Thursday, July 16th

We went to the Zoo and Botanical gardens today. It was the best zoo we've ever been to. And get this...you can actually see animals while you're there. The layout of the zoo is spectacular. They have botanical gardens surrounding the zoo and you can actually manage to get fairly close to all the animals. The elephants had us in awe. Franca and Portia were courageous enough to feed them some sugarcane. They love the stuff and are probably all Diabetics by now. We went to see the crocodiles and Alex kept saying that he thought most of them were fake. The scary thing is if you watch them really closely, you can actually see them move ever so slightly, just waiting for their next victim. We saw the giraffes. They are just such beautiful animals. They had them penned up with the ostriches. Those ostriches are not exactly friendly. One was trying to spit at us. Since the zoo is only down the street from our hotel, we plan to go back. It's only about 50 cents to get in and you should see the amazing and huge park they have just for children. I really wish we had something like that back home. We met Renny and Lia at the Ngon restaurant. This is a delicious restaurant where the locals eat. Each plate is about $2 and they are big helpings. With the exception of a few other foreigners, we stood out like a sore thumb, but the people were so friendly. When they see us with adopted children, they seem so happy and receptive, even appreciative. Some even stop and touch Reuben and/or Portia. You should have seen us at the zoo. Portia was the main attraction. We had her in a carriage and people kept staring and moving over for her to pass through like she was the queen of Shebah. Too funny! After lunch we headed back to the Ben Thanh market. We can't get enough of that place and some of the merchants are starting to recognize us. Of course we headed to the same old booth and bought the kids more clothes. The pricing is so incredible, I'm not going to want to pay full price for anything in Canada. We stopped at a fruit market and just went nuts. They have grapes the size of small plums and the flavour of the fruits are so much more enhanced. It's like your taste buds come alive. The kiwi (and I'm not a kiwi lover) are out of this world. We stopped at Highland's for a coffee and a chitchat with Renny and Lia and then headed home. We had dinner at Pho 24, another place recommended by Frommer's. It was actually quite delicious although we noticed that the beef didn't taste like beef. We don't even want to know.