All is Well and Photos of Halong

Just a quick update. The bank issue is resolved. Seems there was a "conversion issue" on the Vietnam side. I don't have all the details and it took our branch manager literally all day yesterday to get the funds restored and everything taken care of. God bless her. The lesson here - before you leave on an international trip, go meeet your branch manager and get her contact info. This lady was the only person with the bank who I spoke to yesterday who said "don't worry, I will make this right for you." And she did. She spend hour and hours on the phone with numerous bank departments in the US and Vietnam. One of our first trips home will be to go thank her. That was customer service!

Another angel appeared yesterday. Friends of friends who live in Hanoi dropped by a cell phone they weren't using without even them knowing what our dilemna was yesterday. We came back to our room after being gone for 2 days and found a box of "See's Candy" on the table. We both though that was wierd but the box had my name on it. It didn't take long for one of us to want a piece of candy and opened the box to find the phone which will help us immensly getting around town. We have never met this couple. Several months ago they volunteered to make any contact they could over here for us to see what was the hold up with the adoption. We look forward to meeting them tonight!

Last night Jim took Lily and Hung to get some carry out for us. When they returned, Hung came running in to find me yelling, " Momma! Momma!" and gave me the biggest hug. Yes -we are pretty happy here.

We went to the Ho Chi Minh Masoleum and museum today. Did not see Uncle Ho because we got there too late. The museum was interesting and Hung clearly knew who Uncle Ho was. No that we are big fans but it has meaning for him and he was very proud to be there. We ran into a group of schools girls - probably 3-5 th grade posing for important pictures. Jim walked behind the photographer and started making faces. The whole group bust out laughing at the funny American. I brought about 20 post cards from St. Pete with us just in case this opportunity presented itself. We broke them out of the backpack and the kids crammed around us saying "Hello!! Hello!" There weren't quite enough for everyone but it looked like they were sharing. It was wonderful to see the smiles and hear all the laughter. Beautiful children. Even the grown ups and guards were smiling.

Later today we are seeing a temple nearby our hotel and the infamous "Hanoi Hilton." Our hotel overlooks it and we hear there is quite the interesting display of propoganda. On the ride back from the museum, the taxi driver tried to overcharge us by about 4$. The doorman and the driver got into a pretty loud argument. I think the doorman threatened to call the police and the driver threw back half the money. We had been warned of this scam but this was in a "metered" cab so we thought we would be ok. We'll be more careful. Tomorrow we pick up Hung's passport and go for his medical exam. This morning he repeated after Jim " My name is Hunter."