It's Raining Again

      Get out your umbrellas because rainy season has returned to Ho Chi Minh City.  Count on afternoon thunderstorms that can rattle your teeth. Honestly, I enjoy getting wet sometimes because it beats the heat, and usually before a storm there is a deliciously cooler breeze blowing.  : )

     People talk about how long it takes to feel like you really live some place.  You know friends, daily routine, places you go.  On Friday, I felt more than at any other time, that this is our neighborhood.  After school I packed four girls in a taxi for a play date at Lissa's, then walked down to the dentist.  Yes, it had been at least 2 years since my last visit- I wasn't looking forward to it.  It turned out to be one of the most pleasant dentist experiences I have ever had. I had my teeth examined and cleaned with strait forward and honest information, ala wisdom teeth need to come out, WITHOUT the major paranoia "You better do this and we have to take lots of x-rays, and, and, and..." that I have experienced for most of my adult life with dentists. The office was clean and our new dentist spoke English well.   She was trained in Japan. Charles and Sophie met me there an hour later, and Charles got the chair for the next hour, as Sophie and I walked down to play and get Maeve.  (Total damage by the way...2 complete, badly needed cleanings and exams.....500,000 Dong, or $30. (!) We'll put dentist on the things that are great about Vietnam list!)

      After we picked up Charles, we walked to one of our new favorite restaurants for "try something new" night.  This is our newest effort to get our super picky daughters to branch out a bit.  Tokyo Deli is a great Japanese restaurant, complete with the special sit on the floor on a cushion experience.  Sophie has discovered she likes miso soup, udon, and seaweed.  (Yes Molly, seaweed!) I am whooshed back to my exchange students days from the first miso soup swig.  (I was proud of myself the other day.  Maeve has a new student in her class who speaks only Japanese.  I was able to say enough to her for her to smile and answer back.)  Maeve was particularly taken with the Japanese restaurant experience.  After enjoying only her Coke however, she explained on the way home how she would create her own restaurant and how we could all come.

"Felice Topia" restaurant welcomed people with its sign, lion logo included.

You can see the Japanese restaurant influence....

Menu:

Silly Bananas

Fruit Robot

Flower Bananas

Carrot Cube Smile

Makes you want to come to this restaurant, huh?

Can't forget the drink menu:

Water

Grape Juice

Apple Juice

Pomelo Juice

I ordered Silly Bananas of course.  Wouldn't you?

Service with a smile.

Teddy drying in the morning sun.  Charles and I talked this morning about how intense and unrelenting the tropical sun is.  We often have to keep drapes closed in the morning/midday in order to keep the house cool.  I do like having such effusive light all of the time.

Maeve shows off her budding set design talents.  (Make sure you zoom in to appreciate the detail of this one...)

Sophie and Charles have been collecting seed pods and bugs.  So many cool species like this one, which we do not know what it is yet.  It is fun to share their discoveries after school.  So many make you create new schema for seed pods because they look so different from anything you have seen before.

When Maeve's classroom turtle, Little Cutie, disappeared from the classroom, Maeve helped out with her LOST poster, posted in the pod:

Lost Turtle 

She is Little Cutie

Have You Seen Her?

I am mucho happy about the reading and writing that Maeve is doing both at home and school.

  

      Charles and Sophie wave from our first official "taste test".  This time? Crackers.  Both Maeve and Sophie found new ones they like.  (Yes, you are on to me.  More efforts for a wider palate for all.)

     Happy Mother's Day!  Most especially to my mom, of course,  to friends who are new moms and my sister who is going to be the mom of a beautiful two year old Chinese boy very soon.  I got an exquisite, written from the heart card and breakfast and coffee in bed.  Top it off with bug hunting for the bug collection and mango for lunch and you have quite a respectable Mother's Day. 

     Gosh, almost forgot.  Can you ID the hunk on the right in this picture? (Boy am I glad it's this person's friends who keep sending pictures and not mine.)  An uncanny connection from my past?  My new colleague here in the fall went to none other than Hopewell Valley Central High School!  (My small town NJ high school.)  It is a small, small world.

      Tan Biet for now. Don't be a stranger.