The sky is the limit

 Good evening from Hanoi,

We left you last time with the news that we had had quite an extravagant week... well guess what... it has happened again! We spent Sunday evening at 4P's enjoying pizza, camembert  and truffle paste for Rachel's birthday. Becky had a beef garlic soy pizza at 4P's which was incredible (see right) and Rob had a parma ham pizza. We loved this place so much we simply had to book it for the imminent visit of Charlotte Burns and Leo. After that we headed back for a well-needed sleep before the week begun. The last Becky had heard she had all of Monday off due to a school festival and Rob does not work Mondays unless he gets unfixed lessons.

The way our employment works is almost like agency work. We have a set amount of lessons - fixed timetable - with half a day confirmed as OFF for lesson planning. The rest of the space is unfixed so we could have it as extra time off or we may be given lessons as late at 8pm the night before for a morning session or by 9am for an afternoon lesson. Of course occasionally they cannot even give this much notice - our friend Brent had to take lessons with about an hours notice this week - but then you get paid extra. We work across multiple schools so Becky works at Tran Phu, Thach Ban B, Thuy Linh, Chu Van An and Hoang Liet. Rob works at Tay Mo, Thach Ban A, Thien Liet secondary school,  and another one he cannot remember the name of. A lot of Becky's days are half at one school and half another, except Monday. Rob spends whole days in Tay Mo and Trach Ban A so he can get lesson planning done in the staff room and then enjoy their long mid-day siesta. Although we don't get sick pay or annual leave we can ask for one day off after each month we have worked and we will probably take advantage of this to get some weekends away.

Anyway Becky woke up at around 8:30am on Monday to a text from her TA asking to meet in the staff room! Obviously she was quite alarmed given she had been told she had the day off. She relayed this information to the TA but then TA then discovered the school was open and expecting us to be teaching the whole day. At this point Becky and her colleague Therese had basically missed the whole morning due to needing to get ready and take the long journey across to the school. After contacting BME and Therese it was decided the two Foreign Teachers would come in the afternoon so although Becky got a sleep in she didn't get her full day off. Whilst Becky was at school Rob cleaned up our room and it is looking sparkly and clean. Becky made a new friend at school who insisted on making sure she got to her taxi ok and protected her from all the other students.

On Tuesday Rob was observed during his Grade 8 lesson which is probably quite bad luck as this is his worst class by far - as one of his very well-spoken students called it 'the class from hell'. Often you don't actually get verbal feedback so he isn't sure how this went but hopefully some other classes will get observed too. Becky had a new TA at her school Thuy Linh and she is lovely. Her morning classes were half good, half not as good. That evening Becky and Rob decided they needed some comfort food and Rob had spotted a chicken place... a place we assumed would be fried chicken, quite cheap. Anyway it turned out to be like super swanky and expensive but we had already taken our seats by the time we discovered this! We also ordered one dish each which turned out to be a ridiculous amount of food. An SOS was sent around to our house chat and luckily we managed to get a doggy bag for Liv. The chicken was amazing but probably a slight error on our part!!!

On Wednesday one of Becky's grade 1 classes was observed at Chu Van An. This went well and she has some useful feedback to take away and mostly positive comments. Luckily for Becky perhaps a class at this school was a nightmare this week and was NOT observed. Becky and the TA only got through the basic three words to learn and the warmer before the class were completely unmanageable - odd given they are only 6 and also Becky is quite strict! A boy wiped chalk all over Becky and then threatened to hit her! It was all a bit stressful and the first time Becky had experienced this. A special lesson is planned for this class next week... and not special in a nice way. It turned out on that day that everyone in the house had a pretty bad day, probably except Rob who had a great Wednesday. Everyone was down and in need of cheese, beef and chips so we ordered Burger King. In Vietnam you can get BK delivered to your door... which is exactly what we did. It is bad for us but it was needed. We all let off some steam, enjoyed our cheese sticks, burgers and chips and got ready for the next day.

