Had a wander around the Old Quarter on my day off including a trip to the Dong Xuan market which was crazy. The aisles are so narrow and they sell just about everything there. Managed 10 minutes before I felt completely claustrophobic and had to get out. Not the place to go if your not fully relaxed!

Then into 2 more days at work and more taxi hassels. On Thursday waited 40 minutes for a taxi with 2 confusing phone calls to BME and one very short txi ride with someone who claimed to be my driver and then asked where I was going. He charged my 14,000 dong to go 100 yards down the road! Thursday and Friday was shown good places to eat around my schools by my TA's and was bought some che. It looked like a bowl of baby sick and Alex and I were thinking of how to avoid eating it but as I've said an offer here means you do it! It was actually quite nice - a mix of fruits in milk but very, very sweet. My TA tells me diabetes is very common here as everything has sugar in it (great for the diet)

Felt very tired after a whole day of grade 1's (sent into a fit of giggles and hysteria by a thunderstorm). They are such hard work as they can do very little without it being teacher lead so by Friday the singing and shouting combined with the dust and bike fumes means the voice starts to go. A few people have had conjuctivitis as well from the kids and it seems to be spreading, most of the kids here have it and just pass it around. Poor Kate on my floor looked like she'd been punched in the face. Getting her eye drops in was hilarious like Rachel in friends - lots of kicking and screaming! Seems like the kind of thing we will all get at some point unfortuantely.

Anyway most of us managed to drag ourselves out Friday night. So with our water bottles filled with vodka we jumped on a bus ... going in the wrong direction. We changed plans and got into a cab (10 of us in a 7 seater) and went to meet the other teachers. We were treated to a soundtrack of Celine Dion and Toni Braxton (Fraser's favourite it turns out) and created our own taxi karaoke. We rolled out of the cab (only way to get out when ur packed in) and into Pacific Bia Hoi where the prices were fairly high.

We moved on to Barbetta but the cab went completely the wrong way and cost a lot more than it should have. Barbetta was good a strange mix of music but was good to have a boogie. Managed to get myself a hotdog on a stick outside which was a bonus as I was starving. Only 7 in the cab home but it was only a 4 seater. The driver completely tried to rip us off and charge triple what it should have been. DO NOT let them do this we paid a fair fee and then walked away they do not do anything as they know they were trying to rip you off.

Back at main building we went onto the roof for some instant noodles (2 bowls of noodles between 8 people = pointless!) before falling into bed at 6am. Clearing up in the morning/afternoon was not much fun. Went to Burger King, was amazing and helped cure the hangover helped by some banana cake (so much for not eating so much!)

The weather is better now with only short but heavy rain showers normally in the middle of the day and even starting to get a bit of a tan - nice bonus.