Lazy Sunday... busy Monday...

It is a little after 5pm here in Hanoi on Monday, 8/27/07, which means it is just about 6am in Boston. We just got back from an afternoon wandering around the Old Quarter. We know it is time to come back to the hotel after being out when our shirts are entirely soaked through. :) Zachary was a champ this afternoon, staying awake most of the time, and snoozing for small intervals when he had seen enough. The Old Quarter of Hanoi is a trip; thousands of tiny streets and alleys, crammed with people and shops, and, of course, motorbikes with their horns blaring at all times. One would think that with the narrowness of the streets, the amount of pedestrian and motorbike traffic, and lack of traffic signals, there would be loads of accidents, but surprisingly there are almost none. In fact, we have seen but one minor fender-bender in the entire time we have been here, and that was on the way into town from the airport on the day we arrived. Somehow, everybody here just understands the unwritten rules of the streets and everything seems to move along just fine. We have attached a couple of pictures of the Old Quarter (one of a very cool bayan tree that is apparently 1000's of years old, but still thriving, even now being surrounded by modern buildings), but really the pictures don't do the area justice - we took a couple of videos, so check out the video-hosting site and you might just get lucky. While there, you may see the cute video of Zachary watching an adorable video that his uncle Adam and aunt Sarah made for him. If Zach is every crabby and starting to cry, we just pop on the video and he is all smiles!


We got a call from Cherie's son Brian today, informing us that we have a couple of appointments tomorrow - in the morning we are supposed to pick up Zach's passport, then in the afternoon we have our medical appointments. Things are moving very quickly!!!!