Greetings from Vietnam

Since my office and Sydney's school are closed next week for Chinese New Year, Sydney and I flew to Saigon last Friday to spend the Tet (or the lunar new year, which is on February 7th) in Saigon with my parents. We have been very lucky with our flights here from Shanghai. We were upgraded to business class from Shanghai to Hong Kong and had an entire row of seats to ourselves in economy class from Hong Kong to Saigon. I didn't buy a ticket for Sydney for these flights because they are only a little over 2 hours for each flight so the extra room was a relief. The flights were uneventful, as was Sydney, which is how I like to fly.

We are staying at the Rex Hotel in Saigon for its location and affordable price, and definitely not for its comfort. The hotel is very outdated and is in the process of a much needed renovation. I stayed here 4 years ago and I don't remember it looking this worn down. I paid $68 a night back then. It is about twice that much now because of Tet. But it is in a great location --- walking distance to most of the places to which we want to go. The room that we booked had a great view of the city but it was so noisy at night that neither Sydney and I were able to sleep so we had to switch rooms. We had to downgrade in our room choice but at least it is quiet and the air conditioner worked great. However, there is no internet connection in the room. They do have computers with internet connections in the common area. I didn't realize how much I relied on the internet until I don' t have easy access to it.

It is amazing how much different this area looks from 4 years ago. More 4 and 5 star hotels have been built since then as well as shopping malls. The malls are 3 - 5 stories tall and well air-conditioned, which is a great draw for customers as the temperature here is in the low 90s for the high. But it feels a lot warmer than that. The most striking aspect about the malls is that they have stores such as Gucci, Calvin Klein, Burberry and other expensive brand name stores. Saigon (and Vietnam in general) is a very poor country and still a third world country in many respects. People here live on average of $3 per day. I wonder how many people here can afford to shop at these stores. I noticed that there were people browsing in these stores but no one bought anything.

The city is well decorated in preparation of Tet. There are fresh flowers everywhere as well as statutes and pictures of mice since the new year will be the year of the rat. Most of the mice are Micky and Minnie Mouse and I'm sure that Disney is receiving royalty payments for the use of those images. There is a street near our hotel that will be closed off to traffic on new year's eve for a celebration and it is beautifully decorated with flowers, topiaries and statutes of mice.

As soon as we checked into our hotel on Friday, we changed clothes and headed to my favorite restaurant here, Ngouc An. And yes, I had pho -- the best tasting bowl of pho that I have ever had. The fact that it costs less than $2 was just icing on the cake. If Sydney wasn't so tired, I would have ordered a couple more bowls. Sydney and I have been eating pho a couple of times a day now, and neither of us are tired of it. The food here is just amazing -- light, fresh and flavorful.

Saigon is not a kid friendly place (i.e., there is nothing for kids to do here) and since the temperature is so hot, we only make it out of the hotel in the mornings and evenings. We spend our afternoons in the hotel. It's been a struggle to find things to keep Sydney occupied. We take long walks around the city, which she enjoys. I'm a little overwhelmed by the noise and throngs of people, but Sydney gets a kick out of it. We sit on the steps in front of our hotel sometimes and just people watch. There is a small park across the street from our hotel that we walk around a couple of times a day. We've done some shopping and I bought Sydney a couple of really cute dresses for this summer. I found a bookstore today that has a large English book section so the new Elmo books have helped to keep her busy.

It has been so great to be in a city where I know the language. My parents speak to Sydney in Vietnamese and after a couple of days, she seems to understand the gist of what they are saying. She's repeating everything that she hears now and as a result, has learned a couple of Vietnamese words. I taught Sydney the traditional greeting that children give to adults (bowing with arms crossed over their chest) as a gift to my parents last fall in preparation for our visit to Dallas over Thanksgiving. That bow has won Sydney many admirers here.

