Heading to Hanoi Vietnam with 7 kids

We have been here in Halong for a whole month which has actually been amazing. We've got to really get to know this neighborhood, get to know some of the people that we buy our fruits and veggies from every day, that Michael gets coffee from every day. It's been really beautiful, so great to really kind of immerse yourself in a culture by living in just a local apartment as opposed to a hotel and get to experience life that way but it's time to move on. Our next stop is Hanoi which is the big city. It's actually the city we initially flew into in the middle of the night. It's going to be a lot busier than here. We're pretty excited. We have several things we're doing in the next couple days and we are only staying there for a couple of days and then on to another new place. So big city for a couple days and then back to a smaller town feel because that's just a little bit more comfortable with so many kids. So here we go. Passports are packed. You're in my purse. It's a pretty heavy bag right? Yep, grab your water, grab your backpack, grab your shoes, out the door. Packing nine people up and coordinating all of us exiting a building at approximately the same time usually looks crazy but it feels like absolute chaos. Somehow we generally manage it with some grace and minimal tears but the real challenge comes when we all have to pile into the elevator with all our packs on while trying not to crush a Can I fit in here? Yeah. I can't move. A little more, a little more, a little more. I can't move. Today as we arrived on the street to wait for our van the school across the street was doing a concert of some sort outside. We have spent a month here around all the kids that attend this school watching them play ball and ride their bikes answering their excited hello how are you's as they practice their English on us. It felt a bit like they were serenading us as we said goodbye to Ha Long. On to a new adventure. On to Hanoi. Our month in Ha Long has been amazing but making the move to the big city is both exciting and terrifying. Learning how to cross the street was a huge deal in the small city. The thought of how we're going to get around in Hanoi with seven kids and no crosswalks is an overwhelming thought that I'm trying not to think about as the city and traffic gets more dense. When the van pulls up and the doors open at first we're completely lost. Everything in front of us looks like businesses and we have seven kids all carrying bulky packs on their backs. We head up the first staircase that seems to have the correct address but a woman inside sees us and starts waving her hands not to come in. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but getting nine people with big backpacks turned around on marble steps without knocking anyone over is more challenging than you would think. We are then directed to what looks like a dark pathway in between the buildings but the path is actually an alley that also serves as extra seating for the food cart set up near the entrance. Vietnam never ceases to amaze me. Okay guys we just checked into our Airbnb here in Hanoi and this is the craziest place we've ever stayed in. It's kind of exciting just because it's so unique but like so we had to come down this little alley. It took a little bit to find where we were going and then I'm gonna take you guys on a walkthrough of this really cool apartment that we're staying in so come check it out. We have a bathroom here. This is a wet bath which is super common in Asia so there's not a actual shower you just shower in the bathroom right there. And then this is the kitchen. There's kind of half a kitchen down here and half a kitchen upstairs so there's a rice cooker, a kettle, a fridge, a Levi, all our stuff still here that we have just got here. And then in here we have kind of the master bedroom. Pretty sure this is a king-size bed. Looks like a king size with a cute little mirror. Hold on. And up here we got a little floor mattress with a little yes no windows. Not on this floor anyways. Then we got these funky stairs. Very narrow. And then here it's just like a little reading nook with some rugs on the floor and lots of books. It's just cute small fans. And then we actually head right outside. This is like literally outside. That's the alleyway down there. Up some more stairs. A little living room area. Here's the other half of the kitchen which is still just literally outside. This is the stairway I just came up. That's the outside. That's where you hang your clothes I guess if you wash. There's another bathroom here with another wet bath. There's a shower there. And then the last bedroom with what do you got? A projector and a screen. You guys are just chilling? So this room has many windows. It's got these cool sliding doors. So basically so I guess like once you get your pajamas on for the night you're not going back and forth between the bedrooms. We have to make sure whoever's up here is old enough and can handle a whole night without meeting mom. And anybody that might need mom will definitely be downstairs with us. Anyways that's our super cool Hanoi apartment. We're gonna get our stuff moved around figure out who's sleeping where and then we're gonna go and explore the city a little bit. Well we were trying to walk to our first destination but it is raining. I don't know if you can see that in the camera. Which was fine when we were on the side streets and then we got back kind of out into the open and it's really windy too. So we are now waiting for our Grab taxi to pick us up. We have just split up into two groups because the biggest vehicle they have is a six-seater. We're obviously nine people. So the three of us are going in a smaller car and then Michael's got all the rest in a bigger vehicle and we're gonna meet each other at a gourmet gluten-free bakery. We have not had gluten-free bread or anything resembling bread for over a month now. So everybody's super excited to go. They have baguettes. They have bagels. They have muffins. They have cookies. They have pizza. They have everything. So that is our very first stop because it's lunchtime and we're hungry and why wait? Our driver got us most of the way and then he missed a turn and tried to turn around and it was a little bit complicated I think. So he let us out early and he short-changed me but that was my fault. I should have paid attention. I should have said I wanted all my change but I had a little bit of trouble because like a thousand Vietnamese dong is worth like 18 cents. So when they short-change you like six thousand, it's like a dollar twenty. Do you complain about that? Do you say something? It sounds like such a big number but in reality it's like just over a dollar. Anyways, so we're walking. Michael and the rest of them made it pretty much the whole way. Their driver didn't miss the turn so I gotta get back to my map so I can figure out where I need to turn. Oh there's, there they are. We had been waiting all week for this gluten-free bakery. Everyone was so excited and then... Okay so we came like the day before they restock all their gluten-free stuff and they only restock once