Pellknights on Tour : 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.