Ok Go
Oh oh oh....here's a damn cool video which Jason has just introduced me to from a band called 'Ok go' utterly wicked! Oh and I'm back in Singapore now...I ll try to post more updates when I get my new laptop

Guiling Shan Shui ...something something...Tian Xia
(Guiling's scenery preceeds all under heaven)
I've been in Guiling for a day now and wow I am impressed, I was ferried around by Mr Guo and brought to many places which would be difficult if I had done it alone.

Limestone caves, ancient palaces, Liu San Jie's Show, Ancient Town and my favourite location was the mountains which I spent nearly 3 hours trekking in... It was beautiful to see the maple trees from the rope bridge...The scenery is indeed breath-taking and unbelivable but I was not able to see the scenery in Yangshou (the place where most of Guiling's scenic pictures are from)

To cover most of the sights in Guiling requires at least 6 days, so I guess I ll be back again next year. and with more people...

I'm now killing some time at the internet cafe as I am leaving at 5pm and I ll be on a 13hr long bus ride heading to Guangzhou....I just know that Im going to die on this trip...urg...Well I'm gonna bye some food and water for the trip now...

Hopefully I can find really good 'replica' items in guangzhou...see you guys in 3 days

Zhong Guo Hao! Zhong Guo Hao!

I'm now at an internet cafe along ChaoYang Road in Nanning, GuangXi, China....The bus ride yesterday lasted almost 9 hours but its well worth the butt pains and slightly ruptured bladder. IM NOW IN CHINA WOO HOO!

Booked into the Chao Yang Hotel and paid 38rmb (sgd$8) yeah im pretty cheap...its just a bed tv and fan with beraly enough room for my bags, but its cool..oh and shared toilets....

I went down to Bao Lian's resturant and had dinner with them and she's pregnant! Wow just 2 weeks...its the funniest thing, everytime I visit her something happens, first I find out that she's getting married, then now she's pregnant, then the next time Im here I guess I ll see her with her baby...hahaha

Well Ive booked my ticket to Guiling tomorrow, I heard that they usually rip people off there...I pray that I'll be able to survive the trip.... Ok then I ll post updates soon

The Magic Flute

This was of the Magic Flute opera Sara and I went to...It was quite a while back...anyways...It's Mozart's 300 or 400th birthday and so the entire city of Hanoi was celebrating it with many concerts and operas by the dead dude...

Well this being my first opera, I was pretty excited and I was all dressed up with my shirt and tie...Sara was reluctant to dress up because she knew that the Vietnamese who went to the opera would wear shorts and t-shirts...But she dressed up anyways...

The opera house was beautiful...but cramped... very very vietnamese

They even had a little screen on the yop right, with vietnamese subtitles coz the opera was in German...and the dialogue was in Vietnamese

Little Shop of Horrors!!!

Well anyways, the opera was good however the costumes.....cripes!!! S&M leather clad women with spears and golden spiral breast guards, a man in a green-dyed chicken suit, paper mache animal head wearing people in tights ( the actors had to hold on the the head while they moved around coz they were too big and would fall of if they had not done so) Argon (from LOTR), 3 mozarts in a hot air balloon, and a whole bunch of cult like people...rather disturbing.... but very vietnamese....I LOVE Vietnam!!!

Vietnamese Rock!!!
I was invited to a Vietnamese Rock concert...knowing that I would be totally clueless of what was going to happen, I invited Naomi to join me... I wasn't going to go through this alone...It was the final concert of (maybe the only rock band in Vietnam) The HURs, and the concert was called the 'Last Saturday' tickets at 50,000dong (sg$5.00)

It was an interesting day as I had to travel through most of Hanoi to find an extra concert ticket...my search finally led me to the Giang Vo exhibition centre where the concert was taking place that same evening... Not speaking any vietnamese, I had managed to tell the security guard that I wanted tickets and he gestured for me to go around the compound....strangely enough I ended up at the stage area of the concert...then I saw a couple of vietnamese and I approached them to find out where I could get tickets... amazingly one of them was the organiser and said to me that he could sell me the ticket on the spot...he then whipped out a ticket from his inner coat jacket and that was the end of my hunt...Cool eh...

So we met My (mi) and her Brother outside the lakeside hotel and walked to the concert and wow...it was totally mad....The streets were jammed with people and motorbikes and I was honestly afraid...

