Orphanage and Cooking Class

I can't believe we are here. We have waited so long for this trip. Talked about it for years and here we are. Josie is an awesome traveler and so are Kurt and Tien. They have been so easy going about the trip, I am amazed. The time change, the crazy traffic, the total change from what they usually experience is a lot for such young children. Our guide is great, his name is Phu and he really is easy going, but organized.
Today, we went to an orphanage outside of Hanoi. It is the orphanage that took the place of the one Kurt was in. I was curious to how the children would react. We did the whole meet the director (he was out, so it was the second in command). We sat in a room and had tea and he gave kind of a speech and we ask some questions. It was very formal and quiet, then Kurt knocked over his glass of water and everyone laughed. Then we went to see the babies. There were about 30 babies waiting for families in the US, Canada and Italy. There were about five or six in each room and five rooms. At first the kids sort held back, but one of the worker was determined to get Josie to hold a baby. As soon as Josie held the baby, they all were cooing over the babies and having a great time. It was pretty cute to see the kids playing with the babies. I think they had fun. There were no older children at this orphanage, at least not at this time.
After the orphanage we went to the hotel and the kids swam and played. Then it was time for the Mom's to take a cooking class and brave Keith took charge of the kids. He had a bold plan of Mac and Cheese from a hot pot and Harry Potter 1 on my computer. By the look of things when we returned, he had it well planned. The cooking class started with a walk through the market. There were all sorts of interesting fruits and veges, but the seafood was the best. The seafood vendors had snails the size of your fist, eels, snakey things and jumbo prawn the size of your shoe. All alive and kicking, or jumping and slithering to be exact. Then we headed back to the restaurant. We made fresh spring rolls with pork and shrimp, tamarind catfish, chicken in lemon leaf and sweet potato pudding. We did the all the chopping slicing and got do a portion of the cooking. There was this odd couple from South Africa that joined us, they had some different observations on life. The food was all good, but I could bring myself to eat the pudding that really looked like the end of Josie's nose during a bad cold. Yuck! I am sure it tasted good, but the consitency was to much for me. We came home the little snuggle bugs almost asleep and felt so lucky to be here with them, and lucky that Keith was willing to take them all for the many hours we were gone. What a trip.