Beautiful Day

OK....I just wrote out a long entry and before I published it, it disappeared.....AAAGGHH!

I'll try to recap. It is a gorgeous 73 degree day and the sun is out for the first time since we arrived. Olivia is down for a nap so I thought I'd catch you up on our goings on.

Elliott and I decided to try and change attachment tactics. Whenever we are in the room Elliott is now in charge of all of Olivia's care. Hopefully this will help her to see her Dad is a pretty nice guy! She still insists that I carry her whenever we are out and about and if I try to put her down she has a complete tantrum. Very hard to deal with when people are already watching you carefully anyway. So I carry her......

Yesterday we went to a wholesale market. Very, very busy and crowded. People think nothing of pushing you out of the way if you are where they want to be. Even if you are in the middle of something. Needless to say, we didn't stay long. I was able to purchase some beautiful silk to make Olivia something with when she is older. We also went to see the Temple of the Giant Tortoise on a lake in the middle of the city. It was really neat to walk through the temple. People had left money as a sign of worship. We just walked through quietly.....I wish we could have told them about the one true God. We had lunch in a restaurant where they had the steepest stairs I've ever seen. It was quite the feat to carry Nien up those stairs but I made it, up and down! We had a great fish dish that Olivia loved.

Today we took a public bus out to a province in the country to see what it was like where Olivia was actually born. We couldn't go all the way to where she was born as it would have been disrespectful to the people there and also we would have tried to get approval from the local authorities to do it and we didn't want to try that. Once out of Hanoi the air cleared up remarkably. Hanoi is very smoggy, the countryside was sweet and clear. Amazing difference. If I lived here I would definitely prefer the countryside! After that we took a taxi to see the hospital that cared for Olivia for the first 5 months of her life until she was sent to the orphanage. It was very different from US hospitals in that much of the administration work was done outside the building. There was a huge sign that showed the immunizations for children, one was Japanese Encephalitis. Now that one we don't have!!

Now that Olivia is stirring I think we are going to take a walk around the lake and see another temple and the botanical gardens near us.