Day 8

Charli and our "goods" ready for the bus

Today was a day of sleeping in!  I was still up at 7, but was able to drift in and out of sleep until around 10, which I will consider a success!  I was able to catch up on some blogging this morning, and then we headed out (with all our goodies in toe) to catch the bus!  It was another bad bus, very hot and crowded, but luckily after each stop (or so) a seat opened up so the 3 of us were able to sit!

We stopped at Jiao’s coffee shop and met her 4-year-old son, Alexander, who was very cute!  We also met a couple from Vancouver who just arrived in Vietnam and will be traveling for the next month, so we had fun chatting with them!  I was curious what brought them out to that neck of the woods, but they said they are staying in an airbnb down the street, as they didn’t want to deal with all the tourist nonsense!

Mom & Alexander

After some delicious bolognese and a banana/nutella crepe, we made our way to the orphanage.  Our plan was to drop off our goods in the big room and have Long translate via Facebook to Yen that everything was left there.  However, we were really surprised when the big room was open and everyone was in there!  We have never seen them working on the weekend in the past, and even last weekend nobody was there, so we have no clue what that was about!  It also didn’t feel like a typical day because not everyone was there, and it seemed like they were cleaning up for the day (where as normally we would play and then eat).  But, everyone seemed excited to see us and Yen was happy with our goodies.  She is very sweet and good about putting the kids in the clothes we buy and posting pictures, and today was no different, she put all the kids in the new clothes we bought! 

George the 2nd in new clothes!

Since there weren’t as many kids, and we weren’t really sure what the schedule was, we stayed in the room and played on the floor.  It is a bit weird with Yen because I feel like I know her and we “talk” throughout the year via Facebook, but then in person I feel bad because we can’t communicate at all.  The other workers were kind of sitting around, so I figured she would kick us out if it was time to go.  They (and Bob) seemed to really like the puzzles!  George the 2^nd really liked listening to the music, Kap and Dorothy were playing some games, and Thoung was playing with the iTouch and animal sounds.  He LOVED when Mom makes the same sounds as the animals – even I can’t make him laugh as much as she does!!!

Kap must have been told it was time to eat, because he motioned to us eating and then took a hike!  We rounded up the troops to say goodbye to everyone and got lots of hugs!

Dorothy in her new outfit!

We took a cab back to the hotel, although the cab driver took a bit more of a roundabout way, because we ended up going by the airport first.  We (or at least I) don’t really think he was trying to “scam” us or anything like that, but maybe he wasn’t really sure the best way to get to where we were going?  Anyway, it just added a few more minutes and dollars to the ride, and I was very thankful that I was sitting (and had AC on).

Charli showered and packed up and then got ready to head out!  I am so thankful she was able to visit, to both see and experience the orphanage and have time to tour the city with Long!

Charli, Me, Yen & Mom

I also cant believe it was our last day at the orphanage…the week went by so quickly!  We are off to Hoi An tomorrow for a little R&R.  People say the town is very cute and relaxing and quieter and less crazy than Saigon, which I think we are both looking forward to. 

I haven’t really decided if I like having R&R at the end, or I’d like some in the middle.  I think it was Wednesday or Thursday of this week that I really could have used/wanted a day off, just to do something different.  But, I also like doing something different at the end of the trip, as it’s a way to decompress before coming back home and jumping right back into things!