After finding our hotel, we head out to find internet and a hot cup of coffee. We go to Eden Café and no one speaks English again. One lady screams “Coffee, Coffee?” and I say, “Tea?” They stare at me blankly and say “Coffee, Coffee?” Three of us say “yes” but Ashley says, “Hot Chocolate?” The lady nods her head excitedly and speaks a long sentence in Vietnamese. Our lovely server comes back with three cups of coffee and one tangerine juice lol.
Andrea tries to order milk for her coffee, she even draws a cow with utters dripping liquid to try and get her point across. The server sits down and begins to stir her coffee and smile. Vietnamese coffee is very thick, like syrup. After we sat and stared at our coffee we realized that there was condensed milk on the bottom of the cup J
We start walking back to our hotel and stop to buy some apples on the sidewalk. We start looking for dinner places and I start staring at the food of the women seated at the restaurant next to the apples. I was peering at it because it looked like french fries. I begin to walk away and one girl says, “What is your name?” They invite us to sit down with them and they translate the menu for us. So we order food and begin chatting about what we’re doing. They offer to show us around town that night and to take us to the fireworks for New Years! They pay for our dinner and they walk us to a nearby church. We offer to go with them to church and one girl said she was interested in learning more about Jesus.
We make a plan to go out at 8pm. We meet the girls at the same restaurant and begin to walk the town. They show us city center, where they h
ave a statue of the old president and then the take us to the square where there was popcorn to purchase, balloons, and ice cream. Tons of people gathered to watch the fireworks show. We went to a coffee shop to warm up before midnight and have a nice chat with Linh, Tuey, Hien, Ha, and Hung. Some of the girls have to go home to be with their families at midnight, some have to go worship at midnight. Ha stays with us and we witness the best fireworks show I’ve seen in my life. Words cannot describe how incredible it was, and it was the closest I’ve ever been to them. One went kiddy wampus and hit Jessica’s arm and burned her coat!
Thousands of people gathered to watch the fireworks and the music show in the square. We were likely the only westerners/tourists there and everyone was really happy to see us. We all learned how to say Happy New Year which is Chuc Mong Nam Moi. A phrase we will use over and over in the next couple of days. Tomorrow we are going to church and dinner with Ha and her family. New Year is also known as Tet Holiday and is the biggest holiday of the year. Students get two weeks off of school and businesses are closed down for days. The holiday technically lasts three days. Ha is super excited for us to try some traditional food at her home and spend New Year’s day with her family.
2 Corinthians 9: 6-7: Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously, will also reap generously. For each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
<3
