Friday, September 28, 2007

Good week

I've has such a good week. It's finally all getting easier at school. I feel like I know the system and am on top of things. I have finally gone through all the papers left from the last teacher and sorted out my classroom. The kids are starting to be more well-behaved. They are quite spoiled and I had to crack down on them as they just do their own thing and ignore you. Had a good day yesterday. We did art all day. We made bees from socks they look excellent and painted flowers on to rice paper then painted wooden dragon flies. The kind you can balance on the tip of your finger or nose. Love it!

We went out last night with Maz and Ben our friends from Mexico. We started at the Sheraton - which is very posh. We went to the top floor bar - where you can see across the whole city. I felt like I was on holiday. We had some good cocktails. We had a nice meal at the best tapas place I've ever been to. We had some wine then went to a really nice little bar. Woke up early and went to the bakery for croissants. So a good start to the weekend!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Moon Festival

We had the moon festival celebrations today at school. A yearly budhist celebration - basically a harvest festival. We had to dress in the traditional Vietnamese costume - Ao dai - made of silk, very beautiful, but totally uncomfortable. The trousers come up really high and it's boiling hot in the sun. A dragon troupe came to perform. The dragons are great they even blink and open and shut their mouths. They were amazing acrobats. One guy climbed right up a pole and balanced at the top. The dragons are made from 2 people so they have to support one another when the dragon jumps up. The druming was amazing and the kids loved the day. The worst bit was moon cake. They are the traditional treat of the day and are very expensive. They are so heavy as they contain mostly dyed lard (green or yellow). Inside the cake you can have anything from beef, to bean curd or whole boild eggs and nuts. They are really weird and quite disgusting. We now have 3 boxes at home. Great!

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Pictures!






Been doing up our house to look a bit more homely. Bought some really bright pictures and got the maintenance people to put up my Mexican stuff. Loving it!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Mui Ne











I didn't take my camera out much so not many of people but I took lots of the beach etc. Enjoy!


Sunday, September 02, 2007

Long weekend

Had an excellent weekend and I'm gutted it's over and we have to go back to school again! We came down to Mui Ne which is a little strip of beach in the South China Sea. The weather has been lovely - maybe a bit too hot and the sun is punishing. There are so many lobster-people about. Luckily Gareth and I are anti-sun and smother ourselves in factor 50.

On Saturday night we went out with a load of people from school. Great seafood BBQ on the beach then dancing and beer on cushions round a bonfire. Felt a bit worse for wear the next day and we just slept on the beach and round the pool. I really needed a good catch up on sleeping as it's been crazy since we started work.

Last night we went to the gala celebration at our hotel - it's independence day today. There was loads of traditional dancing that was very cool but it all went a bit eurovision as the cheesy singers appeared. I swear one of them was Michael Jackson straight out of the eighties. We had a laugh anyway. We're back on the bus after midday to go home and I will post some photos when we get back.