As usual I was awake ridiculously early – I’m not sleeping that well at the moment – so I had plenty of time to potter around tidying up and arranging presents in the living room to make it look like Father Christmas had visited before waking Rachel with the customary cup of tea. Then we set about opening our presents. Admittedly this didn’t take very long. My family and I are still getting to grips with the Vietnamese postal system, and obviously Rachel wasn’t where her family and friends normally expect her to be. So our present piles were both quite modest, but appreciated nonetheless. The kumquats from the restaurant last night were especially welcome (!!) not least because the miniature conical hats they came in are exactly the right size to hide those bloody awful grinning sheep coat hooks!
Rachel liked the little framed picture of two girls in ao dais I bought her, and we were both pretty impressed by mum’s unexpected change of calendar subject. For years and years now I’ve always got a calendar featuring either cats or Dr. Who. But not this year! No! 2011 will progress through the bevy of ‘lovelies’ (I use the word advisedly) featured in the Official England Rugby Calendar! Woohoo! Our only complaint is that the genius who produced this work of art forgot to add name tags (or maybe it was deliberate to spare blushes). Having been out of the UK for so long, Rachel and I are both a bit out of touch and barely recognised anyone. We’re pretty sure Johnny Wilkinson is Mr. March, and isn’t that Danny Whatsisface who used to date Kelly Brook as January? But the rest of them? Not a clue! An emergency email to Rachel’s brother is in the offing, but in the meantime, if you have any ideas, Dear Readers, please do get in touch!
…Which reminds me, my Adult Elementary class confused rugby with a Rubik’s cube the other day, which made for a rather bizarre conversation for a while…
A quick Danish pastry breakfast followed, then showers and changing into our glad rags – yes, the red dress came back out again, photo to be posted at a later date (the neckline attracts even more attention in daylight, it seems!) And into a taxi down into the city centre and the slap up buffet lunch at the New World Hotel – three hours of free-flowing champagne, wine and beer, salads, antipasti, sushi and sashimi, dim sum, seafood, cheese board, soups, lamb, beef, bbq pork, steaks so rare they had the boys melting onto the floor in ecstasies, turkey and stuffing, fruit, ice cream, miniature Christmas Puddings, cakes and gateaux, and even (Praise Be!) Bread and Butter Pudding! Richard even pinched a large white chocolate Santa. Eyes bigger than his stomach – it ended up being passed around the table when he couldn’t manage more than the head.
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| Rich, Steve and Hannah |
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| Rich's Chocolate Santa |
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| Sarah and Louise |
Most of our party (there were 14 on our table) did their best to get their money’s worth out of the $50 ticket price despite varying levels of hangover from the previous night. When we came to pay Steve and Louise figured out that the bill for our table alone came to about $800, and there were at least 20 tables with a similar number of covers on them in the dining room.
Eventually we heaved ourselves out into the burning sunshine (very Christmassy) and while some headed home to sleep it off, the rest of us wended our way up to Sheridan’s, the Irish pub in Le Thanh Ton. A few cheats took a taxi. But Rachel and I led the more intrepid on foot through the city (well, it’s on our way home after all). And really, despite occasionally losing people and Rich complaining about the distance and asking if the bar was in fact in Hanoi, it didn’t take that long to walk there. And it made the drink at the end of it all the more welcome surely?
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| Rachel, Hannah, Mike and Adrian |
A few more drinks and we were all about ready to drop. The party broke up, and, although Rachel was momentarily tempted by Dan and Lou’s invitation to go with them to a games arcade, we opted for the short walk home where with more wine, Baileys and Christmas cake, I continued Rachel’s cultural education. Yep, despite living in Japan all these years, she’s never seen Roman Holiday. Until now, that is.
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