Trip to District 1

We went into District 1 (basically down town Ho Chi Minh) to explore, do some shopping and have dinner. We still feel like our apartment is a bit sparse and Christine wanted to hit the Bhen Tein Market for some baskets and look for lamps. The boys were anxious to look for games for their DS as well.

The Ben Than Market ( Ben Ten) is an open air market for just about everything. Like Saturday Market on steriods.! From Clothing to household and prepared foods to all groceries you may wish to take home. I enjoyed the meat and fish area. Much of the fish was live, swimming in small tanks being pumped oxygen. Here are a few pictures.

Garlic

Chrstine has some more pics I will post when she gets back from work. I have many pictures to share and I know that its much more fun to see pics and captions than read my banter. More later today. Cheers, 

Live fish

BTW- My friend Jon mentioned the local Saigon Red and Saigon Green beer. I finally found some, but your not going to believe where!

I had to go to the Hard Rock to find a local beer! Crazy! I thought we had a pic of the bottle and some food, but lost it some how. I'll try to get some more local flavor soon. 

Here it is. This one's for Jivy!

Grant's New Bike

Mine is the black and yellow. 

I got my bike yesterday its black with yellow on it. It has bronze foot pegs. I like the foot pegs because it gives my feet a rest.Yesterday i went for 2 bigs bike rides with my family. We went around are block which was about 3 miles   then we went to our apartment, then to my moms coworkers house. They showed us around there place  and we saw a huge caterpiller. they got a dog named tiger she's a girl. After that we got kem (ice cream) then we went back to the apartment.

My New Bike by Tony Jr.

My new bike is a blue mt. bike with a white decal. I got it yesterday. The store we got it from was very small but there     was lot of people there. Some of them touched me and grant. After we bought The bikes we asked the owner if they delivered bikes and he said yes. After that we hailed a taxi and went back to the apartment.

Mine is blue. Grant's is in front

My bike is blue with a white decal. It came with a lock and key and a light for riding at night. I'm glad we got bikes to get around easier.

Getting Settled

It's been a few days since I posted anything. We just had the internet installed which is DSL. I'm going to have to get used to the slow response, but its not bad. We are looking for a wireless router and will install that as soon as we can. The boys are disappointed they cannot use their iTouch's to text and email yet, but we have found a local cafe w/ wifi and will try to go a couple of times a week to catch up. We are learning to be patient as things move along much slower here.

We have moved into the new apartment. It is very nice and comfortable. The decor is very modern which is a change for our normal living, but I am not complaining at all. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms. There is a small but comfortable living/dining room w/ a bump out kitchen. I will take some pictures a little later and post them as well. We are on the 10th floor facing east which is makes for a beautiful sunrise. Our friend Chris picked it out so we could have afternoon shade and have some time w/ the windows open. He suggested not living in air-conditioning all of the time and after only a few days I agree. I open up the window in the morning for a few hours and in the evening.

Here is a picture outside out balcony. There's a small space to go out and enjoy the view of the river. I am fascinated by the boats, barges and ebb and flow of the river.

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I'm not sure what this boat is for. Looks like a ferry or tour boat.