Day 3 -- Thanksgiving in Hanoi

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Vietnam, but that didn't stop us from celebrating it.  We had two celebrations on Thanksgiving this year, both wildly different (and sadly, neither included the Turkey Bowl).

We started off at St. Paul American School.  Our plan was to let Wyatt and Jack attend classes in the morning before a school-wide Thanksgiving lunch took place.  However, the classes in the morning were cancelled to allow students to work on their country projects and presentations which are due next week.  That meant Wyatt and Jack got to mingle with students and help with projects.

Lunch started with a 10-minute presentation by Libby to educate everyone about the meaning of Thanksgiving.  St. Paul had contacted the American Embassy a few weeks ago to ask if a speaker could come out, and the Embassy recommended Libby, who is here in Vietnam after all as a Fulbright Scholar.

And then we moved on to the feast, which was a potluck -- each family brought some food and the school provided the turkeys.  Because St. Paul is an international school, we had some pretty interesting meal choices, including sushi, banh cuon, Slovakian ghoulash, and spaghetti:

After returning to the apartment and resting, the adults went off to our second Thanksgiving meal, hosted by Susan Sutton, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy (the kids got to head off for some sandwiches at Tous Les Jours and a movie).  I was pretty excited to see green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.  But overall, this Thanksgiving day was interesting, unique, surreal, and fun, even without the football and Macy's parade.

Libby and Susan:

Day 2 -- Water Park, Mega Mall, and Korean BBQ

Our kids were pretty committed to showing their cousins a good time in Vietnam, and to them that meant fewer museums and more Vincom Mega Mall and the water park.  They even formed a committee called the "water park committee" and put on a full court press lobbying effort that any Washington DC insider would be proud of.  Like all good American parents, we caved eventually.  Our plan originally was to hit some outdoor museum/temple exhibits in the morning and go to the water park in the afternoon.  However, the heavy rains hit in the morning just as we were leaving the apartment, so we went to the waterpark instead.  Kids 1, parents, 0.

As a country, Vietnam does not celebrate Thanksgiving, so we were amused to see they were having Black Friday sales at the mall.  I don't think anyone was camping out for deeply discounted TVs or video game systems.

The water park was not crowded at all -- which is what we found the last time we were there.  It was as if the Vincom people built a water park just for the Frato-Sweeneys to use with their relatives:

After lunch we turned the kids loose in the mall for some lunch while the grown ups had some traditional Vietnamese food at Quan An Ngon, followed by a crowded bus back to Cau Giay.

That night we put on our rain ponchos and walked down the street to an amazing Korean BBQ place.  We got the beef and the pork and chowed down on the grilled meats and the Korean vegetables.