While We Wait.........

While we are waiting for our G&R ceremony, we've been keeping ourselves busy by visiting with the family and shopping of course. I've been filling my belly up with all the good cooking of our Aunty who lives here in Hanoi. My favorite things to eat are a vegetable called rau muong which Americans may call anchoy. Its very cheap in VN but expensive in USA. I also love the fruit chom chom, and I'm crazy for banh cuon which we call VN pancakes.... they are delicious!!! I've already eaten them 3 times since i've been here.

I've added a picture of a dish our aunty cooked which is bamboo & chicken. Can you find the chicken head in the bowl? The bamboo is quite delicious, but I did skip the chicken head. Last night we dined on squid stir fried with vegetables and we've also had fried tofu quite a few different ways which is Bill's favorite. We also enjoyed some sugar can juice in the street made fresh. It was delicious and refreshing. And today with lunch we had corn juice which actually tasted very sweet too. I was a little nervous about the ice cubes, but so far so good. But we have had one person in all the families having an upset stomach already.

This afternoon we bought a few VN dishes and had quite a load to carry back to the hotel. Looks like some of you can expect a Vietnamese Christmas present this year. We all passed around the box saying we were practicing carrying the baby.... got to get my arm strength up!