August 28, 2006 - US Embassy and Adventures in Siteseeing

We got up bright and early and headed to breakfast. Again it was wonderful. We then headed to the US Embassy to drop off all the paperwork for Keere's Visa application so she can come home. Once we got there we had to wait and wait and wait. But Keere didn't seem to mind since she slept through most of our waiting. Once they were finished with us we decided to head out and do some siteseeing. Armed with our map, money for the taxi and an idea of where we wanted to go with thought this would be a simple task. We flagged down a taxi in front of the Embassy pointed on the map that we wanted to go to the One Pillar Pagoda and off we went. Well it wasn't that simple, see he didn't understand any English, couldn't read a map and I'm not even sure spoke Vietnamese. So he took us to a building, Mom and I both shook our heads no and again tried to show him and tell him where we wanted to go. He drove us around some more, finally I saw the Hanoi flag tower, so we told him to stop. Again he will not respond, so at this point, Keere is unhappy and my Mom just finally yells "STOP" which he understands, so he pulls over. He goes "Here?" and we tell him Yes, he was so proud of himself because he really thought he had taken us to where we wanted to go. As you can see from the picture of Keere and the map, that is her telling everyone that she could have done a better job than the taxi driver getting us to where we needed to go.
So we got to see the Hanoi Flag Tower and we walked by the Army Museum. We were able to flag down another cab and I show him on the map where we want to go and he says in almost perfect English "No problem, I know where the One Stone Pillar Pagoda is". Off we went. The Pagoda is also right next door to the Ho Chi Minh Museum, so we also got to wander around there for awhile. Once we were done we headed back to the hotel, just to cool down and relax.
Also today, Keere turned 6 mos old. So Happy 6 months Birthday Keere!!!!!!!!!