No earthquake here

SATURDAY, 12^th March

Terrible news about the earthquake and Tsunami that hit Japan yesterday afternoon. Fortunately for us, the South Eastern corner of China is between us and the epicentre, so we are in no danger of being affected. Although the event was covered by cable news channels, every TV I saw yesterday (other than mine) was tuned in to the regular Vietnamese soaps. No-one seemed to be very interested, other than we Aussies.

Sarah came home with a case of food poisoning, so she was still crook by Friday afternoon, so I got to teach her 5.30pm class. They are a new class of real beginners aged 11-14 and they were heaps of fun. We were only learning greetings using lots of games and role-plays. The funniest thing was trying to teach them to say great ... it was most often sounding like gwech... ah well, it was only their second lesson...

I finally got to sign my contract last night, so it’s official. I am here till 30^th September. I have no doubt that the time will fly by.

This morning I had breakfast at the little cafe down our lane. The ladies there are so delightful. They were teaching me many words, which I had to write down so I can try to remember. My food was a delicious clear broth with rice noodles, prawns, and greens. It is called bánh đa tôm.   Tôm (pronounced dom) is prawns.

This is Hang and Bich (pronounced Bit). That’s my bánh đa tôm on the table.

At the Big C supermarket I met a lady from Denmark named Helle who has been here for 8 months, She invited me to join a bunch of foreigners at a Ladies Lunch... they meet at a Texas Bar not far from here on Wednesdays at 12.  That could be fun. I have mentioned it to Amie and she’s keen, so we’ll probably drop in next week and check it out. Apparently the ladies join together and go to Hanoi, play golf... could be fun.

I’m home for the afternoon, now. I have a late class tonight – 7.30 for Intermediate adults. Again it is quite cool, but not too bad... great weather for fast walking!