A 2 Banquet Day

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Hi it's me Jessie. Yesterday was so awesome. We had two banquets in one day. One was at the snake restaurant and the other was at the Emperor Restaurant. The snake restaurant banquet was with our friend Ngan and her family. The Emperor Restaurant was with some families whose children have gone to Bates. I made a pen pal at the Bates banquet, her name is Lon and we will e-mail each other when I am back home. We also went shopping yesterday and I had fun! We also went on an island that had a temple on it. It was pretty. Jessie
OK, now it's Jed talking. Yesterday was so fun. First we woke up and went to a Buddhist temple before our friend Ngan came to pick us up. It turns out yesterday was Second Tet, so there were lots and lots of people going to the temple. They brought money and food and fruit and left these things in the temple. There was lots of burning incense, too. I bought a little golden Buddha (it's made of bronze, actually) and they told me it was extra good luck to buy a happy Buddha on Second Tet! After that Ngan picked us up in a taxi and we went to one of our two banquets. There, I ate snake. I am not making that up. This banquet was with all of Ngan's family - her parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. They spoke only a little English and we don't speak any Vietnamese, so we smiled and nodded and pointed a lot. Ngan translated for everyone so that helped a lot. After that we went back to the hotel and took a nap. When we woke up it was time to eat again! This time we went to the Emperor Restaurant. It was so awesome! The food was really, really, really good but I was so tired I almost fell asleep during dinner. Jed.

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