I'm leaving Sydney with my parents tonight and flying to Siam Reap, Cambodia to check out Angkor Wat. I've been wanting to see Angkor Wat for years now and since Saigon is only a 45 minute flight to Siam Reap, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to go. I really wanted to take Sydney with me but I've been told that Angkor Wat is definitely not stroller friendly and having to carry Sydney around for hours in 90 degree weather would make the trip a miserable experience, for the both of us. I'll be flying back to Saigon tomorrow afternoon.

Frosty Fascination

Sydney is fascinated with snowmen. She talks about it all day, spends a lot of time at her bedroom window looking at the melting snowmen outside and frequently asks me to tell her stories about snowmen. She LOVES them. However, she's too afraid to touch them. She will touch snow on the ground but not when they resemble people.

The snowman above sits in the courtyard at Sydney's school. All of the kids got such a kick out of it but it was too cold to be outside. So the teachers brought indoors buckets of ice for them to build a snowman on one of the activies table. When I arrived to pick Sydney up from school, she was busy sticking pipe cleaners in the snowman for arms. She had declined requests to put in any other body parts because it would require her touch the snowman. I was kicking myself for leaving my camera at home because I would have loved to have a picture of the final product. If you can, picture a snowman about 3 inches taller than Sydney with 9 arms, 5 eyes and a carrot for a nose.

Winter Chaos

We finally have a reprieve after 5 days of snow and ice in Shanghai. Instead of having machines clear the roads of ice and snow, there are people out with shovels and brooms doing the job themselves. As such, traffic is more horrendous than usual. Actually, we are pretty lucky here. Most of western/southern China have been hit with so much snow and ice that all of the transportation systems (i.e., buses, trains and planes) were shut down. The extreme weather couldn't have come at a worse time. Next week in Chinese New Year (February 7th) and everyone is leaving to return to their home town. And for most people, Chinese New Year is usually the only time that people go home to visit their families -- parents, spouses, children --- so everyone has been desperately scrambling to find any available transportation. In Guangzhou alone, there were 500,000 people stranded at the train station. Many of whom have been sleeping at the station for days. In another province, there was a bus full of people that was stranded in the snow 2 days without any food, water or heat. The Chinese government is asking people to refrain from traveling this New Year but it doesn't appear to have any effect. In addition, there is a prediction of food shortages to certain areas of China due to the inability of food shipments getting through. The Chinese government has dispatched about 500,000 soldiers to help keep the peace and also to shovel snow and ice in an effort to clear up the roads. The Chinese premier has publicly apologized for transportation shut downs resulting from the weather.

Luckily, the reprieve in the weather enabled some of the public transportation systems to resume their operations and many people were able to depart to the intended destinations to celebrate the new year.

Snowy Weekend

It snowed all day on Saturday and Sunday, and this time the snow did stick. There was enough snow for people to be outside, engaging in snow fights or building snowmen. I only enjoy cold weather when I'm in a heated room, in front of a raging fire in a fireplace, with a cup of hot tea or cocoa. Or when I'm skiing. I couldn't talk Sydney to going outside to play in the snow so Sydney and I enjoyed the snow festivities from her bedroom window.

I cancelled all of our plans for this weekend because I couldn't bring myself to brave the cold weather to wait for taxis. This is the second weekend that we've been shut inside all weekend. Sydney is a bit restless and, as a result, our apartment is littered with anything and everything that Sydney can put her hands on and tear apart. But since she was generous enough to sleep until 8am yesterday and 7:30am today, instead of her usual wake up time of 5:30am-6am, she can trash the apartment all she wants (especially when our ayi is working tomorrow).

Cartoony World

After school, we went to a place called Cartoony World with our friends Colleen and her kids, Riley and Nicola (who is in Sydney's class). Cartoony World is a combination of Chuckie Cheese (without the food) and an arcade so that it would attract kids of all ages. There is even a train ride, an indoor carousel and live fish pond where kids can keep any goldfish that they can catch. In other words, it is loud and overwhelming. When we first arrived, Sydney looked at me and said, "Mama, nooooooo." But once Colleen and her kids arrived, Sydney felt more comfortable and had a great time playing.

