The sun has been out this weekend and Hanoi looks so much nicer in the sun! Sadly, earlier on in the week it was absolutely chucking it down and I got soaked. I've been told that it's only going to get worse - heavier and more frequent. Lovely! Can't wait til my lane floods and all the street become even more chaotic than usual.

As always, after work on Friday I headed off to meet Alison, Calder and Nat after work, and Lyle was there too. We went to an Irish pub next to an Indian restaurant and were able to get tasty Indian food delivered to us in the pub. This place stocked raspberry vodka and had staff who spoke enough English to understand what I was after so I finally managed to get a vodka with lemonade, rather than a slice of lemon or red bull (as has happened in the past when I've tried to order a vodka lemonade) and the food was great so it was a nice evening. At one point we agreed with Lyle that it would be a good idea to have shots, and we also got given some of the owners home made booze. It was good fun!

On Saturday I ventured out to a place called Big C. It's kinda like Walmart on steroids and was full of Vietnamese people paying no attention to where they were walking and crashing into me all the time. It stocked so much random stuff (this seems to be fairly common here - a random selection which changes every time you visit, from the tiny shops in peoples houses right up to the big supermarkets) but it was a good place to go to stock up on weapons for a war against mosquitoes. They keep biting me at night so I am on a crusade to kill them. One of the things I picked up was a tennis racket device that electrocutes bugs that fly into them. It works really well and is a good way to get revenge on the buggers.

On Saturday night I headed into the Old Quarter and met Alison and Calder at Bia Hoi corner. Beer only cost 3000 dong but it tastes pretty bad, plus the place is full of backpackers having an 'authentic travel experience' by drinking Bia Hoi with the 'locals'. The only problem with that is that the only locals at Bia Hoi corner are the ones trying to sell stuff. You have to head away from the tourist centre to drink with the locals but this doesn't stop them rambling on about how great it is. I hope I wasn't ever as obnoxious a backpacker as those guys!

We then went on to Little Hanoi for dinner but the place was full so we headed next door to a bar called Mao's place and ordered food from Little Hanoi to eat there. Once we were done we went to a place called Tet Bar to settle in somewhere for Earth Hour. There was a rumour that the government were gonna pull the plug for an enforced Earth Hour but that didn't appear to happen in the end. The bar we were at turned the lights off but thankfully left the fans going to keep us cool so we had a couple of drinks by candlelight. Later on Lyle joined us and we spend a nice night just drinking and chatting.

This evening I went to Alison and Calder's place for dinner. I went last week too and we had home made burgers then, and tonight we had chicken, potato and some Mexican fritter things. I hardly ever eat potatoes here so that was sadly quite exciting! I made dessert earlier so we rounded the meal off with some chocolate based dish. Had lots of food that I don't usually eat tonight and it was good! I'm now looking out for any recipes for desserts that I can make that don't require any cooking beyond a stove top, as I don't have an oven or a microwave, so that I can make more desserts in future. Alison and Calder cook dinner every Sunday for Lyle and I've kinda gatecrashed it now too!