Teacher training

The Bi-texaco tower

Today is a good day. Its one year ago that I started my teacher training at ILA. Today is also the last day of my full time schedule for the semester so now I have two weeks off. I still work at my old school until Sunday but after then I have two weeks off. When it comes to Sunday I will have worked 59 out of the previous 61 days which I feel pretty good about. Teaching is going well and I'm now at the point where I get regularly asked to have new teacher sit in my classes to observe an 'experienced' teachers lesson, which is quite a complement.

View of Ho Chi Minh City from the 49th floor

This works in my favour as I tell my students someone is coming to watch them to see if they behave so naturally they do. I've got two teachers coming to watch one of my classes this Saturday - its my rowdy class, 19 11-12 year olds who enjoy messing around. It should be interesting.

I went up the Bi-Texaco tower the other day again to see the sunset. There is a great viewing platform on the 49th floor. It was nice to be up the tallest building in Ho Chi Minh City but sadly the smog prevented a good sunset. Although I did get some nice pics which you can see on the blog.

Smoggy sunset across Ho Chi Minh City

One of my teacher chums is leaving ILA today which is sad, another one is leaving this Sunday which is sadder so this afternoon we are going for another all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ which I'm excited about, we are also going for beers and since I don't have to get up tomorrow I can let my hair down, which will be nice. Some good news is that I'm buying one of my mates motorbikes for $200, so ever cloud has a silver lining. Details of the motorbike are that it's red, it's reliable and it gets me from A - B.

Ho Chi Minh City at night

I've booked a ticket for an overnight sleeper coach this sunday to go to a place called Dalat with a friend which is supposed to be very pretty and is in the Vietnam hills. The journey takes 7 hours and I have my own bed, it leave at 11pm and I will arrive at 6am, refreshed from a good nights sleep. As its in the hills I'm told it will be cold and that I may need my fleece. I've not even come close to needing my fleece since I left Heathrow over a year ago so have my doubts. If anything it will make a nice pillow. 

One year in Vietnam!!

Amazing beef!

Today is one year since I arrived in Vietnam after my 10 or so weeks of travelling. Can't believe it was a year ago. Things are still going well and I'm working hard. At the end of next week I have two weeks holiday so am currently planning where to go during m break. I've been confirmed that I'll be lecturing e-commerce again next semester and have English teaching hours so I'll be very busy for the next three months.

Amazing beef with mushroom sauce

As I've been busy I've still not done that much interesting stuff. I went to an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ place for lunch the other day (see attached pictures). It was quite expensive for Vietnam ($25) and the food was amazing. The steak was up there with the best I've had and they just kept bringing it. They also had ribs, prawns in bacon, lamb, sausages and other stuff. All amazing. We spent a few hours grazing before it got to the point where I just couldn't swallow any more food.

At the all you can drink for $5 bar on Pasteur street

As I have some free time on Wednesdays I've been going to a bar with my work mates where it all you can drink between 3pm and 7pm for the small fee of $5 (yes, $5) Tiger draft and San Miguel draft. Its good fun as we play darts and get some good games going. Due to my darts experience I get ganged up on so have to result to making allies and manipulation. The standard of darts drops as the day wears on.

We went yesterday and I can't remember getting home. When I woke up in the morning I found an empty doughnut box and a bag full of uneaten munchies on the floor so I must have stopped on the way home at the doughnut shop and 'shop and go'. Not sure if I got a taxi or motorbike home though.

Blog - Flowers edition

Nice yellow flowers

Not much to report as I’ve been working everyday recently so I thought I’d do a special ‘flowers edition’ of my blog. These are some pretty flowers that I took pictures of when we were in Mui Ne recently. Not sure what they are but there very nice.

I just finished working 29 days in a row. Then I had a day off. I’m now in the middle of working a 30 day stretch, after this I get two weeks off. I feel pretty good considering. I make sure I get enough sleep and still make time to exercise, play football and relax.

Nice pink flowers

As expected there were repercussions for chasing the cat with my motorbike the other day. It left a present right in the middle of our motorbike ramp. Fortunately I didn’t discover it and one of my flat mates found it and cleaned it up. Operation ‘drive it to another district and leave it’ might need to be put into action.

Still in rainy season and its much worse than last year. Trying clothes outside is difficult. It can be nearly perfect blue skies in the morning and baking hot but within an hour it can be a completely black sky with thunder storms.

Nice yellow flowers again

On more than one occasion this has caught me out. The other day I was racing the black clouds home so I could get my clothes off the washing line before the torrential downpours commenced. I was running up the stairs as It stared to come down. I just managed it in time.

I finish my semester on 29th July so will have two weeks off. Holiday planning is underway!

Our garden

Old bees nest

Still working hard so I've not been doing much exciting stuff. I'm sad to report that my darts team - The Blue Gecko is no more. Our captain was sturggling to get a team each week so resigned which left us in a stop of bother as no one else wanted to do it. Because we had to forfeit out last three weeks we have been chucked out the league. I'm considering joing another team but will see how things go at work as mt current timetable classes with darts night.

The old / new bees nest

Other news is that the bees that were in our garden have vanished. The did move to another tree in our garden but gave up and left. I'm not suprised as it can't be very nice trying to make honey in the current rainey season. Sadly that puts an end to the idea of making our own HCMC Honey.

I've still been seeing the cat. I chased it the other day on my motorbike. It escaped down and alley and up onto a ledge, no dobut there will be reprecussions for doing that

pomegranate in our garden.

The final picture is of a pomegranate that has been growing on a tree in our garden. I picked it and ate it. It was pretty nice.

Finally, I've got four more weeks at work and then I have two weeks off. I'm currently looking at the options of going to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and / or Dalat.