back at it....

well the holiday season is over for awhile. we've been quite spoiled with Christmas and then chinese New Year holidays. for now we have to work 4 more weeks until Easter break. And then the school year is basically over! :) in April there are so many things going on.....the chinese Tomb Sweeping holiday (one day), parent teacher conferences, SAT testing, enrichment week, and then our May holiday beginning April 30. according to other teachers we should finish our teaching by end of March because it's hard to get stuff done after that! yikes! we've got a lot to do!

travelling to Vietnam was fantastic! our travelling buddies Becky and Daniel were easy-going and we had no disagreements. the Vietnamese people are very friendly and helpful and it's just a beautiful country. There's more color and old architecture....somehow they've preserved the 'ancient' look of the places we went. it is less-developed than China. it's communist, but we saw a bit more of the poverty there. I felt like I saw a lot more smiles though. Maybe the people just know how to welcome tourists better than the chinese. people always said hello with a sincere smile and "Happy New Year!"

we stayed in Hanoi for 2 nights first of all. we walked all over the "Old Quarter", visiting museums, old churches, Ho Chi Minh's masoleum, and other sites. it wasn't too warm. spring weather that required a jacket. because of the French influence there are great bakeries around and good strong coffee! and milk with coffee actually means coffee with sweetened condensed milk! yumm! we often bought baguettes on the street to munch on for lunch. they eat delicious rice noodles a lot.

we then took a sleeper bus to Hue, 12 hours south. needless to say, it was a long, interesting night. the roads are bumpy, the driver honked his horn a lot and the "beds" were not comfortable. I think Becky and I got the most sleep....maybe 5 hours? but the boys didn't sleep much at all because they're so tall. we were glad to get off that bus! But then we had to take another 3 hr bus ride to get to Hoi An, the small beach town we were heading to. we arrived at the travel agency/bus stop and bought tickets.....the bus was kinda full so they offered to put two plastic chairs in the aisle so all 4 of us could go! it was quite a hit with all the foreigners on the bus :) some australians arrived at the travel agency after us. they had bought tickets but there was no more room....or for some reason they wouldn't accept their 'receipt.' he put up quite a fight, even storming onto the bus, swearing his head off that he was going to get on the bus! soon there was pushing and shoving, and even a plastic chair raised over his head when he had stolen the keys! haha, it was quite immature. the mean angry guy definitely and his wife didn't make it on the bus, but everyone else did!

Hoi An was a nice quaint town with lots of charm. we were able to rent bikes for about 70 cents for the entire day. we rode all around and down to the beach. it was kinda windy and cold, but we did run in and then out of the South China Sea :) we really enjoyed a quiet bike ride by a river through farm fields. after some good food, haircuts, bleached hair and a couple of nights including games of Settlers, we FLEW back to Hanoi where the next morning we took a tour to Halong Bay. beautiful place! there were about 9 of us on our boat, and we spent the night on the boat. 2 days and 1 night, including meals and kayaking it was $46. definitely worth it! kinda cold, but it was still breathtakingly beautiful. I'll include a few pictures. but you should definitely check out my (or Scott's) pictures on facebook.

after one last evening in Hanoi we flew back the next morning. on a side note....our flight was early in the morning and the exchange place wasn't open yet so we couldn't change our extra money back to renminbi. so we tried in the Beijing airport and they said no, but you can do it at the bank. I hate going to the bank, so I finally made the trip on Thursday only to be told that they don't take it! no where in China can I exchange it, she told me! this just adds to the list of reasons why I hate banking in China. I don't even have to go far! it's right in the hotel where our school is located! but it always takes so long and everything is vague! I never know what I can or can't do there, or when. and then it takes 10 minutes to pay a water bill because she has to fill out all these forms by hand, and stamp about 10 different things. it drives me crazy.

but in a way it was nice to come home and sleep in our own bed. we bought some new fish this week and we knew right away that the female was pregnant - with her giant belly and all. she seemed stressed though in the tank with all the other fish so I thought we should put her in the "nursery" tank so she can have the babies. sure enough, the next day she had the babies! they are platy's so they have livebirth. we have about 12 little fishies in the nursery now :)

I'm going to go take advantage of my Saturday now and have a nap. I had too much marking so I went to the school for 1.5hrs this morning already. Happy New Year of the Rat!