Today we went on a short excursion outside the city with several of the other World Child families that are here in Vietnam. We went to a village called Bat Trang, which is also called Ceramic Villiage. Much like the streets in the old quarter being named after the product they sell, this village is named after the product that it makes (I don't know if there are other villages like this or not). In this case the only industry in the city of 6,000 is making ceramic vases, statues, bowls, plates, etc. They make them and paint them by hand. It's pretty amazing.
On the way back in we went by the Tran Quoc Pagoda, which was originally built in the 6th century and was the Buddhist center of Hanoi. We got several pictures of it, and saw a couple of monks walking around (they looked like the monks in Myanmarr / Burma that are protesting at the moment). It was pretty cool. The whole place was amazing.
We even saw a monk pull out a can of whoop ass on a bunch of guys fishing off the side of the grounds. We inconspicuously got a pic. Didn't want him turning that can in our direction.
The pic below is a shrine with an actual coffin sitting there. The man inside was a very important monk when he was alive. It was a bit weird to tell the truth but still fascinating.
I did realize that the cough / sore throat that Tami and I have been dealing with is directly related to where we are. I felt good for the first time in almost two weeks, and the moment that we reentered the old quarter, the throat started to hurt again.
It took a while to get the kids calmed down tonight since they missed their afternoon naps, but they're down now and we're going to bed. It makes me wonder if i'm ever going to stay up until 9:00 ever again.
We're starting to have trouble with the camera so most of the pictures we take end up too dark to see, but Tami will post any pictures she took today later tomorrow.
Dennis
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