Hello to all, it has been a long time and we really have no excuses....
Life here is still great - we have fun at school everyday. The kids are lovely, although there are a lot of them this year, and we are enjoying getting into the new PYP curriculum. It is an inquiry based approach - very student centered with a lot of questions and independent projects. People seem to think it is the "latest and greatest" but really it is stuff that has been around since way back when - 20 years ago when I started teaching. Oh no! Just dated myself a bit there.
We just had a lovely holiday to Viet Nam for Water Festival Week, spent some time in Saigon and Hoi An which is one of our favorite cities in Viet Nam. Perfect timing for a typhoon so not much beach time!
Our hotel - funnily enough, a friend here in Cambodia recommended it - when we got there it turns out it was the same hotel we had stayed at during our 2003 trip. The bakery is still across the street for fresh, warm baguettes for breakfast.
This is actually the sidewalk along the river where we alked the day before- these poor shops and restuarants get flooded all the time they said. Not just the storms but also because they don't manange the dam up river properly.
So then guys like this come out with their little boats and float the tourists up and down the sidewalk... guess the economy keeps going pretty well that way - it was a fun boatride and I sure didn't want to wade in that brown, murky water. The locals just walk or ride their motos right through it but they know where the sidewalk ends and the river starts... we sure didn't!
Of course that doesn't stop the shopping and the tailors - you can have anything made it this city, shoes, bags, suits etc. I had some self restraint and only had one skirt made - wish I had got that leather bag... gives us a reason to go back perhaps?
On a bit of a sad note, there will be no more moto adventures.... after more entanglements with the police, the last one being almost violent, we sold the moto and are now just bicyle or tuk-tuk riders... probably much safer in the long run but I will miss those Dora the Explorer floor mats and Simon "Evil Knivel" doing his moves through traffic.
On a bit of a sad note, there will be no more moto adventures.... after more entanglements with the police, the last one being almost violent, we sold the moto and are now just bicyle or tuk-tuk riders... probably much safer in the long run but I will miss those Dora the Explorer floor mats and Simon "Evil Knivel" doing his moves through traffic.
