Letter 2 From Grace

Hi again everyone!

Hi, Grace here! We haven't really posted much since we got to Vietnam so I'll inform you what has happened since we got here. First, when we arrived, our Vietnamese friend (Daddy's student), Chinh, met us at the airport. We went on a taxi ride to our new house. Mommy has already posted all the pictures of our house. Just look at some of the blog posts by Deborah von Meding (My mother). First thing we did was go to a restaurant (It was lunch time at Vietnam). It was a nice restaurant. It was awesome food. Noodles, rice and soup.  Then we went back to our house. We had a rest, but I think I was the only one of the kids who actually fell asleep. Sophia was keeping me awake most of the time though.

Sophia and I share a room. About the rooms, Caleb has his own room, Me and Sophia share, Judah and Eli share, and Mommy and Daddy share (Usually Eli has his own room and Caleb and Judah share. I guess that's changed now). Anyway, after we "rested" Chinh brought over some Vietnamese fruits to try. We tried all of them. I liked rambutan the most. And pomelo. Plus grapefruit because Daddy sometimes got grapefruit instead of pomelo. I like the pink pomelo the most, the grapefruits are only yellow. Rambutan season is over now. I'm not sure about everybody's favorite fruits (In Vietnam anyway).

Performing at Imperial City, Hue

A few weeks after we got here, we signed up for art class. At art class I made friends with the art teachers daughter, plus the art teacher! Me, Somara (That is the art teacher's daughters name) and Sonya (That is the art teacher's name) went swimming. It was a pretty deep swimming pool, but I stayed at the shallow end where I could stand. Nobody could stand at the deep end! But I did go to the deep end and tried to touch the bottom. I only touched it once. The other times I was pretty far away from the bottom. Somara touched it most of the time. Mommy was sitting in the sitting room for all the time we were in the pool (She sat there doing her art work for three hours!!). When we had to leave Somara, Sonya, Me and Mommy went in the same taxi. Somara and Sonya's hotel was first. Then our house. Art class is over now, but I still get to see Sonya and Somara (Though I haven't seen them for a while now...).

With my little sister at the beach, Central Vietnam

We've been here for three months now. Caleb and Daddy went to Danang a few weeks ago, and they saw caves. We've all been to Danang, but Caleb and Daddy went recently (I was kind of jealous, because I wanted to go too). I love Vietnam! It's so exciting and full of new adventures! This is a great place to learn (And see) new things! I do miss my friends in Australia though (Evie in particular)..... But I also made new friends here! Like, as soon as we got here, I made friends with some Vietnamese girls and we play together all the time. Though they ring the doorbell loads of times, they're still great friends (Evie, if you're reading, don't feel replaced. Nobody is a better friend than you).

Caleb and Daddy at Paradise Cave

As for school, we're still doing the thing we always do (Report, IXL, reading, etc etc), except we also now do folders. The first week of the folder was for free, but the next week we have to buy. I like the folders, they have activitys (And science, and math, and english, and P.E., and health, and music, and all the subjects you would have in school.). I do like Vietnam, but I'm still looking forward to going back to Australia. I hope everybody back in Australia is doing okay! Over here we're quite settled in, all unpacked a while ago.

If anybody wants to learn some Vietnamese, these are a few links to a app we have here (This can be for the computer, iPhone or iPad). That is the app we use the most. Also if you don't want to use Doulingo, you can (On iPad or iPhone) search up on the App Store, Vietnamese by Nemo. Tap the one with the green background and the lotus flower in the middle. Lotus flowers are Vietnamese flowers that grow in ponds. Near where we live, there's a big lotus pond. Most of the lotus flowers have died, but in when their alive their beautiful (We came when a few of them were in bloom. Though its Autumn now, so most of the flowers have been harvested already and the leaves have died).

Hope everybody's doing well!
Thanks for reading! From Grace

Don't worry, they said. We'll keep a blog, they said...

Those of you who know us well will be in no way surprised that we haven't updated this since we first moved to Vietnam and showed you our new house. 

In the weeks and months that have followed we have seen some sights, travelled to central Vietnam, made some friends, taken art classes, joined a soccer club, got sick, tried (are trying) to get fit and knuckle down into work! 

      (Always ready for a motorbike ride)

One of the places we would recommend visiting if you come here is the The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. The whole family enjoyed looking at the model houses and were excited to explore the full scale houses outside. 

