Our Vietnamese lesson was cancelled on Friday morning, but I didn't miss out... Khánh came over and gave me a long lesson. (He is SO patient!). Then we went round the corner for phở bò for lunch. He went off to Uni and I did some blogging.
Then Xuân's brother Dat came over,
with his sister, Lan and her husband Hùng. I hadn't met Hùng before as he was away at sea last year. Lan had sent me a copy of their gorgeous wedding photo... here it is...
How BEAUTIFUL is she? !!!
... so it was great to meet him at last. All of them speak English reasonably well, and a couple of hours passed very quickly. Now Hùng is on-shore, he and Lan are renovating their house. He invited me to come over when they are finished, so I look forward to that.
Lan and Hùng
As you can see, I share the house with Tony, and he uses the table all the time for teaching privately, so his stuff is usually all over it... Most of the time my visitors come up to my room and we sit on my bed or at the desk, which is cool coz Katie is often on skype so she gets to join in on the conversation!
My bed has been feeling rather rickety and has been squeaking whenever anyone sits on it and sure enough... I sat on it before going to teach my 3pm class on Saturday and it broke ... how embarassing! When I got to school I told Kate and she said she would organise someone to fix it before I got home at 10pm. That didn't happen and I ended up sleeping on the floor. So next morning I asked Khánh if he could bring over a hammer and some nails... he had it fixed in no time. Now it's better than ever and feels wonderfully solid.
He brought his mate Trường along.
Xuân arrived soon after and I was soon practicing my Vietnamese, Khánh was reading an English novel out loud to practice his English while Xuân and Trường listened. And Katie joined in on skype... A couple of words that are extremely difficult for Vietnamese people to say are 'dwarf' and 'dwarves' ... as difficult as it is for me to get my mouth around words like 'người nước' and it was pretty funny as we tried over and over and over to get it right. Eventually we went to the Phở restaurant for lunch. I tried to take some photos of all of us, with very limited success....
Nah.. I take much better photos when I leave me out!!
Trường, Xuân and Khánh
There is a Level Six class that includes several students I taught last year. They love to party, and Monday night was no exception. After the late class finished I was heading for home when Will hailed me from the sidewalk cafe near school which is a hangout for uni students. Ian, Will and Emma and some of the Level Sixes were having a beer and a bite to eat, so I happily joined them.
This is a guy I don't know, Peter, Lily and Julie. (The man standing behind her is a beggar... they haunt the restaurants at night hoping for a handout...)
Venus, Gerry and John.
Emma and Will and Gerry
Ian in his teaching clothes
We were there for a coulple of hours as the lady kept on bringing out jugs of beer and plates of food ... green vegies, tofu, stir-fry something, then chips and these tiny, chewy little fish (I nearly forgot to take a photo). They are boned and butterflyed and then deep fried... surprisingly sweet!
I asked Julie what these were... but I can't remember... It's like a tasty minced pork sausage and it comes wrapped in a neat little bundle of banana leaves.
Another great time had by all... delightful company! And it cost $2.50 each.
When the party broke up it was after 11pm, so I began to walk home, but darling Will rode up and offered me a lift. At that hour I was only too glad to accept and we laughed all the way home.
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