And so it begins
As we were making our way towards the concert area, the jam had already begun...Thousands of people were squeezing, pushing and shoving their way so that they could gain entry into the show. Believe me...it was a potentially dangerous stampeed situation... People were pushing, policemen were barraccading, women were screaming....what a rush....After I managed to get through the gate...it was all peaceful....everyone slowly walked towards the stage and it made me wonder...what was all the pushing about anyways?

So when the music began, we could feel the earth beneath our feet shake..and WOW!!! that was scary! Naomi commented 'isn't concrete not suppose to move' I just shrugged my shoulders...

So after a few minutes of experienceing the 'man-made' earthquake...I was distracted by another sight....an idiot had taken off his jacket and lit it....and the idiot was swinging it round and round and I could see a couple of people being traumatised by it...and believe me so was I.....

Idiocy
Things that made me cringe...

1) People setting fire to their clothes and swinging it overhead
2) People setting fire to newspapers and swinging it overhead
3) People setting fire to tissue paper and swinging it overhead (what's with the fires?)
4) People throwing (filled) bottles of water into the air (which would land on a random person's head)
5) People taking off their clothes and walking about bare bodied dispite the very apparent cold winds.
6) The endless head-bobbing
7) The endless 'air-guitaring'
8) The endless running about and ramming into random people...What the Hell?

Can I borrow your hat?
It's normal for Vietnamese to come up to you to practise their english on you...especially so if youre blond haired blue eyed (or after they find out that you are an english teacher)... Naomi had this guy come up to her to borrow her hat because he wanted to sneak his friend in and later he wanted to know if she had a spare ticket which he could buy off her so that he could get his friend in... Well that was how he started the conversation which led to a 1/2 hour long conversation with her and well he knew pretty much everything about Naomi.....Sehr Interrestant...

The Fan
It was pretty nice to see that everyone was getting into the mood of the entire thing and there was even a guy who had drawn the lead singer's tattoo on his jacket... Speaking of which I have seen many guys who actually use liquid paper and permernant markers to customise their jackets...What the hell?...Still....Toi Yeu Viet Nam

All hail the king!
2 mondays ago it started to rain and it hasn't rained for quite a while...the clouds were huge and the lightning flashes were unbelivable. So in a normal Vietnamese fashion, i donned my lime green poncho, took off my shoes and put them in a plastic bag, rolled up my jeans till they were at my knees and off i went.

Then as I was riding through the rain, I noticed that the rain was exceptionally heavy and cold. I continued on my journey home and then it felt as if branches and pieces of tree kept falling on me...and after awhile it began to hurt quite badly I was actually yelling and feeling quite stupid...then I drove into knee deep rain water which was so cold that it hurt. Arriving home, I shivered as I went into the bathroom for a hot shower....

Its wasn't until the next day that I found out that I had driven through a hailstorm...WOW WEE!!! The hailstones were as large as golfballs it seems and several elderly people inthe outlaying areas were killed due to head injuries as they were not in sheltered areas during the storm...

Lets see what happens
Here's something my kids sent to me

My brother Timothy
Lesson to learn...Never Drink and pose

Ok here's my $0.02 worth
I am well aganist the idea of having casinos (oops what I meant to say was erm.. Integrated Resorts...and while I'm on this topic...giving something a nicer name doesnt make it any better...pls refer to post on Singapore Toilet Association) A gambling den is a gambling den...

I mean... whats the point of building casinos and telling the citizens that measures and policies have been put in place to help gamblers cope with gambling addiction...Duh...and after I had read this article about Singapore's first international poker tournament, I was totally inspired to go get myself a deck of cards...I mean wow...people my age gambling to possibilly win the USD$451,000 grand prize...Wow Wee!

WHATS THE POINT OF PUTTING UP POLICIES AND MEASURES WHEN YOU BLATENTLY TEMPT PEOPLE WITH THE MEDIA....Oh and wouldn't it be cool to appear on the 'reality tv show'....

Ok Im not really stimulated to talk about this topic...does anyone have any views?


