Penang, Malaysia

I've just returned from a four day break in Penang, Malaysia. One of the benefits of living in Ho Chi Minh City is there are lots of reasonably priced flights to places around South East Asia to explore. It was only a two hour flight.

Penang is an Island of the north west coast of Malaysia. It has quite a good history due to its location for trade. Because of this there was some good museums. 

As usual there were also some great temples.

One day we visited Penang hill which required a train to take us to the tops. It gave us great views around the Island.

The capital of the island, Georgetown is an old trading port and a world heritage site. This means many of the buildings are protected and there is some fantastic architecture. 

Also, Georgetown is well known for its street art. There are lots of painting all around the town which you can look for on a map. Some of them are below. 

Finally, Penang is also known as one of the best food places in Asia. It has food courts call Hawkers where there is an enormous variety of food available. Because of all the cultures and nationalities that have arrived over the centuries, the selection is amazing.

This looks like it will be my last holiday of the year, however, we are looking to fly back to Taiwan for New Years to watch the fireworks from Taipei 101 and explore some more of the Island.

ELT Assessment Conference, Hanoi, Vietnam

This past week I was lucky enough for my work to send me and a few colleagues to an assessment conference in Hanoi. This may not sound very interesting to people but since my job is related to assessment it is very useful.

I flew up on the Wednesday and returned on the Friday, It was a two day conference held at the Sheraton in Hanoi and arranged by the British council. They were speakers from all over the world doing presentations on the latest trends and changes in the industry. 

I had a fantastic time and learnt lots. It was nice to get away from the office and spend a few days with colleagues. I didn't get to see much of Hanoi. We drove past Ho Chi Minh's tomb and went to the old down for dinner but that was about it. Below are some of the pictures I took, mainly form the office, the conference and the Sheraton hotel.

Ho Chi Minhs tomb lit up at night

Back to work on Monday for a few days then its off to Penang in Malaysia for a long weekend.

Teaching in Vietnam

As I look after the exams at my University I don't get to teach much any more but recently because of the large cohort of students I had to cover a class for the first four weeks.

It was nice to be back teaching which was helped by them being a lovely class. They are advanced plus, which is the highest level before they start at University. The pictures taken were at the end of week 8 out of 10. This is a special day because they hand in their research reports which they would have been working on the for past three weeks. As a treat I brought them some dunkin doughnuts. 

They have their final exams in two weeks which I have to organize and if they pass they will start at University in a months time. 

 

Stormageddon! 26th September 2016, Ho Chi Minh City

I posted recently about rainy season with some nice pictures. Last night we had possibly the biggest storm I've seen since being here. Clouds started coming across the city at about 4:30pm and turned the sky black then it proceeded to rain at full intensity for about 2.5 hours. It was so intense that everyone was stranded at school. Below are some pictures and a video of the event. 

 

When the rain did finally let up I left University but the motorbike park had flooded. I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my trousers and drove home through the water.

The University bike park

The journey home was eventful, it was very busy and many of the roads had flooded. Some people had abandoned their cars and bikes because they'd became waterlogged. Some of the water covered the whole of the tyres on the motorbike.  

The rain had turned the roads into streams, below are some more pictures taken by me and some of my friends from around the city.

View from my apartment block

Road below my apartment

It turns out the city was chaos as reported in the local newspaper. The link below the pictures goes to the newspaper which has some amazing video footage of the flood water!

Link to the newspaper article in the Saigoneer

Below are some more pictures I took off Facebook from various friends making their way home.

 

I really like the last picture of the chap smiling. It says a lot about the people here when stuff like this happens, they just get on and deal with it with a smile on their face. 

The next morning all the flood water had gone, the roads were dry and it was hot and sunny. You'd never have known there was a storm like this the night before.

River farm Restaurant, District 2

I went to a nice restaurant in District 2 the other day. It was called River farm restaurant. As you can probably guess from the name it had a river and a small farm. District 2 is about 30 minutes drive from where I live and on the way, as often happens in rainy season, the weather changes quickly and we got drenched. Here are some photos of the place and a video of the rain.