On Wednesday everyone went crazy celebrating independence day with a big traffic jam over pretty much the whole city. I had the day off work and went to the Old Quarter to meet Alison to pay bike rent. It took me forever to get there as my normal route takes me past the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and I didn't take into account the fact that the entire population of Vietnam appeared to be making a pilgrimage there to celebrate independence day. People were ambling along in the middle of the road and all the intersections were a disaster with nobody obeying the traffic lights. Eventually I made it in and the Old Quarter was filled to bursting with tourist and locals getting in the way so we escaped to a nearby cafe to kill time til we could get the bikes back. We sat out on a balcony and watched a retarded tourist stand in the middle of the road to take a picture and nearly get mown down by a taxi - you can get just as good a pic from the pavement with a reduced risk of death so why stand in the middle of the road?! Was glad to get out of the melee once my bike was ready and I escaped to the gym - it was empty! I also went swimming in the fancy outdoor swimming pool and made use of the jacuzzi before heading back home. I contemplated heading out later on in the day to see what was happening for the celebrations but after the experience in the morning of all the crowds just milling around I decided instead to just stay home. From what I saw on TV I didn't miss a great deal and staying at home meant I managed to stay sane!

Thursday at work was exam day so it was a pretty easy morning, and then yesterday I went to watch a movie in the morning before going back to the school to give the students their results. I went back to the cinema in the afternoon but didn't fancy watching the movie for a second time so instead I went to the bank and then sat out in teh courtyard of teh cinema with some of the other teachers. Finally in the evening I had to teach for a couple of hours but I made the lesson pretty cruisy with a song, a game and then a timed writing so in the end although the day was long it wasn't too taxing!

Today I helped the housekeeper clean the kitchen and chucked out all the old food that's been there since before I moved in. I wan't much use when I opened one of the drawers to find some cockroahes but Huong set upon them with a rolled up newspaper and slaughtered them all. Unfortunately there is no air con in the kitchen so it was horribly sweaty work but at least our kitchen is clean now and there's no more mouldy food!

I've just been out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant as I was craving some okonomiyaki. I tried a different one to the usual and found a place that specialises in the pancakes so tried that one instead. The chef cooked it up on the hotplate right infront of me which was pretty cool! I was origianlly gonna go to the usual place with Calder and Alison but they are suffering this evening so instead I tried this new place and I'm glad that I did. It was so good! We have plans to go to the usual place later this week which will be nice as the place I went to tonight doesn't do sushi so later on in the week I'll be able to get my sushi fix. Good stuff!