Thursday was fine for both Becky and Rob. Becky had the morning off so went on an adventure to go and pay for a trip we are going on. We are going to volunteer with an organisation called VEO, they organise teaching in villages, for example Mau Chau where we are going next weekend - last weekend September. You get to help some of the young students with their English whilst also seeing places you might not see otherwise. We are really excited for this trip and hope to do more voluntary work. The building was quite hard to navigate. Becky had to go around the side at the back and then find the magic mirror which opened up to the place where the VEO office is. Rob will attend a meeting there Monday - goodluck to him!

Pizza ovens at 4P's

Dinner at 4P's

On Friday morning Becky had a mixed morning. She had done lots of prep for the classes and made a special powerpoint, games etc. but it just didn't work for the first two classes. Nonetheless she left on a high as it got better as they went along. The afternoon at Thuy Linh was great fun. This is probably Becky's favourite school and she gets to spend some of the afternoon with an absolute gem called Dani. Rob's Friday was really good too except his taxi was late and so he was late home. He arrived home to a kitkat chunky treat from Becky... but had also got her one as a surprise! Becky had also laid cold coke and beer out on his desk #keeper. That evening we met Charlotte Burns and Leo for a dinner at 4P's followed by cocktails on a rooftop bar called Skyline; hence the title of this blog. It was really good to see some familiar faces and catch up with them and we wish them the best with their onwards journey to Hong Kong and then home. The views from the bar were stunning and the cocktails were to die for. This really perked us up after a long week.

CHEERS!

On Saturday we had a full day of training starting at 8:00am...... which was interesting after the previous night's cocktails. Rob was in high spirits and was loving all the chanting, singing and dancing. He volunteered to go and pretend he was a robot for a song. Our team also took quite pride in creating a very artistic poster for one of the exercises. At lunch Becky and Rob headed to spices and also to the ADC stationery shop to get a world map. Rob and Becky both want to use this in their classes this week. On Saturday evening we had a light dinner before watching Kingsmen 1 in preparation for seeing the second one in the cinema Sunday. Becky had a few beers and Rob caught up with his parents in Yorkshire.

Rob is a robot - also starring Ariel on far right

As we are entering week 4 we are getting into the swing of things and have trips planned now. After our trip to Mau Chau we are going to Cat Ba for Rob's birthday and then Ninh Binh with our housemates the week after. We will make sure we get lots of stunning pictures to post for you!

Until then lots of love!

Rain, rain, go away (don't come back another day)

Good afternoon from Hanoi,

This weeks blog title has two meanings for us: 1) Becky has sung rain, rain, go away to her little grade 2's learning how to make the ai sounds (train, rain, snail) all week and 2.) Typhoon Doksuri passed over Vietnam and brought with it a HUGE amount of rain. Luckily for us we are well away from the coast and were not in any danger but lots of people in Vietnam further south and towards the coast have lost power and their homes have been destroyed.

Becky sings Rain, rain, go away with Grade 1 at Thuy Linh (photo credit to the lovely Nguyen Thanh Hang) 

Today Becky is feeling slightly worse for wear after a wild birthday night out which concluded in playing in the park with Sabrina at 3am. Rob enjoyed looking after all the drunk ladies and is relaxing reading a book. This week has been another busy week in Vietnam and our first full week of teaching. We are both a bit knackered. Becky now has a busy timetable teaching Grades 1-4 so between age 6 and 9. Rob is teaching grade 4-8 (9-13 years old).

