We had pizza and Dairy Queen at the airport :-)

This was our Vietnamese "welcome" dinner

Shopping fun!



Poor Mr. Hughes was being bombarded by vendors. (A man walked up to Mr. Hughes, glued his shoe and then charged him $2.00)

Beautiful Hanoi lake




There is a lot of traffic


The Vietnam Academy of Music


Rehearsal


Some gifts presented to the MSU orchestra from the Vietnam youth orchestra

Vietnam Youth Orchestra (some MSU members were invited to play with them)


They provided lunch for us



Yum! ;-)

Fortunately, we enjoyed a refreshing, strawberry smoothie instead of frog legs!

We are in Vietnam now! It is amazing here! We arrived last night around 10:00 p.m. Soon after we arrived, our hosts took us out to a Seafood restaurant. Our meal consisted of fried shrimp, rice with cabbage, octopus stir fry, fruit, egg rolls and noodles. It was really good! Our orchestra is staying in three different hotels on the same street in the middle of downtown Hanoi. It is different here than Thailand. Downtown is a bustling, crowded city. Most people travel with mopeds and bicycles, and the streets are lined with buildings a couple stories high and tiny shops all along the way. This is our first morning in Vietnam and we are about to leave to explore the city. We will take pictures. Later today, we will rehearse with the VNAM orchestra, but meanwhile. Better go. We love you all!

Sorry that the pictures are backwards. Just scroll to the bottom to begin the trip.

A brief moment of silence for the deceased lizard that Evelyn accidently squished in an attempt to catch him! Sad!

A tram tour!

After lunch, we toured the georgous surroundings and sturctures of the campus. It is a very prestigious Catholic university. It's like taking a tour in Europe! There are courtyards, a beautiful church with intricate gold carvings, a small lake and many huge elegant buildings, a small waterfall, marble halls, pillars. These pictures are just the beginning of the tour before our battery died!

Lunch served hosted by the Assumption University.

The second largest airport in the world!

The grand arrival to Bangkok!

Back on the plane to Bangkok.

Exploring the Taipei airport.

I can't believe we are in Taiwan.

Look how many miles we traveled!

Tracking our flight on the plane.

Flying over the East China Sea's clouds. It's morning.

You can see the night and day difference in this live map view.

Nearing our first stop in Taipei.

Breakfast on the plane (a traditional Chinese breakfast consisting of rice with tuna, mushrooms, a rice roll, hard boiled egg and fruit).

Around 1:00 a.m., waiting to board the first flight to Taipei.

...and more Washington

Warshington

Our first stop in Washington.

In the bus driving toward Missoula.

Here we are at the music dept. ready to board the bus to Seattle. We got up really early, can't you tell!