Friday November 17, 10:17 PM
Two Singaporeans in last 10 playing for poker tournament top prize

SINGAPORE: At 4pm on Friday, two Singaporeans will be among the final 10 players sitting down to play for the grand prize of US$451,000 ($702,000) at the inaugural Betfair Asian Poker Tour - Singapore's first international poker tournament.
Even before the first cards are dealt, each player is already guaranteed at least US$17,500 for having made it thus far.
Mr Neil Yong, a contractor, and Mr Joshua Ang Pang Leng, a day trader, were among 11 local hopefuls who started out in the tournament on Wednesday.
Two days of gruelling elimination play at the poker tables saw the field of 313 players whittled down to just 10 at 11pm Thursday.
Those who fell by the wayside after the first day included big-name players such as Singapore-born Willie Tann, Dane Gus Hansen - the only player to win three World Poker Tour open tournaments - and Australian professional poker player Mel Judah.
Mr Yong, Mr Ang and the other eight surviving players will battle it out from 4pm today for the right to be crowned tournament champion.
The international tournament - the largest in Asia ever - attracted over 700 players from 32 countries. They each earned the right to take part in the main event by winning online tournaments, forking out a US$5,000 "direct entry" fee, or via the qualifying rounds.
To earn even the smallest slice of the total prize pool of more than US$1.5 million, a player has to finish in at least 36th place, which pays out US$5,830.
For one of the ousted Singaporeans, Mr Tan Wee Yee, who works in the finance department of a hedge fund, it was a case of "so near yet so far" as he was emptied of all his chips on Wednesday night.
"It was a pity. I was probably half an hour away from qualifying for day two. I didn't have much luck and the cards didn't go my way at the end. But it was a good experience, and I plan to fly to Melbourne to take part in another major tournament in January," the 29-year-old told Today.
The Singapore competition is being filmed reality TV-style, with cameras watching the move of all the top players.
Friday's grand final will be recorded and broadcast to a worldwide audience next year. - TODAY

NTU Survey
Well I'm more appalled at the fact that some Uni students cant spell

Someone's gonna DIE!!!
I just drove back from teaching and because Bush in is Vietnam, most of the roads are closed and stuff...Well I was travelling on a street and a fat policeman came onto the road and gestured for everyone to keep right....then he came straight into my path and I couldn't keep right because there were bikes so to avoid him I had to swerve left behind him... The fella then took 2 steps back and stopped my bike and slapped me across my arm...What the HELL???Wah I am pissed!

Things I like about Vietnam (6)

I like Vietnam because...

'Nap Time' is great!

Things I like about Vietnam (5)
I like Vietnam because...
It has beautiful scenery...when the smog settles

Foodies....(Tea Time Trinkets)
It's nice to be in a country where you get great food presentation and the prices are affordable...there have been so many wonderful things to try and experience...The Chill factor in Vietnam (out of 10....15) Nice!

Watch what you eat
Today as Chai Fong and I were heading up to class... an empty packaging laid on the floor, it looked strange for it had a vaugely familiar koren woman on the cover.

Upon closer observation, we gasped in horror as we saw.... The 'Da Chang Jing' Beef bean curd skin... It was utterly unbelivable... I mean celebrity endorsements were one thing but a drama serial endorsement? What the hell?

Things I like about Vietnam (4)
I like Vietnam because...
I learnt to ride the motorbike here

Things I like about Vietnam (3)
I like Vietnam because...
We are like minded people
They also believe that if something is in abundence...
EAT IT!

Things I like about Vietnam (2)
I like Vietnam because...
French influence rocks!

Things I like about Vietnam (1)
I like Vietnam because...
It is full of ironies

Vietnamese Wedding Photos
Imagine this... you have your wedding photos taken on an island of grass in the middle of the street during rush hour... You take your bride's hand and kiss it....in the background, hundreds of vietnamese motorbike riders slow down to catch a glimspe of the action (and also in the background is a singaporean man taking photos of the entire scene)..... The shot is taken..... when you look at the picture again all you see are hundreds of faces staring into the camera lens (with a singaporean pointing his camera at you)

In the 'tacky! tacky!' picture, ask yourself whcih is scarier...... The pose the couple is in...or the man who's riding with one hand turning to see the commotion (not keeping his eyes on the road)... ... ... ...

And the situation is?
6 MONTHS!!! I have been in Vietnam for 6 months now and things have still been wonderful… Last month was perhaps the hardest month for me, I had many many problems at the work place

Feeling insignificant and being taken advantage of, I felt crappy and going to work was a chore to me. However God was faithful, He always provides for my every physical and spiritual need. He continues to dig up the really deep and troubling issues of my life and works it out with me and well how this is done cannot be described with mere words but know that the joy which comes with this is unbearable! Woo Hoo!

