Shoe Street and Cyclo Rides

Derek needed trail shoes for the field trip to Hoi An that he is chaperoning this coming week.  The trouble is that he wears a size 12, and shoes that big are pretty much impossible to find here--especially if you are looking for quality, comfortable shoes.  He started by going to Crescent Mall with both the boys.  No luck.  Then he went to Viacom.  No luck.  And those two excursions took nearly the entire day on Saturday.

On Sunday we went to the Binh Thanh Market area to locate the infamous "Shoe Street."  You see, here in Vietnam (and most of Asia, I'm told) all of the competitors are located on the same street.  So if you want shoes, you go to Shoe Street.  If you want a drill, you go to Drill Street (near the pagoda we saw last weekend).  If you want dishes, you go to dish street (near the train station).  And so on.  It doesn't make any sense to me, but that's how its done.




Shoe Street is exactly what it sounds like: a street where people sell shoes.  There were also hand bags, backpacks, and some heavy winter jackets (???).  And LOTS of people trying to sell you who-knows-what.


Derek got lucky and found some pretty nice trail shoes in a size 12.  They are "Northface" and fit perfectly.  He also found some new work shoes.  Apparently Clarks (and Northface) shoes are made here, and occasionally a few pairs "fall off the truck" so to speak.  Those are his favorite kind of work shoes, so he was pretty pleased.  They might be real, they probably aren't, but they look pretty darn good.

After Shoe Street, we took a ride on some cyclos.  It started to pour a mere few minutes in to our journey, but Owen thought the way that the guys covered us up was the best part.  The boys had fun, but I still prefer a taxi in the downtown traffic shuffle.

(We also went to one of the boys' friend's birthday party on Saturday afternoon.  I never thought a late September kid could have a pool party for their birthday!  Ah, living in a tropical climate...)






Oh, and here's a super cute picture of Ollie riding a bike with one of the little kids in our apartment complex.

Giac Lam Pagoda

Our goal is to get out and do something fun with the boys every weekend.  We had the same goal in Colorado too, but it's so much easier now that we don't have to cook, clean, shop, do laundry...  Anyhow, we had planned to go to a water park on Saturday, but silly Saigon's rainy season had other plans.  We then searched for a mini golf place Derek found on the internet only to find that the place no longer exists.  Two major bummers for the kids.  So we took them to an ice cream place that has an outdoor play area and started searching for something to do today.

Derek found a pagoda called the Giác Lâm Pagoda.  It was built in 1744 and is seven stories tall with each level having it's own Buddhist statue.  My favorite was the statue of Guanyin with all her arms.  Owen's favorite was the Bo Dai (the guy with the nice round belly and happy expression).  We strolled around a bit, took some pictures, and headed home.  It was a pleasant excursion.  Next weekend we hope to do som

Vung Tau

We had a three day weekend last weekend due to Vietnam's National Day.  We seized the opportunity and headed to the beach town of Vung Tau via hydrofoil.  Because we were also celebrating my 30th birthday on Sunday, we booked a room at a 5-Star resort called The Imperial.  It was a beautiful hotel with stunning amenities.

As soon as our boat landed, we hopped a taxi and took a quick ride to the hotel.  We checked in, had our complementary "check-in" beverage, and headed up to our room.  We immediately changed into swim suits and headed for the ocean.

The water was a lot warmer than it was at the beach in Mui Ne and there were a lot fewer waves.  Owen was paddling around with his floaties quickly and even Oliver decided he liked to "ride the waves" in the ocean.  We spent about an hour splashing about before getting ready for dinner.  (Sorry no beach pictures...  I didn't want to get my iPhone wet!)

We met up with a huge group of our colleagues/friends that were also in Vung Tau for dinner.  I'm not sure that the restaurant we went to had ever seated a party of 17 before.  The grown ups were chatting, the children were hanging out, it was a lovely evening even if the food wasn't the greatest.

Sunday morning the boys slept in until 8:00.  That alone would have made it a great birthday as they usually wake at 5:30.  We dressed and went down to the buffet breakfast provided by the hotel.  The breakfast was good with a lot of options, but very traditionally Vietnamese.  We haven't quite made the switch to morning pho, so we stuck with waffles and omelets.

Vung Tau

After breakfast we rode a gondola to the top of the "Big Mountain" in Vung Tau.  At the top there was a giant happy Buddha and a carnival type amusement park.  We got to ride a few rides,  have some ice cream, and see some interesting statues.  It still impresses me that there can be places of worship inside the grounds of a carnival.  They just seem so mismatched.

Once back at the hotel, we ordered room service for lunch and put the boys down for a nap.  Once they were asleep I went down to the hotel spa and had a traditional Vietnamese body scrub.  Very relaxing.

I then went back to the room.  Owen was awake, but Ollie was still sleeping (yay!), so I grabbed Owen and took him to the pools.  Yes, pools.  The hotel had four different, beautiful swimming pools.  Owen and I spent some time in each one and the finished in the ocean.  By that time, Oliver had woken, so he and Derek joined us in the ocean.  Derek, of course, wanted to check out all the pools, so we went back through all four of them again!  Lot's of afternoon swimming for the Swanson family!

For dinner we went to an "Italian" restaurant called "Good Morning Vietnam."  (I put Italian in quotation marks because it was faux Italian food.)  Derek told them it was my birthday and asked them to sing to me.  They didn't quite understand what he meant, but they did understand "birthday" and "song."  So for the next 45 minutes, we listen to dozens of different versions of the Happy Birthday song.  (It didn't get obnoxious until the 30th time or so.)  We then had some ice cream and went back to the hotel to put the kiddos to bed.

When we got to the hotel, the receptionist scurried toward me and Owen with a cake that said "Happy Birthday Swansan" on it.  Derek had set it up to be delivered when we got back from dinner.  (Too bad he has somewhat scribbly hand writing.)  The cake itself was about an inch of cake surrounded by three inches of whipped cream with a few strawberries for decoration.  It wasn't very good, but watching the boys scarf it down made it the best birthday cake I've ever had!  

After I helped get the boys cleaned up from their cake adventure, I went back down to the spa for an incredibly relaxing massage.  Two spa treatments in one day!  This kind of lifestyle is starting to become addicting...

We had breakfast by the pool Monday morning and the took the 8:30 hydrofoil back to HCMC.  We took the boys to JoyMax for lunch, had a family nap time, and ordered in from our favorite vegetarian restaurant for dinner.  At 9:00, we woke up Owen and watched the National Day firework in District 1 from our balcony.  

It was a busy yet relaxing weekend.  The hydrofoil only takes a bit over an hour to get to Vung Tau, so Derek and I are thinking we could even make going to the beach a day trip.  It's not much farther than going up to Denver to go to the Children's Museum or Aquarium.  

Now we are busy planning our next trips.  We have a week off in October, three weeks for Christmas, two weeks in February for Tet, and a week at the end of March.  That's four vacations we need to arrange!  Should we go to Hoi An, Bali, Singapore, Bangkok, Hanoi, Dalat, Phuket, Nha Trang, Siem Reap, Bejing, Kuala Lumpur,...????????  So many exciting choices!  Stay tuned!