Quite often in our pictures you will see out friend Chinh. She and her family have been such a good help and support to us throughout our stay. Unfortunately (for us!) she has gone back to Australia until the end of October but we look forward to seeing her and her lovely son when they return and are thankful for all she has shown us and the kindness she and her husband Viet have extended to us.

(Beating the boys in a Swan boat race 😉💪🏼 Gracie is quite the competitive type!) 

Our trip to central Vietnam was eventful and beautiful. One of the highlights for our kids (and Veggietales fans everywhere) was meeting a real life water buffalo!

We went swimming almost daily, visited Marble Mountain, ancient pottery and wood working villages, Pagodas and every vegetarian restaurant we could find.

We drank Jasmine tea, took beautiful lantern lit walks through night markets and watched a knife wielding fight escalate over dinner...no one was hurt. Chinh facilitated many dates for Jason and I for which we are so thankful! 

               (Dinner time in Hoi An)

               (Date night in Hue)

One other great achievement of these months is no more nappies!! When you gotta go, you gotta go. 👇🏼

Since we came back from our trip we've been getting back to "normal." Jason has been working hard through the list of things he came here to do as well as helping me edit pictures as I work towards getting a colouring book published. The kids are getting back into the swing of home school as I have my bi-annual panic over whether home schooling is the best thing for our family (we always ended up collectively deciding that it is.) I'll write more about what we've been up to in school another time. 

(Ready for soccer! Jason has been coaching the kids teams and playing in an international team too. I didn't take a picture of him in his football kit 😉)

Being a bit sick here has been emotional for me. I wrote to some of my girlfriends yesterday telling them that when Chinh left to go back to Oz I felt like Sophia used to 10 minutes into her swim lesson when she would declare, "I'm done now" and try to exit the pool (only to be lifted back in again by her instructor and made to stay till she learnt something.) I'll spare you the details that Jason has enduringly listened to! I am feeling a good bit better now and ready for whatever these next 14 weeks will bring. Here are a few more pictures and a hope filled promise to do better with blog updating. 😉 

Deb xx

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Meeting Geraldine, my big sister's friend, in Hanoi who came bearing chocolatey gifts from Northern Ireland.

It's pomelo season, we have a quickly diminishing stash of the best quality pomelo from Vinh City, Chinh's hometown. Eli likes to arrange and count them.

Dorky motorbike selfie as we drive to a local restaurant, Salt n Lime, for some delicious Mexican food.

Before we noticed there was a pull down blind we had a good laugh at the idea we'd have to use the bathroom at our hotel in Da Nang carefully 😂

Putting the baby to work 😊

Gracie Boo singing her wee heart out at our first family karaoke experience while Eli counted 1, 2, 3 into the other microphone!

My people in The Botanical Gardens Hanoi. ❤️

Letter from Grace VM 🌸

Hi Everybody!

I wanted to write about the things that have been happening over the past few weeks. 

When we left Australia, we didn't go Vietnam immediately. First we went on an 8 hour flight to Malaysia. We landed in Kuala Lumpur, then we took a 1 hour flight to Penang. Our friends Graham and Jo gave us a treat bag before we left and it had pocket money in it. We bought a big bag of crisps each and we still have some money left over. Granny and Granda gave us spending money for ice cream, but instead we got chocolate waffles!

The Ferringhi Residence is where we stayed for nine days. There was a pool and kids park there. When we went down the street there were all shops lined out on the streets and they only really open at night. Most of them anyway. When we got there it was really late, like, 10:00 at night, midnight in Australian time. So we went to bed and didn't have much trouble sleeping, since we were so tired. The next morning, me and Daddy went for a walk down the street to the shops and bought breakfast at a place called Happy Mart. We got two cereals called Honey Stars, and Choco Puffs. We also got chocolate and strawberry rolls and they were very yummy. We also got coffee for mommy! 

That evening we went out for dinner. The food was lovely! Then for "dessert" we had oat-tasting jelly. It was OK, I guess. The next day, we went out for dinner again. That time, we became friends with the lady who owned the restaurant. She was really nice, and she told Mommy a story about her Christianity. The owner gave me a really nice necklace with a crown on it. At that restaurant, the food was also the best of the best. 😊

The next day we went to lovely gardens. On the way back from it, and at the start, we saw monkeys. There were lots of them, like, 17 of them. They were sooo cute.

Then the next day we went to a place called Monkey Beach. The weird thing was, we only saw 1 monkey. And it was a pet. It jumped on Sophia!

One of the days we met daddy's friend and his wife. They took us to see temples and we had "pizza"* in an Indian restaurant. It was a fun day.