The big ‘O’
Last Sunday’s sermon was shared by a pastor of the international church in Indonesia and it was on the topic of Outreach. His message was from the book of Acts chapter 13:1, and he showed us how the church was made up of the most peculiar group of people ( namely a former blind murderer, a businessman, a potentially scary dude who was affiliated with king herod and I can’t remember the last person…but go find out)

But anyways… There came a point in time when the pastor challenged us by asking (and asking us to stand) who will INTENTIONALLY make an effort to OUTREACH and in my heart I knew that I wanted to jump up and down from my seat, but when he called for us to stand (eyes closed)… I did it with a very heavy heart

Many years ago a couple of us from church went to Wesley for a talk/sermon on missions and the hall was filled up with maybe 250-300 people and at the end of the sermon we were challenged to make a commitment to God and His mission by standing…So when they called for us to stand, I stood up (with our eyes closed) and when I opened my eyes barely a handful of people stood. Then the seated people around me fervently prayed for me deep in conviction and very genuine…the entire congregation was praying as one… but it felt very lonely standing there by myself….

Well back to last week… I was afraid that I would be standing with another handful of people… But when I opened my eyes 90% of the church was standing together with me making the commitment to intentionally perform an outreach to someone whom God has called us to. It was unbelievably beautiful and that moment I knew I was in the right place. A church where people from every tribe and tongue came together to worship the living God, working together to carry out the will of He who has called us.

The 40 year prayer
I can't remember if I had written about this before but I remembered that I wanted to share this testimony with you guys.

In July, Sharon a singaporean lady after hearing the sermon on sunday felt the need to simply just go to the airport and meet someone and give them a welcome...and she did...at the airport she met an elderly malaysian couple from Penang and she greeted them and invited them to stay in her home as they had no plans...

They came to Hanoi because they got free tickets....and because it was such a sudden thing, they didnt book a hotel or anything....and when Sharon approached them...they eargerly went with her...(not something that i would do...but hey who knows) So in their conversations Sharon found out that the wife was a believer however her husband was not and she had been praying for him during the last 40years (or 30...) That sunday he came to church and I met him and he eyes were brightly lit and he was excited to meet everyone...

During the course of the week the older singaporeans and malaysians brought them around and what impressed this man most was how happy everyone was....as he had always been a skeptic towards christians....however Godworked his way into this man's heart and he accepted Jesus into his life during his week's stay here in vn...

Yesterday during service, Sharon stood up and told the chruch that the man passed away last month... I cried so hard and I thanked God for allowing me to witness him fufilling a 40 (or 30) year prayer... I know where he is today and at times we feel that our prayers are not heard but God answers them in His time (40 maybe 30 years)...that has been a lesson that he has been constantly teaching me here in vn....

Agape
Tobias

O $ PAY $
Its a sad state when you can't trust your own company to reimburse you for the things you've paid for... I now make photocopies of everything and pin them on my wall......

And as for the issuse of the medical expenses claim... I am not allowed to do so as it wasn't stated in my written contract...

(however during the verbal discussion of the terms of my contract, my understanding was that as long as I had seen a doctor at the approved clinics and produced a valid receipt, I could be reimbursed the amount I had spent)

Well I know my fate... here in this company... Its ironic that the have no qualms about sending people on these redundent flights all across vietnam costing them $usd300 each time... (they flew a teacher in from Danang to teach for 3 days until a new teacher came in and they would then fly her back....like DUH!)

I'm amused
Yesterday we had a mini-celebration for the mid-autum festival and the school hired a troupe to perform for the kids. It was 'interesting'...i suppose...

The event started off with a 'raffia-string' Lion dance and it was nice to see a semi-mouldy/faded lion costume (that had obviously been kept in the store room for too long) But it did move very well...

Then there were the animal acts
I was utterly disturbed when they made the monkeys do tricks. There was a chain and collar around the monkey's neck, and the monkey-man would just yank the chain to get the monkets to move wherever he needed them to be. So as he lifted the monkeys up, they would grab on the the chain with their dear life so as prevent themselves from being choked and strangled....The kids were utterly estacticly amused (am i allowed to use a sentence like that?) and well all the expats were throughly disturbed....myself included

There were also the dog acts but those were more erm...humane? dancing dogs, spinning dogs, flipping dogs, rolling dogs, balancing dogs... I mean as long as they're not being prepared for dinner I suppose its ok that they get to entertain children...

As you can tell all the animals featured in today's post are edible :)

Just another day in Paradise
Well Mom's come and gone, and Ive got to say it was a good trip (dispite all the arguements and normal family stuff) I now face to horrors of work and frankly im getting a wee bit tired of everything thats going on here.

