MIA part 3a, our second honeymoon in Nha Trang

Ok friends. For those that know me well, know that we had horrible luck on our honeymoon to Cancun. Well, well, well, that horrible luck didn't end there! On our last week there in Viet Nam, we decided to try our luck once more and go to Nha Trang Bay with just the two of us for its beautiful beach. Nha Trang Bay has been recognized as one of 29 most beautiful bays in the word since 2003. With its mild temperature, clean sand and clear sea water, it's a popular tourist attraction. And guess what, this is where Miss Universe 2008 will take place. Be sure to watch out for it! Diamond Bay Resort, known as Vinpearl Land is exactly the location for it!!! (spinning, dancing)...wooohoooo...

Anyways, back to my luck. HAHA, you guessed it, as we get off of the plane to get to the airport shuttle, it was raining cats and dogs! Self-acknowledging our luck, all we did was look at each other and smiled! No complaints. During the 40 minutes ride on the taxi to the hotel, we had asked the taxi driver why the rain and he responded...it just started raining TODAY! And it's actually VERY RARE to get rain this time of the year in this beautiful city. TT and I looked at each other and simply smiled with an almost laughing tears.

When we were making airplane and hotel reservations for the weekend in Nha Trang, we absolutely did not think that we needed to check the forecast, that's how confident we were! I tried to ask the driver how the forecast was for the next few days and he said, the rain will stick around! I then whispered to TT that I bet the day we leave, the skies will clear up and the sun will smile shining brightly on this city. Indeed that was JUST WHAT HAPPENED.

Our schedule:
We arrived Sat early morning, as early as 7am, and suffered the rain until later in the afternoon. Checked in at 2pm, so from 7am to 2pm, ideally we could have done a tour of the city. Well, we didn't know what to do and didn't want to waste that huge amount of time, so we did that anyways! Under the rain! We asked the driver to take us to have breakfast, then toured the two famous landmarks of Nha Trang: the Po Nagar Cham Towers and Long Son Pagoda.
Very sad as a matter of fact!

To share with you how we spent our morning before we checked in the hotel. These are untouched photos from our small P-N-S Sony camera!
Visiting the Long Son Pagoda, also known as the White Buddha Pagoda, the city's oldest pagoda established in 1889. Needless to say, even with the rain, TT and I walked the 152 stone steps to reach this statue.

We borrowed the umbrella from the two girls who walked both of us up to visit the White Buddha.



As the rain hit harder, we each needed to get a poncho in order to visit the Cham Towers aka Thap Ba! So we purchased from the stand right before the entrance for 40cents each! lol. The Cham Towers date back to the 7th/ 8th century when there were eight of these magnificent structures sitting on the granite hilltop overlooking the beautiful landscapes of the coastal region of Nha Trang. After being destroyed during various wars, the towers were rebuilt in the 12th century.

I know you all like the goofy look in this right? Yes, go ahead and laugh on our misery (weep..weep).

SOMEONE was testing our love, patience and endurance. That's part of life.

Sunday- TT and I had the romantic intentions of getting up early and take a stroll on beach to catch some sunrise photos, but when TT opened the curtain on Sunday early morning, all he did was went back to sleep! The gray skies darkened, the clouds gathered, no signs of sunshine.

Monday, we have to checkout by noon and flight at 4pm, yet the skies was lit with sun rays! Yes, how very sad, (cries, cries)...

Nha Trang city, to be continued...

MIA - part 2, Jet Lag

arJet lag is seriously messing us all up. The little ones get up EVERY OTHER hour throughout the night while TT and I get sleepy during the afternoon. Babygirl has been staying with my grandparents. I love my parents, they had offered to keep the kids for as long as we need to recover. But I couldn't let them take care of both, so I only let them watch our babybirl. She gets up at night and asked for food and complained at 3am why auntie keeps on sleeping all the time! While at home, Babyboy roamed the house, asked TT to take him downstairs and to turn on the Karaoke that we have gotten from the trip! Oh boy, this is going to be ONE LONG WEEK. TT had been very nice, he takes care of babyboy and lets me sleep during the night so I could get up and go to work the next day. I told TT next time that we want to bring on this kind of challenge, to give us at least 4 days to recover before we both head back to work. This had happened the first week we were there in Vietnam, the kids would get up in the middle of the night, but since we were on vacation, we were able to sleep anytime during the day as much as we wanted to! But not now, we have to get back to work. More pics to come...once we're recovered!

Meantime, how can I resist this adorable face:

As this unforgettable expression grows:

MIA, part I

What a blast. It's nice for not having to cook or do the dishes or any household chores for a month! Yes, sorry folks, I have been MIA - missing in action!! I have been on the other side of the globe, visiting my in-laws for the first time and first time for our kids to visit TT's side. It's been ridiculously very nice to take a break, from everything! But of course not a break from mother/wifey role. I actually enjoyed cleaning my kitchen this past weekend after we got back from our vacation. Doesn't that sound aweful? I still can't forget the feeling of walking into our home after we got back, it felt brand new, like WOW. I had to pause for a second and look around and breathe the nicely scented air and to actually recognize everything!

