Pellows on Tour!

Good afternoon from Hanoi,

We are writing from our bedroom in Trung Hoa, Hanoi but not feeling 100%. Becky has had a fairly persistent cough for several weeks and Robert now feels under the weather so is using a day off to recover at home. Nonetheless we have had an exciting and enjoyable few weeks and apologise for not catching you all up earlier!

Last time we wrote we were awaiting the visit of Rob's parents which has now happened and they are moving south, away from Hanoi, to Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City. The blog title goes along this theme and we will, of course, fill you in on their visit. There were lots of pictures on the last blog of all the work the children did for halloween in making their masks. Since then halloween has been and gone. The Vietnamese love halloween celebrations and one of our favourite Cafes - Cafe In - was creatively decorated with lots of halloween themed scary decorations. We saw a number of children dressed up being transported, presumably to parties/school, on motorbikes and just down the road from us the local kindergarten held a suitably over the top halloween bash.

Becky invested in a tailor made Ao Dai

Kindergarten party

Best friend

Becky's wardrobe getting quite full...

Liv at the street party

Shortly after halloween Becky's cold increased in severity and she had to take her first sick day. Liv and Rob looked after her... Liv through the mutual love of takeaway and Rob just being his lovely self. On this day off our neighbours spontaneously erected a marque and had some sort of party literally just outside our house. In some ways in the UK this would be completely unacceptable and we would probably rant and rave about health and safety, permissions and noise but there was something really lovely about it and it smelt incredible. We literally had to transport our pizza takeaway through the party. The weekend after that week (that week being the first in November) we had a weekend in Hanoi and just relaxed. Naturally we did find our way onto a rooftop bar with Liv and then had a dinner in Tay Ho with her and Aaron having sort of seen the beautiful sunset over the lake.

Liv enjoys the rooftop bar

In terms of teaching highlights over the last few weeks. Becky experienced a student deciding his team should be called 'Team Shit'... her and the Teaching Assistant couldn't help but laugh. The timing was pretty comical and the student clearly had no idea what he had said. Nonetheless we had to explain that he probably shouldn't use that language particularly at only 6 years old! Becky also got her rucksack carried to the car by a lovely student called Zom (probably spelt wrong) which he has done pretty much every week at Tran Phu. This week it was boiling hot but he still insisted on sweating his way to the car with it. The generosity and kindness of some of the students here is incredible - they are always offering you gifts and sweets despite many not having much. Becky had a lovely afternoon with grade 3 and Mai making posters about friends and family and her grade 4's have now recovered from the shock of actually having to do quite a lot of book work rather than fun with her!

The boys play Yugiou cards

Rob has given in his test scores for secondary school and is awaiting feedback. Rob got observed again his week with his horror grade 8 class which seems somewhat unfair but I guess if you still score quite highly with your worst class you're probably doing an ok job and can face many challenges. A little girl has decided she is in love with Rob and insists on holding his hand and guiding him to the staff room when he enters the school at Tay Mo. Clearly Becky is already planning on hunting her down. haha. Rob has had some unfixed lessons in some incredible schools and as a result seems to have been offered fixed teaching at one of the best schools in our district. Rob's ego was boosted even more than it already has been when his students at an unfixed lesson commented on how clever he is.... all because he knows what a newt is! Rob insists it isn't just that. Rob also made a new best friend this week outside of work! A little boy took a shine to him... before proceeding to try and beat him up.

Hello Gary and Joanne from Cafe In!

We both booked a day off on 9th November as Robert's parents had arrived on the Tuesday that week. They spent Tuesday evening recovering and then had a day of sight-seeing on Wednesday followed by a spectacular French meal with us. It was lovely to catch up and find out all about their holiday so far and eat some incredible food and drink some stunning wine. We were both extremely excited by the large lump of melted Emmental in our French Onion soup. We then introduced them to one of our favourite rooftop bars - Skyline - with Sabrina and Liv. After this we had a spontaneous night out and ended up back at the house, after many beers and an excellent Game of Thrones dubstep version, at around 3am. The next morning we got up and met Rob's parents for our day off which started with a lunch at 4P's and then a water puppet show. The water puppet show was amazing fun. After this we had a tour of their hotel which included going into the shelter used during the American War/Vietnam War which was fascinating. Gary was particularly excited to go on this tour. We then had afternoon tea and dinner in the Vietnamese restaurant. Gary and Joanne then headed to Sapa to do some walking in the hills and experience life out of Hanoi.

Gary and Joanne's visit pictures 

Spontaneous night out:

Work returned to normal for us but on Friday evening we headed out of the city to Ninh Binh for a romantic weekend. We cycled over 10km to the bird sanctuary which was beautiful and also saw the Budha Cave on a boat. After a delicious lunch at Chookies we went back to the hotel, played some pool and napped before heading back to Chookies for dinner. The waitress said... nice to see you... again. The following morning we slept in, paid up and then headed into Ninh Binh to the other Chookies branch for a lovely brunch. We had a few hours to freshen up that evening before meeting Gary and Joanne in our area to take them to our favourite steak restaurant and then a local wine bar. Even though it didn't feel like long it was then time to see them off into an uber and wish them all the best for their travels. Thanks to Joanne and Gary for transporting a number of luxuries over to us including advent calendars and a much needed HDMI cable.

Pictures from Ninh Binh: 

Gary and Joanne were quite alarmed by Becky's cough and by Tuesday evening it had intensified and was beginning to stop Becky from sleeping so Tu from ELC (absolute star) booked Becky in for an appointment at a local hospital. Rob and Becky headed there last night and experienced super efficient service and now have a big bag of medicines to hopefully get Becky on the mend.

In other exciting news Amy has now booked a flight out as well as Claire and we have already booked our flights down to Hue for when we finish teaching. The plans we have for afterwards look amazing and at some point we will give you more information on this.

This weekend we are headed to Cat Ba for some relaxation... just our luck that rain is forecast AGAIN. It seems to be the theme of our beach getaways at the moment....

Until then! Much love.