Hanoi for a Happy New Year

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!

Christmas KL Style

Last year we were traveling for Christmas. This will be our last Christmas in KL, and the girls really wanted to spend Christmas at home, so we decided to do it up right, KL style. Of course, that means going to check out the Christmas decorations in all the malls.

For some reason, Great Eastern, our next door mall, went with an underwater theme for Christmas. Both of the girls decided this required a mermaid pose in the photo spot.

Pavilion, which always spends the most on Christmas decorations, had a much more elaborate set up.

Elena made sure to try out the merry go round.

Whoever designed the display did have a sense of humor though.

No visit to Pavilion is complete without stopping by TWG. They have special holiday flavors every year.

We also found life size versions of Elena's favorite doll house toys outside the toy store.

Christmas for Elena started with Pixie appearing and a visit to Santa at the embassy.

Vivian discovered a dress she loved at Balmain while doing holiday window shopping.

Luckily, it didn't quite fit, so I didn't have to have the discussion about why I am absolutely not buying her a $3,000 dress that looks like it's been attacked by a paper shredder. She was most enamoured with the buttons though, and at another mall, we found her a dress with knock off versions of the buttons for $30, which I did buy her.

Viv and I also had a holiday free dress day the Friday before school ended for the year, so we got a holiday picture before heading out.

Jeff and I got our holiday weekend started with drinks out with some of our friends. We brought hats back for the girls.

Our true family Christmas though started on Christmas Eve with a special Sunday dinner at the Ritz.

They had a great spread and live music.

Although, I'm not sure who decided the Christmas tree should be blue.

Still, we had a great time lounging, nibbling, and listening to the music.

Then we went home, got into our matching Christmas pajamas and had some fun taking pictures before putting on Christmas movies.

Christmas morning, Jeff and Elena were up with the sun and enjoyed some balcony time before coming and getting me and Vivian out of bed.

Once everyone was awake and had coffee and tea, the girls collected their stockings, bags, and boxes, and the great opening began.

Elena got so distracted by a book from her stocking that she had to be reminded to continue opening her presents.

Jeff got special holiday TWG tea and a silk durian shirt, so that he will always have a reminder of the king of fruits in Southeast Asia.

But the big Christmas present was a Nintendo Switch, which the girls have been wanting for quite a while now. Pixie most have told Santa that it would be the perfect present.

After presents, we popped our Christmas crackers and ate pancakes. We were so hungry that we ate them all before we remembered to take a picture.

The rest of Christmas was spent racing on Mario Kart, reading books, and playing with new games and toys. It was a great Christmas.