Oh, and another thing that was funny, I was very exhausted after my arrival back to the US, after unpacking and while napping, a friend of mine called my cell phone and I had no idea what to say, I didn't understand what she was asking when she asked when did I get back.. because I was still deep asleep. She finally told me to go back to sleep..and I fell right back to sleep!! I was very thankful that my parents offered to look after the kids for us that day we got back. So we could be well rested before coming back to the grind! It was truly very tiring. Due to jet lag, dinner at 12am was delicious (:

The feeling of just a few days ago, I was still wearing light clothing to now some thick layers is ridiculous. How very strange when I think about it. You know something, I would definitely blame either the water here or the weather here for my crocodile skin. Because when I was on vacation, I did not need to even use FACE or hand lotion AT ALL!

Oh how much I miss this already, memoriessss:


MIA to be continued...stay tuned.

Happy New Year of ohhh RAT!!

Happy New Year of the RAT everyone!! Finally, we're recovered! Believe it or not, it took almost a week and a half for that recovery to happen. We're still choked up from the pollution everytime we leave the house, and that won't go away. Unbelievable how the time zone difference makes an impact. Our daily routine for the first week was being awaken by the kids around 2am, get their milk, and we would get online to check emails, and could not fall back to sleep until 4am. But then that's when the street noise would begin. Large vehicles makes such loud noise, and since our home is on a quite busy street, so around 4am, we would lay in bed and be disturbed by the vehicles driving by the house. Another thing to note is that, they exercise the horn and honking here as an alert that there's a vehicle approaching, or when crossing the intersection. That can be very annoying as a matter of fact. So, the first thing Princess Trianna asked when we were on the way home from the airport was, "What's that noise???" We responded, "eheh, that's the horn from the motor bike."

Since the kids would fall asleep at a strange hour of 5pm until 2AM! Then they both would get up and roam around the room and pry everything from the shelves and drawers to play. Since they don't have their familiar toys, they play with real stuff around the room. Since we couldn't sleep at night, we would get up as early as 7am and our day starts out with Cafe / sua da. Then our relatives would hop on their motor bike and run their grocery shopping for the day, but before doing so, they would take our breakfast order!!! How delicious is that!! Every morning, we would devour a bowl of some type of noodle soup, which includes PHO of course!

After breakfast, we would feel really sleepy *the first week*. And an important thing to note is that, it feels like it's been a long day when it's really just 9:30AM!!! I swear it's something in the air and the food, because both of us would feel really sleepy after breakfast. I would walk around the house as if I was walking on air. So ridiculous!

So you guessed it, the bed was calling our names. We would land on our bed and nap away until someone chimes for lunch time. Aahhaha, so, that's the routine, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, and eat, sleep. We could not control our sleepiness at all!! Yes, call it PARADISE!

Here, people would run their errands really early in the morning, because the air is cooler, as the afternoon approaches, you could really be BAKED in the sun. Keep in mind that we're mostly using motorbike, so if not necessary, they would try to stay indoors from 11am until 4-5pm! Then nightlife would begin.

A quick flashback of what can happen in just a 24-hour timeframe (we're totally depending on our small Sony camera on this trip):

Peeka Boo, guess where we are

Awaiting my first AIR departure, super exciting! ,


After 16 hours in the air, we're in Seoul Korea. At this time, princess already started her fever after 12 hours in the air. I'd have to say it was a very very dramatic long flight for the kids, even for us!! Can you tell by the way I look? I was thinking in my mind that the next time we bring on this adventure would be when they're at least 7!! We weren't able to sleep, either the seats were not comfortable, or the kids would take turns being awake. They get very cranky when they are awake from their naps. Although we were lucky enough to have an extra seat for Tristan, because his ticket is for lap seating.


Guess what, within 24 hours, princess has arrived at Tan Son Nhat (TSN) airport travelling all the way from Washington DC!! We landed at around 10:30pm. While we're presenting our passports and visas at the service desk, princess did a self- exploration gazing down at TSN. She might look as if she still maintained her cool, balance and curiosity but we know she was feeling sick:




We arrived exactly on the day of our little babyboy turning 2!!
So upon arriving to TT's home at midnight, a birthday cake awaits:


Our adventure will be continued, stay tuned!

binh duong, VN

Fighting hard.

Fever, cough, colds go away, 'don't' come again another day. It's been 5 days our family is fighting this nasty coughs and the kids get a combo of both fever and coughs. All we do is get up for breakfast walk around the house a few times, then land on the bed. Get up again for late lunch, walk around the house a few times then trip over the bed. Next thing that we do is, get up to go to the doctor (walk-ins, no appointments necessary), come home for dinner, walk around, then the bed calls for us again. It's been 3 days where I have not yet met any neighbors, nor anybody outside except for the doctor. While having this stuffy nose and cough, I'm here blogging how our family is doing so our wonderful friends know what we have been up to. LOL. Which interestingly enough, NOTHING, we haven't been doing ANYTHING. Sorry for being missing in action. Until we recover, I'll put some pictures up.

Thinking of you,
our family