Last minute changes and constant unnecessary stress make it more difficult for me to teach and I could see this from yesterday's class. I was prepared for the class but i couldnt execute it well.... Ich habe viel stress....

Ich learnen Deutsch und habe viel stress
And heres the thing that i found appalling in Vietnam...They fine (adult)students for not doing their homework. I was absent for 4 german classes coz mom was in town and I was made to pay a SGD$4 fine......What the hell!

White make-up and red lipstick
Here are pictures taken during the week mom was here

Bloody Hell Blood Cakes
ok if youre wondering what this is...its something the Vietnamese eat and its called Thiec, it's simply coagulated pigs blood with liver and lime leaves mixed in. Thiec is RAW!

Me Doi Den Ha Hoi
My Mom's coming on friday!!!

Die Lampe
We had dinner at the Pane e Vino along Hang Trong and everyone posed for a picture with this lamp and here's my pic. Yes we do tons of 'Bo Liao' Stuff but hey how are we to cope with the stresses of vietnam?

Oh so high
It’s been a hectic month and so many things have been happening in my life, many of which would really just suck every ounce of spirit out of me.

On the 14th of August I got really sick with an intestinal infection and whilst I was traveling to work (all bloated and ready to explode across the street) a wonderfully cool breeze blew through me and at that moment an overwhelming love for Vietnam came pouring into me. It is a difficult description however I shall say that it felt like a deep, rich golden honey slowly oozing out of my heart and it was such a wonderful feeling. I knew that gud had placed this in me, for only he has such power to change one’s heart and wow it was beautiful.

And so I couldn’t keep this feeling inside me and I had to tell everyone about it. The Vietnamese were overwhelmed that I suddenly loved Vietnam and they could see that I was genuinely happy. Thanh was especially ecstatic.

Thung Thanh (Cheung Thang)
Last November when I was here backpacking(I didn’t write much about it but you could still read a little about it in my Nov blog post), I met Thanh who was working at the reception of the guesthouse I was living in. He’s a really friendly guy and we just hit it off chatting for hours, but on the last day of my trip I told him that I hated the country and that I would never return and I bade him farewell thinking that I would never meet him again.

When I came in here in April and met up with Thanh again, he was rubbing the ‘I hate Vietnam and would never come back again’ statement in my face but it was ok, and now when he heard that I loved Vietnam he couldn’t stop laughing ( I told him this when I went with him back to his village and he went about telling everyone in his household and they were laughing too, sigh what’s this fat city boy to do?)

And there were the phone calls home
I called a couple of close friends and told them that I loved this place and a couple of them were really surprised coz the words ‘love’ seldom parted my lips. I mean those who knew how I was back in Singapore would also know that I was a pretty miserable soul, always living by a thread, parents who continually break my heart, hating the job situation and failing to meet my objective of getting my university degree.

But Vietnam has been really kind to me over the past months ive been here and that could only happen through the grace of gud. And its true ive never been happier, I no longer worry about not having money, neither would I have to worry about the problems my family would give me, the stress level here is really low and I can appreciate the wonders of this world a lot more. The air seems sweeter (dispite the pollution…but that’s probably what made the air sweeter in the first place), the skies are always filled with stars, falling raindrops feel like kisses, the sounds of the blaring traffic seem to fade into nothing as you take it all in.

Ah Mah
I called home 3 weeks ago and my Ah Mah told me that she had a lump in her left breast and that they needed to perform a mastectomy (cut the breast off) and I called my aunt, but what she told me was that it was only a minor operation to see if the lump was cancerous. I could hear from my grandmother’s voice that she was afraid and I was worried for her to. I then fasted food for the last 9 days of the 40 day fast, for I asked gud to revel himself to her. One night I suddenly awoke and started writing a letter to my grandmother,

