Today we were all over the place.
Quick reference point: I've been having some flare ups of pain in my neck & back the past few days. It's been particularly bad since we arrived in Ho Chi Minh. To the point where the first night we arrived in HCM I stayed home with the girls while Doug went out and met an old Mimeo colleague for dinner & drinks. I needed to take it easy, so the girls & I ordered in Italian (gross but did the trick) and watched a movie (The Princess Switch at their request). They were so excited to have a fun "girls movie night in" :) Only bummer was all the dishes that we created that I had to clean up! We've been out of AirBnBs since mid-October, so we had enjoyed a nice long stretch of no dishes ;)
My Day
The pain hadn't improved over the two days since we arrived in HCM, and knowing that we'd be entering a stretch of more remote, not-medically-friendly places, I wanted to get it looked at. Doug got a recommendation for a Western Clinic with a Chiropractor from his Vietnamese buddy, Minh. I called first thing in the morning and took the first appointment they offered me at 10:30am.
I ended up spending a good chunk of the day dealing with my neck/back. I first had a consult and realignment work by an Irish chiropractor named "Dr. Daniel". He was great and answered all my questions with patience & care. I also got some deep tissue massage and electric stimulation work done on the areas of most discomfort on my neck & back. Then I also ended up getting an x-ray at a nearby clinic. Wanted to play it safe and get one so that I could still get the chiropractor's review & consult that same day. Odds are my neck and/or back will flare up again while we're traveling (different beds, different pillows, carrying luggage, etc). Best if I take a proactive approach and see a few more chiropractors in the coming months for readjustments and deep tissue work.
The cost of all this care was remarkably low. Only $50 USD for all the work with the chiropractor & his staff, and only $28 USD for the x-ray. No way you'd get all that medical care in the States for so low a bill. I'm incredibly grateful I was able to access such good care on a moment's notice, and not break the bank in the process.
Doug & the Girls
Meanwhile, Doug & the girls went to Artinus 3D Art Museum. It was a great, different way to pass a few hours, and a hit with the girls. They love taking pictures on our phones, so they had fun taking pictures of each other in all the staged 3D artwork.
Afterwards they hit up a nearby Japanese restaurant for lunch. The three of them sent me the most thoughtful video from lunch, saying that they missed me and were glad I was getting my back taken care of. Made me feel very loved. Even with the virtually-24/7 time together, we genuinely do miss each other when we get a few hours apart :)
Swim Session
I wrapped up all my stuff and was back at the hotel just about 4:00pm. Doug & the girls were swimming in the apartment complex's huge saltwater pool. Sadie & Doug had gone in solo the night before, and Sadie enthusiastically declared that it was "the best swimming pool EVER of the whole trip!". After all of us traipsing about the city in the heat most of the day, the pool was extra refreshing.
Funny enough, as we were exchanging stories of our day, we figured out that we had both gone convenience store shopping for snacks. And we had both bought about 95% of the same items, including ballpoint pens (!), ramen noodle packs, peanut butter, crackers, seaweed snacks and butter (for breakfast bread). We all got a kick out of that :)
Apartment Time
We went back up to the apartment to shower, etc. We're on the 24th floor of a 30-story apartment building, set amidst probably 6-8 more-or-less identical high-rise buildings. The apartment complex is called City Garden. The girls have loved all the high tech features like using a key card to enter the building & access our floor on the elevator, and then a keypad to unlock the door. They've also loved all the amenities within the private complex: pools, playground, grocery store, ATM, etc. They think the whole thing is amazing :)
Post showers the girls worked on pages I designated in their school workbooks (Writing and Reading Comprehension) and then watched an episode of H2O Just Add Water, a decade-old show they were introduced to & got hooked on while we were visiting our Northwestern buddy & his daughter in Austria back in September. Meanwhile Doug & I tried to wrap our heads around our plans for Australia. It's relatively around the corner (February) and we have not a single thing booked yet! We made some good progress, thanks to some input from my dear Aussie friend, Trisha, who lives in Sydney. We made enough progress that I was able to shoot Trisha our intended itinerary for a local's look over email that night. Inching our way forward on Oz!
Japanese Italian Grub
We met Minh and his wife, Ami, and son, Liam, for dinner at a nearby Japanese Italian restaurant. Was great to log some extra time with them before we left Ho Chi Minh. We walked back to City Garden and the girls and Liam eked out a few extra minutes of fun at the playground before we called it a night. We continue to be amused by how much the Vietnamese love their karaoke! Check out this guy we saw on our way to dinner, shirtless and singing on his own in the front of a photocopy shop around 7:30pm on a Friday night! Hilarious. Anytime, anywhere and they'll get their karaoke on :)
Closing Out the Day
We put the girls to bed and finished packing everything up. Packing and unpacking has become quite easy, but it's still time consuming. Especially when we're in an AirBnB and have extra space to stretch into; our stuff gets strewn all over the place.
We hit the sac on the relatively early side (~11:00pm) to be ready for our early morning pick-up for Mekong River Delta.
p.s. Milestone for Paige during our three days in Ho Chi Minh . . . She figured out how to blow dry her own hair! Three times in two days she did it. Is it weird to say she aged like 7 years in front of my eyes when I saw her drying her hair in front of a big mirror, all by herself?!!
p.p.s. Fun thing about being back in an AirBnB lodging set-up is that the girls can get back into cooking. Paige excitedly shopped for & cooked her own breakfast on Day 1 in HCM (noodles & broccoli) and they both helped out with dinner another night. Our mini chefs continue to impress!
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