Today I woke up for my alarm at 8:00am :D Annie growled and rolled over so we both went back to sleep until 12:00pm! She has no recollection of having an actual full blown conversation with me this morning!

Looked at flights last night, I felt so homesick as I do all the time! I miss aiden (my nephew) like mad! I miss all my family loads and of course I miss a miss good strong cup of PG tips and chocolate covered hobnobs even more!

The cheapest flights were september the 11th... Clearly no-one wants to fly on this day!! I was so close to booking it but thought it would be wise to sleep on it!! Good job I did! What the hell was I thinking, I'm in Vietnam it's like the most beautiful country I've ever been too! Our friends here a lovely, the foods amazing and there's loads to do! You'll be lucky to get me home for Christmas at this rate!!

So in the afternoon we walked around the other half of Hanoi, to Historic House! It's the oldest house in Hanoi! We went past it about ten times getting sent in every other direction to try and find it! It's long and narrow and has Chinese art on display, handicrafts and musical instruments!

They also have the handmade puppets! Water puppetry is a tradition here where wooden puppets are controlled by strings from underneath the stage by men kneeling down in a pool of water below! Everyone we speak to says its completely boring and pointless but, it's a traditional art and I think we will go to see it anyway! The theatre is an old traditional purpose built building by the lakeside too, it looks cool!

They do a Chinese dance performance at Historic House in the evening too, the cutest old woman was trying her bestest to sell us tickets! Maybe another night! Nearly got eaten by a carnivorous Teradactile trying to knaw it's way of its cage to get to me! There's loads of bird cages with evil creatures lurking inside there real noises and then when you walk up to them they go silent and freeze! Then, after a minute, they pounce! I actually may have had a mini heart attack :/

After here we walked to Orchid restaraunt, its a nice restaraunt that does a cooking class and its recommended by Lonely Planet as one if the best in Hanoi! So it should be! Its £28! The most expensive half day activity weve ever done! Booked it for tomorrow morning with a deposit of 100,000Dong (£12)

I'm gonna learn how to do, sea food spring rolls, sweet and sour vegetables, and some form of spicy pork dish, can't remember what it's called but looks amazinggggg! Oh and we do fruit/vegetable carving too! Excited, I just wanna eat it now!

After this we carried on walking around town to Old gate, the gateway into the old city! Or in our case the gateway out rather, as we're staying in the old quarter! I don't really know where it was too but it was a brick wall with an archway and supposed to be a tourist attraction! Two photos and we were done!

We sat and had passion fruit smoothies in a corner cafe opposite :) we couldn't even hear each other talking over all of the busy traffic and bibbing horns surrounding us! We sat in silence! I'm not complaining ;)

Then we carried on even more and went to the old market! Loads and loads of kids toys and teddy bears here, loads of fresh fish which we couldn't stomach walking past! And a lifetimes suply of knock-off gear! It's massive, it's packed and it's crazy, there's no right direction to walk in you just squeeze past people and walk all over clothes that are thrown on the floor! We also hold on tight in our pockets to our precious children; the iPhone ;)

We walked back home a different direction so we'd gone full circle around the city and stopped to eat in Gecko for no other than my second love; the precious noodles!!

We went out tonight at 9:30 to GC bar, it's a nice atmosphere and not too many people it's so random that it's an English pub in the middle of Asia and its so popular, yet me and Annie are the only Brits in their! That's why we love it!

On the tv Americas next top model Was on, and this latest cycle is British Invasion! We were in our element! I actually considered asking the dj to turn the music off so we could hear it!! It's the final three here though so we've missed the full cycle! So god knows when it started in the UK?!?! Mother was immediately emailed to get it on series link of course! Debs, remember if your not recording it, I'm never coming home!

We walked with Boaban to Mao's bar, after sitting the hour in silence and trying to watch, and had a few drinks there, we also had a B52 shot before leaving, he promised it would help us sleep! didn't ask what was in it, you get a free shot, you take it!

And as if id not already had enough noodles for today, we then went for noodle soup on the way home! I'm turning into one big long skinny noodle! :o