Our journey home started at 8:00 p.m. when we left the hotel for the hour long drive to the Hanoi airport. Our poor little girl was very confused when after her bath that evening she was dressed in sweats instead of her jammies and driven to the airport instead of being tucked into bed. When we arrived at the Hanoi airport we found thousands of people mulling around with very few flights scheduled to leave that evening. We later discovered that the majority of people were there to "send off" friends and loved ones. A far cry from the US where we are lucky if our ride drops us at the curb.
About an hour into our wait to check in, we noticed a vietnamese man walking back and forth in front of us with his son. We then noticed that when he walked by his friends were taking our picture with their cell phones. David knelt down and shook the little boy's hand and posed for a picture with him. Suddenly, cameras came out of nowhere and so did the children to have their pictures taken with us. We would like to think they thought we were celebrities, but they might have just wanted their pictures taken with the giant Americans. And we can't rule out the possiblitily that we were totally being made fun of and mocked. Nevertheless, it was an experience.
Sarah slept most of the flight from Hanoi to Seoul. :) Since we had such a long layover in Seoul we rented a room at the airport's transit hotel. (It was the only time in our lives we rented a hotel room by the hour.) It was money well spent. We were able to sleep for a few hours then have a shower before departing to LA.
It was a 10 hour flight from Seoul to LA, and our little Sarah only slept an hour of it. She wasn't being naughty, she was just awake. She enjoyed the personal entertainment system on the plane, where she watched one movie after another and some more than once.
Once we arrived in LA, we were amazed at how simple and quick the immigration process was. Of course it didn't hurt that we were the only ones in the immigration line. The U.S. immigration officer assigned to her case smiled as he read through her immigration documents. It turns out that he was adopted from south Vietnam when he was four years old from her same province. What a small world.
After taking short nap at our hotel we were met by Grandpa Mike and Betty. Sarah enjoyed meeting them and was totally facinated by her first "wrapped" present. It took her quite a while to realize that the pretty bag wasn't the gift. They then treated us to a wonderful "American" dinner of steak and potatoes at Claim Jumpers. It is good to be back in the USA!
The next morning we were surprised when we went to the LA airport and ran into our good friends Louis and Marelise and their girls on their way home from Hawaii. Turns out, we were all on the same flight home to Medford.
After being such a trooper on our long international flights, Sarah was restless on this short flight to Medford. It was almost like she knew the excitement that awaited at home.
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