Can tho city ), chech in hotel then visit Baby home,

I will give you more details late,

I will let Norman give some of his thoughts and then we will send what little picture we have .......
I We will have more soon.

(Norman) Where did Sunday go? Suddenly it is Monday morning and I feel like we missed a day. I have that, I stayed up all night feelin,(maybe because basically I did). You know how it feels.You can't concentrate and your head is spinning. My head feels heavy and I do need sleep. But that will come tonight.

Tonight we are going out!!! One day before we left, I was at Syble's school, and was told that there was an exchange student at Broome from VietNam. How interesting I thought, not really thinking too much about it. The guidance couselor asked me if I would like to meet him, and if so he would call him down to the office. Well I said, "sure." Soon I was meeting a very nice young man from Vietnam called Le Trung Dung. Of course, as only the Lord could do,Trung was from HCMC. In all of Vietnam, I met a boy at Broome High who is from the city where we are going to be. He gave me his father's phone number here in HCMC.
I called him today and tonight he is coming to take us out to dinner. I know he will be a tremendous asset to help us find our way in these first two days of unceretainty here. He speaks very good English.
Angie was telling you about the hundreds of people gathered outside the airport and the young man I met. She was not exxagerating which is in itself unreal.
But what she didn'tell you is that not only was this young man not a scam artist, that the Onmi Hotel is now really the MOVENPICK Hotel, but also the young boy works for the Hotel. He not only arranged for our ride here, but later he wore a different uniform and delivered our bags to our room. He is a one man show!
This Hotel is beautiful. The room is a King size bed, air-conditioned, nice bathtub and sitting area, and a nice 32 inch tv with American programming.
I am sure the facilities we will see in the province where Jayden lives will be quite different. We will enjoy what we have for now. We will write more after our night out on the town.



Yeah, Norman looks like "A big night out on the town LOL Angie