Becky ready for steak

We last posted on the 8th September before heading out for steak. We had a fantastic evening with Dan, Liv, Rachel, and Sabrina. The steak was very tasty and after dinner we headed to our local Bia Hoi where the beers are about 25p. Sabrina and Liv then headed to a bizarre club in the middle of nowhere... literally in a field... called Bird Cage. Rob, Rachel and I headed home and we spent quite a lot of Saturday and Sunday doing our lesson plans and relaxing. On Sunday Becky headed out to watch IT with the ladies - the local Platinum cinema shows films in English. Becky was extremely nervous the film would be in dubbed Vietnamese and when it started playing in English she was very relieved. The cinema here costs about £3.00 and the popcorn is about half that price. It was a really enjoyable experience. In the meantime Rob had been running around trying to print our lesson plans and get Becky's flashcards printed. He also had lots of time to come up with a cunning trick. The BME Accommodation printer was out of ink so printed the flashcards in blurry black ink. He had actually found a printer round the corner who did them really nicely but thought he would play a trick on Becky for a few moments by pretending all he had were the smeared inky sheets.... the look of panic on Becky's face meant he dropped the joke pretty fast.

Best friends

Becky experienced her first full day in one school on the Monday. In Vietnam they take a sort of siesta in the middle of the day. It hits 11:30, they eat and then by around midday everyone is asleep. Therese and Becky took advantage of this and had a nice long nap at Tran Phu. Becky also terrified Therese by informing her of the venomous snakes that are in Vietnam... this led to a search of the staff room for snakes and the doors being closed for safety purposes. On Thursday 14th it was Becky's birthday and she spent the morning tidying the bedroom and then was teaching in the afternoon. Her lovely TA Le got her a gorgeous birthday present and got all the Grade 2's to sing Happy Birthday! Unfortunately her taxi did not show at the school so she got home quite late but was then taken for a yummy curry dinner at Spices by Rob. After dinner we headed to a lovely cafe for a bit of cake and coffee. A little boy took an interest in Rob and also staring at himself in the ceiling mirrors! The teaching on Friday was great fun. Becky made a new best friend - bonding through singing Let It Go and then spent the afternoon with the cutest little grade 1 girl.

Spot the Becky! 

Therese with new friends!

Cute!

Birthday buds

Morning dance!

Kelly meets the school dancers

Rob had a bit of a stressful Tuesday. He was given secondary school lessons late on Monday and then didn't have the correct syllabus sent to him! Even though he felt quite under pressure he managed to get through the lessons and actually really enjoyed teaching his Grade 7 in the afternoon. The school had accidentally sent a bunch of the students home so he had a small class of around 10 and made an extremely complex board diagram for learning about health problems. It was nice for him to see and recognise some people in his classes and he feels he has got to know some of them and their personalities despite it being a short time. You can now identify the stronger students who you can engage in conversation with.

Danielle with 20p beer

On Friday we ended up back in our favourite steak restaurant with Liv, Rachel, Laura and Amy which was delightful. Becky and Danielle had invested in 20p beer before us heading out and then Becky had some red wine so was quite drunk. She fell asleep with her laptop on her and phone in her hand, Rob had to quietly prize them from her hands and put her to bed. Whoops. We also treated ourselves to a swanky meal on Wednesday where we had beef and cheese rolls and Rob had the most amazing carbonara pizza with stuffed crust and quail eggs! It looked like art.

Vodka coke (photo credit Rachel)

Last night was the big night out for Rachel, Becky, Steph and Caitlyn's birthdays. During the day the lovely Sabrina and Emma had snuck out and got a gorgeous Red Velvet cake for us. Thank you all housemates for this lovely surprise. We had a house lunch during the day and then got the balloons and party hats ready for pizza and drinking games. After that we headed to a huge Bia Hoi where Rachel invested in a coke and vodka for around £2.50. Dan also kindly gave Becky multiple shots of vodka which might explain why she was so drunk.... A small group of us then headed to Old Quarter where we sat on a terrace bar enjoying beer and chips and then went to a similar cocktail bar. In this bar during happy hour you get an extra shot with your drink so Becky had Tom Collins with a gin shot on the side, Rob had vodka on the side of his Tequila Sunrise. We headed home for around 3am where Sabrina and Becky had fun playing in the park. It is Rachel's birthday today so we are going to a nice restaurant and then tomorrow brings a new week and a new budget given how extravagant it has been.... we thought we deserved it given it was Becky's birthday week!

