Saigon was so different from Hanoi and it's a little hard to put my finger on exactly what was different. Here is one realization I had: In Beijing you have to be careful walking on the sidewalk because you don't know which way to dodge when you hear someone winding up to spit a logie (sp?). In Hanoi I usually walk in the street because the sidewalks are full of parked motorbikes which leaves little or no room for people. In Saigon, you have to be very careful walking on the sidewalk because, although the streets are broader to accommodate more traffic, it apparently isn't broad enough and people feel the need to drive their motorbikes on the sidewalk. Watch out pedestrians wherever you are!
These were some highlights... swimming, playing at the nice new playground 5 min walk away, playing tennis at the presidential palace tennis courts (across the street from our apartment), exploring Ben Thanh market Jennie's favorite shopping place (see pics below), celebrating Emma's REAL birthday, going out to eat at our favorite restaurant, etc.
Our housekeeper came to Saigon with us. Her parents live there and she hadn't seen them for over a year. Here is a pic of her family (she is in the middle). It was a pleasure to meet her mother and father and be in their home. Brother on left, 2 nieces and sister-in-law in bright pink shirt. She has a wonderful family.
Saigon has a nice zoo. I didn't think it was as depressing as the one here in Hanoi. There were ladies selling carrot sticks, bananas, sugar cane, and other things you could feed to the animals. The kids loved the zoo and we followed a monkey who was being led by a zookeeper around the zoo. Below is a pic of our housekeeper holding the monkey's hand while he sat down for a rest. She said it really had a tight grip!
Emma gets lot of mileage out of her birthday. She celebrated her birthday in California with family, Hanoi with friends (and at school), and she had her real birthday in Saigon. Xander is having birthday envy and keeps saying with bright eyes and a huge smile "Xander birthday today?" I keep telling him that he can have another birthday next year after Christmas and he gets excited like it's happening tomorrow. Cute boy!
Emma got to plan her special day with daddy's help. We first went to the presidential palace which was where the North Vietnamese (Communist) tanks rolled through the front gates and ended the war.
It was interesting to see that they left the palace as it was when it was taken over. There were parts that were decorated all 60's which was fun to see and there was even a movie theater too. Xander's most memorable part of the tour was the camouflaged helicopter on the rooftop that we could see from our apartment across the street.
Down in the basement of the palace were narrow tunnels which led to different situation rooms, map rooms, communication rooms, etc. It was neat to see where the planning took place. There were muliple telephones in every room of the palace, all waiting for that urgent call. Emma's deciding on which one to answer.
In the evening for Emma's birthday we went to see the water puppets. It was a great performance with live music and singing. Emma thought it was pretty cool to go see the puppets for her birthday since we saw the water puppets for my birthday last year when we were in Hue (just north of Da Nang).
On the right you can see the puppet artists who came out to take a bow after the performance. It's pretty amazing to see how they work.
At the end of the day we celebrated with frozen yogurt. It was called Yo Fruz and was so good!
While in Saigon, we also visited a couple Chinese temples. Here are a couple pics. This temple is famous for protecting the seas, which is important when you live next to the ocean.
