We walked about 8 km in 35 degree weather today! Hoo!

Day off!

First night of our choir!
27 people came and sang their hearts out to Adele and backstreet boys :)

We had a day off last Friday so went wandering...like well seasoned tourists this time. It was really nice. In our daily routine we can sometimes forget where we are. We found ourselves lost in markets and side streets in which there was no denying that we were in South East Asia. It was wonderful. The first photo is of a very elegant older woman selling lottery tickets. This is a very common sight here. The tickets are very cheap and many people come out to buy them every day, especially the older generations. This woman seemed so poised and beautiful to me, I can imagine here as a young woman... The next photo is of our wonderful Cafe Sua Da's (Iced coffee with condensed milk- a vietnamese favourite). Then there was a man sleeping on newspapers on the pavement. I wonder what he has seen and been through... War... Poverty... an ever changing world around him... Bia Hoi, the cheap beer made fresh everyday- costs only 6,000 VND (about 30 cents or 20 pence!) Not too good if too many are consumed, but one or two are very refreshing, always served with peanuts or sunflower seeds. We discovered a huge park today, it is completely contrived with a man made lake and very worn looking amusements, but I imagine the place is packed at night, weekends and school holidays. It was wonderful to be surrounded by greenery, although the grass is untouchable. There were some lovely flowerbeds around, and some interesting statues. :) Lovely day, now we are just off to our English Club to play 'would you rather' games and sing!

Hugo's weekly beard trimming with our street hairdresser (Dung, pronounced like 'zoom')
English club music session
Sunday at the park- its very much family day, so many kids around and parents and gramdparents, playing, taking photos, its always very sweet!

Family Sundays

This is our little friend Moy (spelling?) who is often at The Note cafe. He's 2 :)

Also, this is Dung (pronounced a bit like zoom) in my class. He is 4 and very very bright. Also, Van ( said vuhn) is next to him. Shes very sweet and loves playing with my hair and sitting on my lap! We were learning new animals and recognising sounds.

Im now sitting at Highlands Coffee next to the opera house. I cant believe i live so near this sometimes. Weve been so busy the last week that suddenly today I finished work and it hit me where I was again. It is such an amazing place. Im sure that we have no concept of how much we will be changed by living here.

There are so many families around on a Sunday afternoon, kids playing in the park, parents taking photos, everyone together. Its nice to see.

The third picture is the view from where i am writing.... Lovely day today, and nice temperature.
Jess x

Cheese buffet at the Hanoi Metropole! Ive never eaten so much cheese in my life- was such a lovely evening!
Also, some photos of our students, Hoa and Long, and various others from recently!

My student Hanh and I!

I havent been taking many photos recently: i will take some more over the next few days and share them!

I'm sorry I haven't updated this recently, we seem to have suddenly become very busy! Its a good thing as we have so much work, which has been difficult to get in England, and we are finally really enjoying being here. We went through a lot of ups and downs getting settled, but we finally feel at peace here. We still really miss home and miss seeing the people we care about and look forward to sharing all our stories. The people here continue to be lovely. We are continuing with English club, it's going really well and everyone seems to enjoy it- sometimes we end up being there for 3 hours just chatting! We both also have full time teaching work, which is going well. We have been offered more than we could possibly accept. We now have a series of people in the 'neighbourhood' that we see everyday, from the security guards to the Thai restaurant staff and heart hospital staff, the street barber, and the various motorbike drivers on the pavements waiting for custom. It certainly gives a sense of home. I will update some more photos tomorrow!