May 19 - 25, 2015

Since we could not find a house to rent, we sat down for lunch to figure out a plan. We could not stay at our homestay much longer since they were fully booked soon. We visited two hotels with a pool and worked out deals with them for long term stays. We were about to confirm one when I got a text from a new friend in Hoi An. She owns a deli popular with expats and just had a woman come in saying she had a house to rent.

We made an appointment to see the house that day. We loved it and decided to take it for the next month. The owner needed a day or two to prepare the house. It was getting a new refrigerator, washing machine, stove and oven! The property was huge and actually consisted of two houses so the kids would have their own loft type house. It was all working out.

In the meantime, we met up with our new friends, the Brooks family, for dinner. They also have two children that get along extremely well with Maeve and Liam. We met on the Japanese bridge in town. Near that spot you can enjoy a game of Vietnamese Bingo. We all gave it a try. Each person gets a paddle with three symbols on it. You have to match your sign to the one that the announcer sings (I think she sings it or the guy behind her just picks one up randomly). When you have a match, you get a flag. Three flags means you win. The Collins family was not so lucky, but the Brooks' boy, Ruben, won a CD and lantern. It was a great experience.

Liam, Ruben, Rosie, and Maeve....paddles ready

As we packed up all of our belongings from our homestay, Maeve remembered her ipod was missing. She had not seen it in days and did not bother to really look for it until the taxi was there waiting to take us to the house. We searched all over and even got the host and his family looking. They insisted that we would not pay for our accommodations at all until it was found. They said that this sort of thing may happen at other places, but not at their house. They told us if we found it later, then we could pay them. We were having none of this. Eventually, they called in the woman who cleans the place and asked her if she had seen the small purple thing as I am fairly sure she did not know what an ipod was. She said she did see it once and put it on Maeve's backpack. This was the one day Maeve packed her entire backpack herself. We were only going across town, so I did not bother to help. I opened it up and whipped through the contents and of course, I found the ipod. Everyone was relieved and a couple of us were a bit annoyed. The fact that this homestay was willing to forego quite a bit of money for accommodations because our daughter lost something in their room speaks volumes to their character.

It is sort of fun getting settled into your own place and knowing you don't have to move for a month. The property owner was incredibly helpful by providing us with some essentials and offering to pick up some other more difficult items.

We rented four bicycles and one electric bike for those trips to the market to get groceries. Maeve and Liam enjoyed riding on the back. We quickly learned the neighborhood. We even hosted our first dinner party with the Brooks family. It was great that the children had their own company to occupy themselves.

Eventually, we settled into a routine, but that involved adjusting to the heat. On an average day it is about 97 degrees (36C) with a heat index of about 108-110 (42/43C). The first week was painful. We ran the air conditioner, but it did not help much and we tried to be respectful of power usage. We had to run it at night or we would never sleep.

Across the courtyard to the kids' loft house

Cashew tree nearby. Who knew cashews grew on the outside?

Maeve and I ready to head to the market on the electric bike

Despite the heat, we settled in and prepared to complete loads of work. We were also ready to explore more of Hoi An and the Vietnamese culture. So far so, good.