The end of the first "Teaching" week and the second "Living Here" week

The staffroom has an air of excited exhuberance - it is Friday!!!

I am teaching a class of 12 students at about (IELTS) Level 6 who should come out with an IELTS score of 6.5 at the end of 10 weeks. I teach the class 3 days a week, and a co-teacher teaches them the other 2 days, i.e. teachers teach for 5 days but have two classes. Usually a teacher has a main class from Monday to Wednesday and then co-teaches a different class from Thursday to Friday, completing material not covered by the first teacher, or revising work;

I have been lucky enough to have been allocated a place on a special projects team with three other people to develop PD for teachers and extra curricula programs for students on the final two days - which I am very thankful for. I hope this special projects thing turns out to be a fantastic experience, but we don't seem to have progressed at all over the past two days (it's difficult, I think, because we don't really know each other).

Getting to work
I catch the number 9 bus to work fom the terminal which is just down the road from Hang Dao. I must be careful because there seem to be three different routes the bus could take - BoHo/Cai Giai (or something like that)/BoHo is the one I want. If it has "C.V." in the middle bit, then it will go all over the city for an hour (at least based on the one I caught.

The bus terminal where I catch the No. 9 bus BoHo/Cau Gay/BoHo to work.

The bus fare within city limits is VND 3000 (Aussie dollars? A bit less than 17 cents, but more than 16 cents)







The journey on the no. 9 bus travelling to work





Question: Which way is the traffic going?
Answer below


Answer: Every way!





A very short movie takenfrom inside the No. 9 bus (it works with RealPlayer - I'm not sure about other programs)

View from ESL staffroom on floor 8








Lunch on Kim Ma Street

There are lots of Korean and Japanese restaurants around Kim Ma because the Embassys are also around here.

The Tokyo Restaurant




E, one of the new teachers who arrived when I did, inside one of the Tokyo Restaurant's private dining rooms.


A, another of the new teachers who arrived when I did, leaving the Tokyo restaurant.

Nguyen Son French Bakery and Restaurant on Kim Ma Street

Nguyen Son has extremely delicious and fresh tofu dishes, which with a juice, cost about $3.60 a meal. I have started going there everyday for lunch. They alsio have french pastries and chocolates in their shop downstairs. I haven't tried those yet.


Vegetarian tourist food in the old area near where I live


A vegetarian meal of pretend (soy) fish, vegetables, and rice; a glass of passionfruit juice; and a gin and tonic: Total cost VND64,000 i.e. approx. AU $3.60.