Thanks for reading my letter. Evie, give the puppies a cuddle from me! I miss you! 

Grace 😄😉⚡️🌷🌹


* It wasn't really pizza. It was these pastries with cheese and veggies on it. :) 

Short break in Penang

Is a holiday really possible with 5 children? Perhaps not by most people's standards :) We thought that we should try in any case, on our way to Vietnam for 6 months, and we picked Penang both for its beauty and so that I could do a spot of business at the local University!

We rented an apartment in a new development in Batu Ferringhi for just over a week, with a pool, playground and great access to many of Penang's activities. We must have been one of the first occupants, and many of the other units were still being fitted out. This was great, for the most part, since it meant no trouble parking, safe roads and usually an empty pool. There was one evening, though, when someone decided to continue their work upstairs at a ridiculous hour. I think that my deployment to the next floor to confront the culprit must have been imminent, when it finally ceased!

After renting a car and stocking up the fridge and freezer at the local Tesco (so surprised to find Tesco in Penang!), we tried to explore in the morning and otherwise just took it easy most of our days in Malaysia.

Enjoying ice-cream on another hot day!

Swimming!
One of our main objectives for the stay was to swim every day in the pool in our complex. We nearly managed it but missed one through darkness and one because of pool closure. The pool closure was far more disappointing, since it was our last day and we left out all the swimmers and towels while packing up and then headed over, pumped for a final swim...but no, boooooo :(

          

Finding Veggie Food!
We ate out at least once a day, with a few highlights. Searching for vegetarian restaurants in Penang does not yield many options, but we managed to pick up an address for Idealite, a vegan place in Georgetown. We arrived as they were having a huge staff meeting with lots of cheering and speeches (apparently visiting owners and new staff for Singapore expansion). Anyway, the food was awesome but fairly pricey. Staff were extremely chatty and telling us about the vision of the place...really great spot. Judah said it was the best vegetarian food ever (a few places have earned that honour already during this trip!).

On our first day in Penang, we noticed a Thai eatery along our drive and the next day, we dropped in for dinner at Amphan Restaraunt. As was the case often in Malaysia, veggie options were thin on the ground but the staff were lovely and fresh fruit juice was awesome and served in big mugs! We spent a long time here and made some new friends, returning for lunch a few days later!

On the weekend we spent the day with Ali and Tayebeh, eating at a Chinese vegan place for lunch and a famous Indian restaurant in the evening. There was lots of really interesting food shared and a great day was had with lovely friends.

Botanic Gardens
One morning we decided to check out the Botanic Gardens that seemed to get good reviews, so we drove down into Georgetown and back up into the mountains to the west of the city. We later realised that there was a great 'youth park' really nearby, with lots of playgrounds and pools, that we never made it back to :(

In any case, the gardens were really beautiful, the downside being that it was a scorching hot day and we didn't last very long in the late morning heat (in true VM fashion we DID NOT leave the house as early as we had hoped!). There were monkeys and monitor lizards around to watch out for, we took a tram ride around the circuit and ate very rapidly melting ice-creams. Afterwards we realised that we were passing our fave Vegan restaurant (Idealite) and grabbed some take away dumplings and battered mushrooms!

                                                                      

Penang National Park and Monkey Beach
We took a drive out to Penang National Park, intending to go walking and traverse the famous walk-bridges. Maybe next time...without small children! Realising that we were not going to be climbing any mountains, in the heat or any other time, and being advised of a 1 hour walk to our destination, we quickly hired a boat ride out to Monkey Beach. Most of the kids hadn't been on this kind of a boat before...Judah's little face lit up :) Monkey Beach was a bit of paradise and the kids loved swinging on numerous ropes. We tried to trek into the jungle a bit but were rapidly repelled by mozzies! We didn't last more than 90 minutes, but it was definitely worth while.  

        

         

                             

Entopia visit
Entopia (previously Penang Butterfly Park) was a very cool place to spend a morning. The kids loved the butterflies all around and landing on them (except Caleb, who navigated the enclosure with great care not to be touched by anything!). As well as the butterflies, there were all sorts of lizards, bugs, spiders, caterpillars and insects, and a variety of great educational exhibitions.

                       

           

           

     

All in all, we had a great stay in Penang and even managed some decent relaxation time (I commented to Deb that my fingernails were getting long...a sign of reduced stress for this biter!). It may sound like hard work to take 5 kids on holiday...ok, so it is a bit...BUT we really like these little people and we wouldn't have it any other way!

At the end of our time in Penang it was onwards, von Medings, to Hanoi!