Surprise Christmas Holiday 2014!

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24 December 2014 - Christmas Eve

We have an elf visiting us for Christmas, her name was Scarlett. Scarlett sent herself in the post and told us we were going on holiday! I was excited and I thought it wasn't real but it was and Daddy opened up the car boot and all our suitcases were in there. We drove straight to the airport! We flew with Air Asia to Kuala Lumpur and stayed at the Sunway Resort for 5 nights. I got an iPad mini, travel journal and a Zelf for Christmas, lucky Santa knew where to find me!

29 December 2014

We went to Hanoi in Vietnam. It was very busy, there were lots of motorbikes. It was so hard to cross the road! We ate Vietnamese noodle soup called Pho. Then we went to bed thinking that the morning was going to be fun because we were going to fly to Hoi An.

30 December 2014 - 3rd January 2015

It took an hour to get to Hoi An. We stayed at River Beach Resort. We had some chips while we waited for the

cleaners to clean our room and we saw lots of miniature crabs on the rocks on the river next to our resort. We went to our room, we were on the bottom level and we could go out whenever we wanted.

We went searching for a shop that made clothes and shoes. I got a dress made and Mummy did too. Daddy and Richie got suit jackets and we got one pair of shoes each. They made them in one night! It was like the Elves and the Shoemaker!

We went to a Vietnamese cooking class. First we went to the markets to get the ingredients we needed to use for the cooking. We saw fish that were cut open (yuk) and lots of fresh vegetables and a lot of freshly caught seafood. Then we went on a speed boat to get to another part of Vietnam, then we got on to some little boats and got to wear Vietnamese hats, a lady was paddling. We walked a little way to a little shelter and watched a lady twirling a thing around and making rice milk. Then we went to a cooking area. Mummy and I

sat next to each other and Daddy and Richie sat next to each other. We drank our passionfruit juice and then we all came up to the front to watch a Vietnamese man cooking and demonstrating for us and then we got to do it ourselves! We made rice paper rolls, crispy pancakes, beef salad and pho. My favourite was the rice paper rolls. Then we caught a taxi back to our hotel.

Hoi An is famous for its many lanterns. We went to a place called Full Moon Restaurant for dinner and there were lots of lanterns hanging up, it was beautiful. We sat next to the river and after dinner we put some small lanterns on the water and they floated away gently.

We went to the beach and saw fishing people in coconut boats. They had to push their boats in the waves. We also saw a man who had to swim out and put a net down while other people pulled it in to try and catch fish, it was very hard work! Hoi An was a very nice place if you wanted to a holiday to be

very peaceful. We went to a cafe where you have to be quiet because the people that worked there were deaf or had speech problems. It was called Reaching Out Tea House and is in Ancient Town. We ate cookies and drank juice.

3rd January 2015 - 5 January 2015

We went back to Hanoi and went on a tour of Hanoi with Pie and Tai. Pie and Tai were Vietnamese university students who did free tours to help them learn English, Pie wanted to be an English Teacher. They took us to see Ho Chi Minh's Vestige in the Presidential Palace Area. Ho Chi Minh had three bullet proof cars, he had three houses. He was offered to live in a palace but he thought for the Vietnamese people that instead of living in a big, fancy palace he would live in a small house. His second was a present for his birthday, it was up high and had a meeting area down the bottom. He was getting a bit old to go up the stairs so he decided to have a different house down the bottom again, it was green to blend in with

the trees in case of attacks by the French. We also went to the Temple of Literature. There were statues of a tortoise and a crane, if you touch the tortoises head and the cranes chest you will get good luck so I did it lots! Then we went to eat, we had Bun Cha in a six storey restaurant that has been around since 1966! It was delicious!

After we left Pie and Tai we went to a water puppet show. It had 14 different acts, my favourite act was the Dragon's Dance. Richie and I got one puppet each, I got a fairy.

We went on a cyclo for a little ride around and then we went to the night market to have a little walk around.

It was so much fun experiencing a new country. Thanks Vietnam!!

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