These past few days a friend's brother has been in town so I've been meeting up with him and giving him some advice about Hanoi and (more importantly I feel) taking him to good places to eat. There are some people in HCM City who went to Sussex Uni and studied on the same courses as me and one of then had a visit from her brother. After spending time with my friends in HCMC and Cambodia he flew to Hanoi for a couple of days and I offered to meet up with him here. He arrived on Thursday and we went for dinner (timed beautifully to avoid the worst of the torrential rain) and I gave him a few ideas of places he could go on Friday and Saturday and and then helped him find his way through the maze of the Old Quarter back to his hotel. I had to work on Friday but we arranged to meet in the evening for Indian food and then some drinks at Derry's. In the end I went to Derry's to wait for him to arrive as Alison and Calder were already there so we just ended up ordering Indian food into Derry's. As they are pretty much next to each other you can place and order and they just bring the food around on a tray - one of the good things about this country! We stayed there pretty late - well beyond curfew - so as we waved him off in a taxi at the end of the night I was concerned that he'd get back to a locked up hotel but thankfully there was still someone up to let him in. It probably wouldn't have been a great idea to end up getting him accidentally locked out of his hotel! Today we met up and went for lunch where we witnessed some responsible Australian parents letting their 2 year old kid drink beer - what?! - and after he got in some last minute shopping for gifts we parted ways and he went to the airport for a flight to Hong Kong and I went to the bookshop (AGAIN!).

It's always nice to meet up with random people in Hanoi. Usually if they are in some way connected to friends then they're good fun as we tend have things in common (as well as meeting Michael this week I've also met up with a friend of a friend from home, Rachel, which was cool). I've also met people occasionally in places like Hoi An and deemed them cool enough to meet up with them when they come through Hanoi which is nice. It gets me thinking about the positive things in this city rather than just the negative stuff I encounter all the time. It's also good to have some interesting people to talk to!

In the bookshop today I picked up a guide book to South Korea for £1. It's from 2005 but I tend to only use a guide book for ideas of places to visit and general info about travelling around a country, not to find places to stay so it's not so important if it's an old book. You can usually pick up guide books for places like Laos and Thailand pretty cheap as there are lots of second hand copies in this city but there aren't so many books for Korea, and those that I do see are usually pretty expensive so when i saw this one for the bargain price of 30,000 I had to buy it! I plan to go to Korea at some point so now I'm prepared with a guide book for the place! I did also buy yet more books despite the fact that I have plenty already that I've not yet read. Oops.

I have no plans for tomorrow aside for a trip to the gym and a bit of swimming. I'm gonna get that out of the way in the morning then I have the rest of the day to get reading some of my books! I might watch a film or two as well as next to my massive pile of unread books I have a stack of unwatched DVDs. I must stop buying books and DVDs!

Randomly this has entertained me greatly - how to fly in Vietnam!

On Thursday I ventured to the dentists to get a filling sorted out. I decided against taking my chances with a cheaper Vietnamese dentist as the filling was behind my veneer so I didn't want them to make a mess of it and leave me needing a new veneer as I HATE having the old one and then the temporary drilled off. Instead I went to a modern foreign owned dental surgery with modern and hygienic equipment and got a good filling put on by a French dentist without damaging my veneer. It was expensive for Hanoi but still cheaper than a filling back home plus they gave me a free mug and were tripping over themselves to help me and offer me things in the waiting area beforehand - a much better experience overall than some of the horror stories I hear about Vina dentist destroying people's teeth or doing unnecessary work to rake in more money. Once feeling returned to my mouth that evening I got me a delivery of okonomiyaki-

Good stuff!

On Friday I went to the Old Quarter in an attempt to find string. I went to a massive stationers but they didn't have any and from the amused looks on their faces I think i was the first person to ever go there looking for string. It wasn't a total loss though as I got some cheapie books and a detailed road map of Vietnam for motorbike adventures. I then tried to get string at the post office but apparently they couldn't sell me a length of string - it seems it is reserved for wrapping packages only. I decided to go to some hardware stores but they had nothing of any use there either. Finally I walked past a paint shop where everything was hanging from the ceiling with red twine so I stopped and asked if they had any for sale. At first the woman thought I wanted to buy various assorted paint brushes but finally she understood my request. She pointed to a big roll of twine on the floor and sold me several meters for a few pence so I've finally been able to hide the dodgy paint job in my room with all my pretty scarves (you can also see my funky elephant throw thing I got in Laos!)-

I also learnt that string doesn't exist in Hanoi, or if it does it's kept in a top secret location that no foreigner has access to.

On Saturday it was really sunny and when driving past the temple near my house I saw that the gate was open - it's usually all locked up - so I went to have a quick look around





Also on Saturday our housekeeper Huong came and she bought us flowers!


She's much happier now our dirt-monster housemate has left - Huong felt really intimidated by her and was never sure what she could move after Fiona went crazy one time when Huong took some old beer bottles to the recycling place. Now Fiona's gone Mark and I have cleared out all the crap and we have a grown up house again with clear surfaces. This makes Huong's job much easier as she no longer had to clean around piles of crap and our house is now much nicer as there are no longer piles of paper all over the lounge and we can actually use the table in the kitchen for eating as it's no longer covered in bags and books and whatever else Fiona felt like leaving there.

My motorbike burn is finally getting better too which is nice. Fiona didn't bother using the kickstand on her motorbike and instead she just propped it against a step outside our house. One day I was putting my bike into the yard when I got home from work when hers fell over. I turned to catch it to try and stop it crashing into my bike and in doing so I ended up with my leg pushed up against the burning hot metal of my exhaust pipe. First my leg was all red and stingy-

Then after a few days it was covered in blisters and was really itchy-

then finally all the scabs fell off and I'm left with a strange patch of skin on my leg that's lighter than the rest around it-

Most people in Hanoi have a scar like this tho so now I'm part of the club!

As I'm going crazy uploading pics here is my pink sparkly Hoi An skirt (tho it's too blurry to see the sparkles!)

Got caught out in the rain THREE times today! At work all week Chad has been telling us a tropical storm was on the way in and it started raining last night whilst we were eating dinner (Japanese!! Salmon sushi, ebi tempura and okonomiyaki makes the best meal ever) so I got soaked riding over the Derry's after dinner for a drink or two with Alison and Calder (and some Germans) then it rained all night as far as I can tell. It was raining this morning but I dragged myself out in the rain to go to the gym as I figured if didn't go first thing in the morning I wouldn't go at all today.

The rain stopped later so I decided to go and find the fabled cross stitch shop in Hanoi so I have something to stop me fidgeting when watching my stack of DVDs. It's tucked away in a lane by the citadel area so round every corner there were soldiers with guns guarding army buildings but I found the place in the end and got some Vietnamese cross stitch - they're not bad actualy I guess. I then stopped in Bookworm on way back home and got some books - my punishment for buying books I don't need was to walk home in an absolute downpour that I would have missed if I'd gone straight home. I've just been out for dinner and when I came out of the place it was hammering down again and I'd left my wonderful poncho at home drying out after the afternoon soaking so I had nothing to keep me dry.

I now have various pairs of shoes and all sorts of clothes aroud the place drying after a tropical drenching. The rain is quite something!

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!