a week so they're literally sold out of everything that all the kids want. Everybody really wanted a cinnamon bun and they have none. They had what I wanted but everybody else was kind of just compromising to get food. So there's actually a pizza place really close by if I can figure out how to get us out of this maze of alleyways that has gluten-free crust. So we're gonna head there for today instead and we will come back tomorrow or the next day and try again when they're restocked for gluten-free goodies. We gotta let this van get through. We're going the doorway with dad. Step up there. Stay here because that vehicle is very close. I just need someone to help Levi. Navigating the small alleyways in Hanoi with seven kids somehow feels a little less overwhelming or maybe I was just too hungry to think much about it. The locals must have been laughing so hard in their heads at us. In a garage, they're just making toilet paper. Yeah, it's so cute. That's just part of the machine. The machine does that. Watch where you're going, buddy. So just before we left on this trip, we got new barefoot shoes that we've never tried before but I have wanted to try for years. They are called Wildlings and we got three different styles in them. They actually have a lot of cute styles. I really, really love how they look and I just wanted to try them for so long because on all the barefoot forums that I'm on, they have the best reviews. Like, once you try Wildlings, you'll never go back kind of reviews and so we finally got the chance and we got all of us a pair of shoes except Toby who likes his regular shoes. He's not a barefoot guy and he's 20 so I can't tell him what to wear on his feet anymore, right? So anyways, everybody else got Wildlings. They have been so awesome. They've been great for getting wet. We wore them when we were hiking up the mountains to the rice fields in the mud and went into the water at the waterfalls and everything just washed right off. They are fantastic. Bethany's got a little bit of a red stain because she picked white but for everybody else that picked slightly darker colors, like you can't even tell we were walking through the mud. They cleaned right up. Even in the humid environment here, they dry pretty much overnight which is awesome. If you want to try Wildlings, there is a link in the description and you can go and check them out yourself. Thank you. Yes, does it look good? Does it look good? Don't film me saying this. I don't want this. No, I like you saying that you like the feel of this. That place is cool looking. Yeah, I do. It just looks nice. You got like the trees. It's sitting. Yeah, Mexican. There's a taco place over here that has gluten-free options. Yeah, there were no restaurants like this at all in like that. That place is like huge and fancy. Much more tourist. Yeah, like they want all the people to feel like have pieces of their home here. Well, how long is the tourism is on the cruise boats, right? The luxury boats which we didn't do. They're the cruise boat on Howe Long Bay that has gluten-free dining on the boat, right? But we didn't do any of that stuff. Okay, so we just got back to our Airbnb and I don't know if we did something wrong but there's no power and there's no windows and even if there were windows, it's raining and cloudy out and we're like down a back alley. So anyways, now it's upstairs. So we're chilling in a really dark house right now. We figured out how to get the power back on the breaker outside on the outside wall of the house was flipped. So Michael went out and figured that out and flipped the breaker and now we're just trying to figure out what to do because we had a really late lunch and it's almost bedtime and I don't think anyone's hungry yet. They're going to get hungry if we don't eat something. So do you eat supper when you're not hungry? Do you snack? What do you guys do? Laundry. What? Coffee and laundry. Coffee and laundry all in one place. We decided that a small meal was best so we found a vegan restaurant not too far away that had a lot of gluten-free options and we left the kids at home so only Michael and I had to brave the Hanoi streets in the rain and the dark. All right, we got everything and we decided not to try to brave the roads back with all this food. I got a hot tea and he's got his hands full so we're just going to take a grab. And the grab's $1.50. And then there's that. Well we tried to get a taxi and it said that there's no drivers available so I guess we're walking after all. We got food. You're still awake? Took a while. Can I mix it up? If you want or don't. How's it look Alex? Good. So my first impressions of Hanoi today were two things. I am so glad that we went to Ha Long for a month first because trying to figure out how to navigate all of the new things here in this culture in such a busy environment would have been extremely overwhelming especially with a lot of kids. So I'm really glad we picked a smaller place to start out with and figure a lot of these things out before we came here because this is still a lot even after a month of adjusting in Ha Long. My second thought was I was so glad we didn't take the kids with us to go pick up the food tonight. Just because we walked there I took one or two wrong turns along the way which actually just meant that had to cross a really busy street two times instead of one and I don't know how we're going to get the kids across a road like that in the next few months. I think it may be similar in a lot of Southeast Asian countries just the crossing the road situation which sounds small but honestly it's a really big deal and there are nine of us. It's gonna be something we're gonna have to figure out. My brother who lives in Taiwan he suggested maybe splitting up into three groups so that we're just three groups of three trying to cross the road instead of a massive group of nine because there was a time this evening where I had a car going along behind me and a scooter right in front of me like I had two feet of space that was it and a group of nine of us isn't gonna fit in that kind of space and so yeah those are my thoughts. However that being said I think we all really enjoyed our day. Toby was just saying he really likes to feel here better. He's maybe more of a city kid than he realizes. There's a lot more restaurants, there's a lot more options, there's a lot more gluten-free options, there's just so much to do and we only have two full days. Today didn't count. Today was just our get here and get unpacked and get settled so we got a had a little bit of getting our feet wet today and then we had two full days and I think we're we're really excited for the next two days and then it'll be back to a slightly quieter center for another month so this is probably the best way to just kind of just these little hit the busy centers for a couple days and then go back to something a little bit quieter after that. I'm not exactly sure where we're going. We're leaving Vietnam but it could be a big city somewhere else in Southeast Asia that hopefully we'll be a Anyways, I'm gonna turn the lights out, get some sleep, get ready for crossing some more streets.