At the company meeting this week I found out they want me to be one of their 'snow princesses' and tour some of the schools with my santa (Alex). Apparently we will be organising one school's performance on our own!?! God knows how we will do this when we still haven't had any information sent through. Also next week we are expected to teach the remaining parts of the syllabus and a Christmas song AND start Christmas cards AND complete any supplementary documents...

I started to feel better Saturday and was going stir crazy inside so even though it was overcast and a bit chilly I wanted to get out. Went into the Old Quarter to book a cooking course for when mum and dad get here - banana and chicken salad, spring rolls, caramelised pork and floating cake?? CAN NOT WAIT. I already have mum and dad's first night planned out to give them an authentic Hanoi experience. Stumbled across the Moose and Roo pub on my wanders and knew ...

A trip to yet another pagoda last weekend - this time with the company and a boat trip through some tunnels. Apparently the TA's had suggested lots of better places to go but they had been ignored. After a 3 hour bus journey and yet more karaoke (me and Alex seem to be the weak links and favourites to pick on singing head, shoulders, knees and toes and ABC - the TAs are now requesting the shape song as well!!) we stopped to see another pagoda. They are beautiful ...

Perfume pagoda was a very nice trip and a lovely day out with no rain thankfully. There was a lot of walking involved and nothing too different fromt the Pagoda at Hoan Kiem or the caves at Halong. It did include a relaxing ride in a rowing boat from the minbus to the Pagoda. Well at least on the way there; on the way back the woman demanded a higher tip than we had given her and when we refused started shouting in Vietnamese! There were lots of uneven and unstab...

It's been a very busy few weeks here so I'll cut this entry into a few parts to try and avoid rambling (as I end up doing in most entries!). November started with test weeks which were extremely boring and just consisted of asking 'what's this?' while pointing at pictures and words. This mainly received blank looks from grade 1 even though they were perfectly capable of telling their friend the answer when it was their turn! Can't believe I considered staying ...