Eric enters the bunker below the room that was used by the North Vietnamese generals in Hanoi during the Vietnam War to plan their battle strategy. General Giap, who has a name plate on the

      table just died, at the age of 103, in October.

 The headquarters for war strategy was built in an area called the Citadel, which spans several city blocks. Also in this area are the remnants (some being unearthed) of hundreds of years of empire building- basically, a new empire would build on top of the earlier one- they are now conducting an archeological dig to uncover many artifacts and structures from multiple empires dating back to the 9th century. Cool stuff. Below is one of many mini-trees surrounded bu miniature pagodas and

village scenes. I couldn't help but think how much fun it would be to have my "little people" photo session.

 This is Linh- she is our Vietnamese language teacher and we surprised her with a little birthday cake-the "Hello Kitty" design signifies my favorite word for 'cat' in Vietnamese..it is "meow". She is very patient with us as we attempt to learn the tones and the sounds of combined consonants...tough language to learn! AND we are not very good students...

Another field trip with my students to the Honda plant just outside of Hanoi. Dr. Anh, far left, brought some of his students to the plant-Eric is somewhere in the photo- they love it when he attends the field trips- they go out of their way to remind me to invite Mr. Eric.

 Lunch with the International Development office staff-they love their chicken feet! The only thing left is the toenails. Yum.

 Eric and I took a motorbike ride to a dam about 1 hr. drive north of Hanoi. You can buy 20 acres of lakefront property for $2000. Hmmm...we may be owners of property in Vietnam...you never know.

I couldn't help but include this photo of a renovation effort of this Catholic Church- the bamboo scaffolding is quite amazing- why am I so intrigued by the building construction?