Thao makes lau

Thao and I love to make Lau for dinner! She is very busy and stressed at work, but still thinks

of me and cares enough to buy nice food to cook when she gets home!











Mannnny things go into the pot: pumpkin, tofu, mushrooms, tomato, pineapple, vegetables...

Soooo good!!



But the fuel for the fire doesn't last long, so we have to keep adding the solid fuel and light it.

When it was Thao's turn, she lit a piece of paper on fire from the gas stove, and then lit the fuel.

But oh nooo! The paper was catching on fire! Quick Thao, do something!!

NOOOOOOO you almost threw the burning paper into the bag with the rest of the fuel!!!

Christmas is coming soon!

Only a few more weeks until Christmas, and I was happy to find out that much of Hanoi is decorated to celebrate.



Here is Thao at the Fortuna hotel... It looks like she is wearing a christmas tree hat!











We met some of Thao's friends from Japan. They took verrrry good care of her when she was in Japan, so it was good to meet them. For dinner we had a lot of great seafood.















After dinner we went to watch the water puppets show. I had gone there once before, but found out that it is a lot better if you stay awake for the whole thing heheh











A cute little Christmas Elf standing outside her little house











The happiest couple in front of the big Christmas tree













Awwww... look what Thao put on her new motorbike. It really melted my heart the first time I saw it! And you can see it is a very nice number right? Thao is a lucky girl so she will always have luck, even when getting a license plate number for the mortobike!. I heard that before if you wanna get a nice number for the motorbike you have to pay a few million to pick one!

Thao and new computer;))

As the director of a Japanese school and international company, Thao works very

hard all day and sometimes gets stressed. So many times I like to surprise her and

buy her flowers to brighten her day and put a smile on her face.













Ok Thao, I think that is just half a smile.

But you still look great hun!











I was surprised to find that computers in VN are very cheap, so since I was going to be working

from home, I had to get a nice setup with two monitors.



Thao was amazed by this, like a little kid seeing a magic trick!

"OMG how can it display two things at once??"

She also had fun watching the mouse pointer move from one screen to the other, even when

she put her hand there to try to stop it!























What two monitors are really meant to be used for!

Big C Bread Battle

Maybe you've never tried fresh bread from Big C supermarket... Okay it is pretty good, but not THATTTT good!! I don't really know the reason, but Big C is famous for their Bread Battles! The crowds started to form as the bread is almost finished baking...











Families grab all the bread they can handle! Pushing and shoving and bread stealing is a common sight!! Alright, it isn't really that bad, after they recently installed some gates to try to form a line to serve up the bread. Unfortunately the crowds ignored all requests for lines, and the gates just made it harder to escape with hot bread in your hands!











Good job Thao!!

When people come back with their bread they often have very big smiles on their face and feel a great sense of accomplishment. So, we got three fresh bagettes... And ended up only eating 1 1/2 before they got stale and we threw them away









Watch the video of the battle! And note the sad face of people that are forced to give up!









Oi gioi oi! "Someone" (Thao) wasn't thinking and put the eggs in the freezer!! The result was a bunch of frozen cracked eggs!











Frozen eggs look funny, I've never seen that before!

(yes, I still ate them after keeping them in the fridge)

Birthday Parties

Even though Thao kept saying that she didn't want to have a birthday party, we ended up having three!!











I tried to buy one rose for every year of Thao's age, but even though I bought all

the roses that the store had, there wasn't enough! "Quá già!"













Thao also got flowers from the director of another Japanese school.

He was pretty smart, because he also asked to kiss her!











The "Khoan Cat Be Tong" gang!

Party #1 was with some friends from her work. We wanted to go to a Japanese

restaurant but since Thao finished work very late, we went to Bo Nuong behind

her office. It was very good though!











For Thao's birthday cake, I went to the big cake store Paris Gateaux near my work. They have

so many kinds of cake there, and I eventually chose this caramel cake with nuts

and rum. Party #2 was at a cafe near Thao's work, and we all enjoyed the yummy cake!











Party #3 was at home! Chicken, beef, tofu, shrimp, clams, vegetables ... and lots of beer!











While we were having dinner, Thao went to the kitchen to find something and she saw a very

beautiful sunset from the window! Thao loves this pic so much, like the sunset was Hanoi's

gift to her! It seems like a postcard.











Every girl's dream... After a long day, a nice relaxing bath filled with fresh rose petals...



Happy Birthday baby!!