We hope everyone has a great week - post again soon.

Poser 1

Poser 2

Birthday drinks (credit Rachel)

Beer Street crowds

Birthday celebrations  (photo credit Sabrina)

Off to a flying start!

Evening all,

We are writing from a very rainy and thundery Hanoi, as we relax in our room following the end of our first week teaching. We think it has been positive for both of us and look forward to the rest of our teaching, however that is in the future and for now we will discuss the past week.

In our last blog post we mentioned the BME opening ceremony and weren't really sure what to expect. Whatever our expectations they were certainly exceeded by a weird mix of corporate AGM, Japanese gameshow, and High School prom dance. The ceremony opened with a bizarre rock style entrance from our two main presenters accompanied by loud music before there was a speech by the founder of BME translated broadly by one of the staff who kept giving him puzzled looks - we assumed he went off script. There then followed a team building/bonding exercise which involved, among other things, audience members dressing in baggy clown suits and then having as many balloons stuffed into their outfits as possible before doing a Vietnam's Next Top Model style catwalk, hilarity ensued. There was then an excellent buffet with live music and some interesting dancing from the Vietnamese Teaching Assistants (TAs) before the night ended.

Stuff the clown with balloons game!

The next day saw us attend school opening ceremonies for the new year, whilst not as whacky as the BME opening ceremony, they certainly stirred the heart with their patriotic tone - marching bands, flag parades, and songs not heard in Europe since the 1980s, all combined to give a thoroughly uplifting start to the new school year. Robert went to an opening ceremony at a school where he teaches, whilst Becky attended a school she will not teach at. It definitely gave us something to talk about with the students and teachers and allowed for better bonds of teacherly camaraderie to be made.

Rob's opening ceremony

Becky's opening ceremony

These balloons were let loose then exploded and glitter came out at Becky's ceremony!

Robert started work on Wednesday (6th Sept) teaching six classes of Grade 4 (9 years old) whilst Becky stayed at home because Wednesday is a free day for her. Robert really enjoyed the teaching and certainly feels more confident and positive about our time here. It sounds cheesy but seeing the impact even a short time can have on the children's learning of English is really great and Robert cannot wait to see the progress the students have made by the time we finish in January. On Thursday and Friday Becky and Robert were both teaching and have both continued to enjoy it. Robert is teaching mainly Grade 4 and 5 and has so far done the same lesson 18 times! Becky is teaching predominantly grade 1 and 2 (like the woman she is). Robert is fast gaining a reputation for having a beautiful, younger looking girlfriend - to explain - part of his lesson involves showing pictures of friends and family and Becky's age is always guessed as 20-22... much to her delight... apart from one terrible child who said she is 35!!! Becky's ovaries are exploding at how cute her 6/7 year old students are but maintains a strict level of discipline in the classroom. It has become a running joke that Becky is going to bring her kidnap sack to school. In good news she has been given cuddles, kisses and even cake by students... despite being super strict.

Rob's school canteen lunch

Becky's class creations

The Students do morning exercise in unison at Tay Mo (Rob's school)

Becky goes to Hoang Liet

Parental pick up at Hoang Liet

This last week we've spent more time with our lovely housemates and had a Ring of Fire game on Independence Day (last Saturday), as the fireworks were not on. Robert ended up doing star jumps as part of this fantastic game! We finally broke and decided we were in need of an Indian and all enjoyed this thoroughly. Becky spent this afternoon with Danielle - promising a night of debauchery tonight - but has decided she is way too tired and her voice has almost gone from all the singing for classes this week!

Photo credit - Rachel Lees
l-r Becky, Sabrina, Louise, Liv, Rachel and Rob at the front

Anyway we are off to enjoy our weekend off. Tomorrow we will have a wonderful steak dinner with Liv, Rachel, Sabrina and the wonderful Daniel. Tonight we are relaxing and enjoying a well-earned Bia Ha Noi. Until next time!