Hue and Hoi An

Hi, I seem to have miscalculated my estimations on when we have WiFi, cause today we found out that we have free internet. So here I am telling you about what we did in Hue. The way we got to Hue was by plane. It was the shortest plane ride I have ever been on. It was an hour flight,and basically we went up for about 20 minutes and then stayed in the air for about 20 minutes and then went back down to the ground for the rest of the hour ride. When we arrived at the airport, we got our baggage and then went to find our driver. He saw us before we saw him. Then we went to our hotel. It is the grandest hotel that we will stay in while we are in Vietnam. There are about… 95 rooms in all. But I think the way they did the grounds around the area is very 

beautiful. Then we had dinner. I am sorry, but I made an untruth, ( not on purpose.) Remember when I said Sumner had hot pot at the Kangaroo Cafe in Hanoi? Well we found out what hot pot really is. My dad got it for dinner tonight but, sadly he found it rather difficult to eat it. First you have to get a sheet of Rice Paper. The you get the vegetables, meat or seafood,sauces if you want them, and then roll all of the things in on big, or small roll. Then of course the fun part begins, you eat the yummy, but hot roll, and then make as many as there are provided. Mom and I had fresh juices. I had pineapple, and mom had Watermelon.They were good.

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Today we went  to a pagoder, ( as our language teacher said.) but we had to go on a boat ride to get to the pagoda. Then we went to the palace were the emperors stayed. The place was ginormous! First since the emperors were clever men, they built a moat. Then there were 9 “sacred” canon. They are “sacred"because supposedly 9 is the lucky number. Then there was the place where the emperor had his speeches.  We all got  to stand right where the emperor would have sat should I say. Then I was tempted to ring the gong and ring the bell, but they were off limits. I think the emperor really cared for his mom, or he would not have built a humongous palace for the king’s mother. She basically had her own private palace. And I thought this was very clever. They built a privacy wall right where the gate was so that no one could see through the gate and see what the mother was doing in her living room. Did you know that the last emperor that was on the throne had his coronation  at what seemed like the age 6 or 7? But our guide said he was more like a puppet when he was young, because his mom and his mandarins( basically government officials) “help” supervise the new and young emperor. Too much information? Well I will tell you that we supposedly went to a tomb of one of the kings. Archeologists have not opened the coffin, so we do not know for a fact that the body is really in that tomb. But they say he constructed a massive tomb sight that he loved the sight so much that they built a separate place where he could write poetry and just hang out in the beautiful place. ALSO you know that usually when some one dies, you build the tomb after he is dead, but they finished the tomb 17 years before his death. Well we got back from our touring, so Sumner, dad and I went to the pool to swim.Then headed back to our room. Now I am just writing about what happened during the day. One more thing before I part with you guys. I think tonight I will wear my Ao Dai at dinner. I am so excited 

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So today we arrived in Hoi An. We had a 4 hour car ride, ( not a bad ride.) Well, when we were maybe about… and hour into our ride, we stopped. Completely stopped. We did not move anywhere for I think, half an hour. Well our tour guide finally found out that there were men working on the rode, so the men’s logic was to let on side go for half an hour, then let the other side go for an hour. So while we were waiting, we had bathroom brakes in the bushes. ( In America we probably would not do that UNLESS we were in the wilderness,AND had to go to the bathroom really bad.)Well after our half an hour we headed back on the rode. Mom and dad got the chose if we wanted to go over the pass,( which is over the mountains,) or through the tunnel. Mom chose the tunnel because the pass would take about 45 minutes, while the tunnel would take about 15-20 minutes. The tunnel was  WAY longer than the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado. It was about 6 Kilometers. (maybe a little more than 3 miles.) I twas kind of fun going through the VERY long tunnel. A little while after we went through the tunnel, we came to a museum, where a lot of statues from the 15 hundreds or before. Now those are some really old statues. When we finished the museum, we headed back on the road, just to stop again to take some photos at the beach. ( The beach is really special, because that was maybe the 4 time Sumner and I have ever seen the beach.) Now the museum was not in Hoi An, but was in a city called Da Nang that is very close to Hoi An. We entered Hoi An City which is the 4 largest city in Vietnam. The largest in Vietnam is Saigon, Or Ho Chi Minh city. The second is Hanoi, the third is a city I do not know, and the fourth is well Hoi An.T.B.C.

Sorry for the delay, but we had to do something important.Well as I was saying,when we got to Hoi An, we headed to a market. A really big market, that sold every thing you could wish for. There was a section that had fresh fish. And they even had a pretty big sting ray.  personally, the fish department smelled absolutely awful. Then we went to a fish on place that sold lunch. I had some thing different from things you would usually have. I had

Fish on Banana Leaf. I thought is was VERY good. Then we took a 10 minute ride to the hotel area. They say that it is not a very luxurious place, but personally, I think that is was a wonderfully grand place.

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O.K. So today was a very tiring day. Why because we went bike riding for about…4 hours? I do not know for sure, but  we rode for basically for the entire day. Luckily Sumner and I got smaller bikes to ride on. Though the only problem was that we all had mountain bikes.( not including the guide.) It was really funny because We almost got run over! Yes I know, you think maybe by a car or a bus or a motor bike, but here is the funny part of the story, we almost got run over by cows! By these insane cows who, I guess like to run right in front of your bike! Also I think this is really cool, we got to go to a ship/boat yard, where they repair and make new boats. They either make them out of wood, or Bamboo. We also went on an hour tour on the river.

Dad had gotten a new custom made suite, so when we docked, we went to the store that the suite was made at. For lunch we went to a restaurant, that had street food samples.( with a little western twist to it.) AND she ran or runs the restaurant we went to yesterday.  T.B.C.