We have great friends from our Bogotá tour who are now posted to Hanoi, so that seemed like the perfect trip to end the holiday break. We arrived on December 30, enjoyed time hanging out as families and then, the next evening, we headed out to celebrate the new year, adults only.
Our friends found a jazzy new year's celebration at the JW Marriott. The hotel was also offering a special set menu in their French restaurant, and we had a free night with Jeff's membership, so we decided to stay the night. Might as well finish the year in style!
The hotel is in a park with a lake, and we had a nice view from our room.
The French restaurant was lovely. We had a nice table, and the service was great.
Since it was New Year's Eve, we opted for the champagne pairing with our meal, which added to the fun.
The first course was an oyster, and we were all a bit dubious, because none of us are really oyster eaters, but the things it came with made it really tasty.
We all liked the lobster salad,
and the seared foie gras.
The fish was kind of boring, but it was good to have something between the richness of the foie gras and the steak. We were a little uncertain about pairing a steak with a champagne, but it actually went really well together. It was good that the portions weren't too big.
After our decadent meal, it was a short walk to the Cool Cats Club. It was a fun space, and we had a great table right up front.
Our cover charge included a drink. It was quite sweet, the perfect dessert.
It was hard to get good pictures because of the lighting, but all the performers were great, and we had a fantastic time listening to the music.
We usually go to bed pretty early, so we were worried that we would have trouble staying up until midnight, but with such great music we were still wide awake when they opened up the giant bottle of champagne.
We even stayed after the toast to listen to a few more numbers before they called it a night. We woke up the next morning in 2024, enjoyed our breakfast, and then headed back to the girls for a family celebration.
They had been a bit miffed not to be included in our New Year's Eve plans, so we made a reservation for special "New Year's Tea" at the Sofitel Metropole. They had the tea service in a pretty garden space.
It included lots of yummy things, and we got extra orders of scones.
It was a fancy "big girls'" celebration.
Our friends helped us get a family picture in the garden to start the new year off right. Happy new year!
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