Once we finished playing in the ball room, Sydney played a couple of video games and rode a couple of the rides. Of course, she walked right past the cute, girly rides and instead insisted on riding on the helicopter and the Batman car. She was too scared to go on the train ride with Riley and Nicola but took several turns on the carousel.

After almost 2 hours, the Moms were tired so we all went to Moon River Cafe for dinner ---- chicken quesadillas and tuna melt for Sydney and me, just what a couple of American girls needed to hit the spot. When we got home, Sydney only had enough energy left for a bath before asking to be put to bed.

Random Chatter in the Chat Room

The Shanghai Mamas Yahoo Group has been discussing potty training this week. Several of the Mamas have followed their ayis' advice and started potty training their babies as young as 5 months. Ayis typically train babies by holding them over the toilet and whistling and the babies would pee on cue. I'm not sure how that would work exactly, especially considering that the babies are not able to let their parents/ayi know that they have to urinate. Maybe they learn a non-verbal signal? And I don't think that they have the bladder control to not urinate when they sleep. One Mama said that she started potty training her son at 1 month and at 4 months he was out of diapers. Note how I am not calling anyone a fibber.

Another topic that is red-hot on the Yahoo Group is the problems some Mamas have had with being charged an incorrect price at the grocery store. Everyone participating in the discussion seems to think that the errors were intentional. I have to admit that I have never checked my bills from the grocery stores. Partly because of the language barrier (some receipts show up in Chinese only) and partly because it usually entails getting into another line to get a refund. I don't have the energy for it. But I did check my bills this week, and they have all been correct. Some of the "mistakes" mentioned in the chat room were things like one item being wrung up as 6 items, something that was supposed to cost 8RMB showed up as 200RMB.

There was a post by a Mama indicating that someone stole her purse from her cart while at Carrefour (a large 2-story grocery store). The security man found it laying on top of a shelf. Of course, the 2,000RMB that she had in the purse was gone. She wanted the security man to close all exit doors in Carrefour and check everyone in there until they found her 2,000RMB. Unless she taped her picture to all of her money, I'm not sure how she is going to recognize her missing money. Also, closing down Carrefour is like closing down Walmart the day after Thanksgiving with everyone in it. It gets better. Since the security man would not close down Carrefour, she demanded that all of her groceries be given to her free of charge. The security man made the mistake of laughing at her. She was so irate that she sent her mother-in-law home with her baby and she intended to stay at Carrefour until they were willing to let her have free groceries. Carrefour closed at 10pm. She stayed until midnight! But it was not all of naught because she got her free groceries. Note how I am not calling anyone crazy.

BRRRRRRRRRRR

It snowed on and off today, which was great. Unfortunately, it didn't stick so there was no opportunity for snow fights or snow angels.

I'm having a hard time with the cold weather here, mostly because we don't have very good insulation at the apartment and it is always cold even though I have the thermostat set at 90 degrees (which is as high as it will go). I sleep in my sweat pants, sweat shirt and socks. Fortunately, it is warm in Sydney's room, which is the only room in the apartment that is warm.

Sydney seems to enjoy the cold weather, mostly the hot cocoa on Saturday mornings. I asked Sydney what she wanted for breakfast this weekend and she asked "How about cocoa?" She is really big on "How about _____?" these days. She got a new coat for Christmas from Aunt Cassi and she really likes wearing it.

I continue to get grief from her school about Sydney not being dressed warmly enough. She is usually in a turtle neck over a t-shirt or under a cardigan sweater, or in a sweater. Of course, she also has a coat and hat. But sometimes when I pick her up from school she is wearing the two spare shirts/turtlenecks that I brought for her, in addition to the clothes that she arrived at school in. I wouldn't care except that it means more laundry for me and you know how much I hate to do laundry. But then sometimes on these days when she is wearing 3 shirts/sweaters her teachers would tell me, with a straight face, that Sydney's temperature is a bit on the warm side. Sometimes I remember my yoga breathing techniques and it gets me through the moment, and other times I remind myself that I have wine at home and it allows me to leave the school without an ugly incident.

I hope that everyone is managing to keep warm!