This term has gone by pretty quick! I've not done a whole much else other than work and chill out at the weekends. I did go to the silk village last weekend with Minh and I managed not to buy quite so many scarves this time. I did see some awesome bags though and I couldn't leave the shop without buying one for me and one for Gem as they reminded me of our countless shopping trips! I've also managed to catch up with a few people on Skype the last few weekends. Last night I caught Gem and ended up scrapping my plans to mark assignments as we ended up chatting for over 4 hours. I did my marking today instead and it wasn't as painful as I thought it might be.

Today I've finally started booking some hotels for my trip - I have four more days of work, then the parents arrive and I have Stuff To Do! I found a couple of decent places in Macau and Hong Kong and have now booked some stuff. I had a look on some of the hostels websites for Macau but there was only one place that came up on the sites. Instead I found this place for around the same price as the dodge hostel place. It's right next to the ferry terminal to Hong Kong which is convenient (now I sound like one of my students - everything is convenient for them!)

I also booked my hotel in Hong Kong - I managed to get a decent price at the Ibis so get to stay in a real hotel. I looked for something cheaper but most of the cheap places were in that Chungking Mansions place which I don't really want to stay in. I then looked at some of the guesthouses around the city but most of them would say privates starting from a price like $20 but then once I looked into making a booking with them it would turn out that it was $20 per person in the room so most places would end up costing $40 just for me. In the end I was getting bored and frustrated with looking at all these small places in HK so just went for the Ibis as it was the same price pretty much as these guesthouses but much better quality - it's in a good location and as there is quite a bit I want to do in HK I think it's worth staying in a decent hotel rather than some crappy fire hazard so I can actually get some sleep at night.

I haven't got as far as looking for places in Malaysia but as I don't really know exactly where I'm gonna be and when there's no real need to book things now. Plus there is a lot more in the way of budget accommodation available there without resorting to a really bad place so it will be easier to find something closer to the time.

Most things are sorted for when the parents are in Vietnam, and they are trying to find a place in Singapore, but they leave Singapore the day before me so I'm trying to find a place to stay for one night. I have to be at the airport at like 4am the next day so I was hoping to find a place by the airport but all the places that I can find on the net are really expensive. I am bored of looking at hotels so have given up for the night and will just try and find something another time!

4 more days to go!