After 6 weeks away, visiting Oz and travelling some of Vietnam, I returned to Hanoi and hit the ground running. We arrived on Saturday night and both had a full day of classes on Sunday. It was really nice to go back to our schools. We were welcomed with friendly smiles from the staff and students. The teaching environment is relaxed and very enjoyable. It was almost a pleasure to go back to work; something Celine and I definitely didn't feel in some of our other jobs. The owners of my school invited us out to dinner early next week.
On Sunday night our neighbours were having a party and invited us to come along. They have two young kids, who spent most of the night doing dragon dances in preparation for the autumn festival. They had a few of their friends over as well and we sat on a mat on the floor and chatted and shared a few drinks. We ate chicken hot pot which was delicious. Everything was going great until they pulled out some trung vit long, or duck embryos. They cracked them open into the hotpot; semi-formed embryos with all the added blood and goo you would expect. It was ghastly. I was wide-eyed and stunned. Celine broke into a cold sweat and couldn't look. It got worse when they served us some in our bowl. Celine politely refused. I summoned up the courage and thought of a happy place. It didn't taste so bad.
Last night we caught up with our friend Nam. We rode to his house and visited his family; sister, nephew and niece. We have organised to catch up for lunch next week.
We have been welcomed home by many people in the past few days which makes us very happy to be back.
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