Dear Ah Mah,
From the phone call I could tell that you are very afraid, please don’t be. I remembered that when I was young you would always give me joss sticks and ask me to pray to ‘Tee Gong Zhor’ (which literally mean Heaven’s Lord) Ah Mah, do understand that ‘Tee Gong Zhor’ is the creator of heaven and earth and that his name has never changed in the history of the Chinese people for thousands of years. Ah Mah ‘Tee Gong Zhor’ is “Shang di” (shangdi is another name for the creator, it is also the name that cris’ians use for gud) and we know of his holiness, his power and his sovereignty but we don’t know of his love for us, Ah Mah Jesus is ‘Shang Di’ and he was revealed to us through the jews. Je’sus wants to build a relationship with us so that we can understand gud’s love for us and he wants to reconcile us with gud. But we as men have sin and the price for sin is death but because gud loves us so, he has allowed his own son to redeem us from the price of sin. Ah Mah know that I love you very much and that you are very important to me, I ve been very afraid to say these things to you but this fear has been taken away because I love you so much so please let Je’sus take your sin from you so that you can be reconciled with gud. Ah Mah don’t worry because many people in Hanoi and in Singapore are praying for you. And don’t worry about me because gud has always taken care of me and im in good hands with the people from church. Love you lots Toby

Dear brothers and sisters who are reading know that my Chinese is terrible but the holy spirit has given me the grace to write all this out in chinese and I was overwhelmed....


Styrafoam Bubbles
Poverty is still around but the pe ple here are much simpler and contented. As I was riding home for teaching, my heart ached to see 3 street children (a boy and 2 girls of which one was probably 4) all dirty and tattered. But they were laughing gleefully as they let handfuls of Styrofoam bubbles into the wind which carried them into the river off the bridge they were on. Believe me it was so beautiful… for that I know that I have a purpose here and that I am to fulfill it. The lord of hea’ven and earth has a plan for the salvation of all man and we are a part of it. He has no desire to see anyone perish and I know that this is where I am to carry out his will. So continue to pr’ay for me and yourself that we’ll all be obedient to him when he calls and that we will not doubt or worry for he will provide…I am a witness to these things.

Yes I am a Singaporean
Hello! Its been a really long while since I've blogged and I feel terrible cause Ive got loads to share. Its been a roller-coaster ride with my Grandma's cancer, work related stresses and my trip to China. But before I share on that....

Yesterday at 4.40pm, a 40-page report was literally dumped on me and I was told to vet it... I had to submit it this morning... I looked at the clock and told the chief accountant that I had less then 14 hours to do it... She then replied, 'this is a singaporean company and you are a singaporean and you should be used to it...'

I stared at her saying that whatever it is it is no excuse to give anyone such last minute work and as I was telling her about how disgruntled I was, she replied by saying...'i don't know, i was only asked to hand this to you' YEAH IM SURE!

Anyways im now at the empty office sitting here waiting for people to come in... I've not had any sleep but at least the report has been completely vetted. The problem was, the english translations the vietnamese use makes no utter sense...english sentences are written with vietnamese grammer and the words used are utterly bombastic. (the vetted pages are RED with ink)

I really love Vietnam, but this company is making it really difficult for me to work well here. Everyone is disgruntled, im treated like dirt and am constantly being bossed around by really uncaring people.

My only relief is when I spend time with my church mates, and bible study last night was wonderful. God really took my mind off all the crap that was being thrown at me and it was wonderful to be in fellowship. Although Im not too thrilled with the unjust treatment im getting right now, i am only comforted with the knowledge that God has a plan for me here in Vietnam and I have to live it out in obedience to Him.

I ll share more soon...
Agape
Tobes

Ka-La-OK! Hoi! Hoi!

Ive been dragged to a couple of KTV's here in Vietnam and well its difficult to describe the horrors I face... So here's a sample

The song selection they have...Oi! Unbelivable! EVERY Boyband imaginable! Luckily I had the oldies to keep me going...Well anyways most KTV's are like that... They look like night clubs and brothels...with their red lamps and flashing fairy lights....

It's Raining....Man....

Vietnam never ceases to amaze me... It simply unbelivable how things manage to function in utter chaos...

Last night I was invited to a friend's house for dinner and well it started to drizzle, then it began to rain, then it started to pour... then a thunderstorm...then a hurricane... In a matter of 15 minutes... roads began to flood and it was amazing that people (myself included) would still continue to ride in the knee deep water... I mean I was already wet and so it didnt bother me and for once Hanoi's air was fresh, the traffic was good and the weather was cool... Wow Wee!

Well the afternoon was scorching and it was so bad no one would expect the weather to change so drastically but it did... and well during dinner a familar smell began making its way into the living room (the living room is simply next to the flooded alley...one could dive in for a swim) and before long I remembered it to be the smell of rat's urine... Ahh what a wonderful way to spend the evening...

Look Mommy Pretty Colours

I went with the girls from church to this shop to look at bags... I was stunned... The colours... Oh man... could just die... anyways the sale's on from now till the 21st..