Renting accomodation in Hanoi

So you want to move out of the backpackers and into a nice place like mine! Hehe, it's a nice place... The easiest way is to check out the classifieds on the New Hanoian website, there are tons of expats and teachers looking to share accommodation!

You can easily find second hand furniture to make your place nice. However, most apartments and houses come with furniture already, usually fairly tacky Asian armchairs and coffee tables.

The real estate market in Hanoi is very erratic. "Investors" (speculators) have built too many "high end" "luxury" residences, that most Vietnamese people cannot afford. Many are renting luxury abodes for much less than they would like to foreigners willing to pay higher prices.

A 4 bedroom apartment in Ciputra can be had for $1000 when the original asking price from any real-estate agent would be $2400. A three bedroom can be had for around $800. Agents usually ask for one months rent in advance.

Be careful in Hanoi when choosing property as there is an enormous amount of construction in this town! You don't want to end up with a jackhammer next to your ear at 6am...but mostly this cannot be avoided..as my poor friend Mal found out moving to three different houses with the same problem!!

Good luck!

209 Doi Can Street

I'm saying goodbye to Alley 209 Doi Can and packing my backpack... again.

My next place will be the fourth house I've lived since July. Still searching for a place to plant my roots I suppose...I was never one for share house living.

From the start I've lived around the Ba Dinh area. It's only 15 minutes to the city and best known for the distinct mausoleum, rollicking Ete bar and the many language schools.

I'll be sad to leave this three storey gorgeous French style home. My room is on the ground floor and if you've read the post about my 'bird's nest' bedroom on Van Bao street, you'll understand ground floor living is a nice change.
http://happylittlefeet.blogspot.com/2008/08/home-in-hanoi.html

The house is surrounded by fir trees with a pond in the center of community style housing. Huge turreted French houses with gabled windows rise above it. It's all very peaceful and safe.. geez and I'm moving from here in to an ex brothel!?

I move into my new apartment in TWO days, gosh, I am very excited. I've been dreaming of the space since January. Lots of work needs to be done, but I've always loved a fixer upper! Plus, it's located above the Buddhist meditation center. I'm looking forward to many good vibrations floating up through the floor.

But for the meantime, it's packing the stuff one seems to accumulate so quickly, contacting the taxi tai company and figuring out how one moves furniture out of an alley that cars and trucks can't squeeze down...

Please wish me luck. Moving house in Hanoi, you NEED it!

Taxi Tai - 04387313131
(Trucks are ordered by dimensions (meters) large and small, and be aware, they don't speak English.)

TESOL Tips # 1

Age: Teen - Adult
Level: Intermediate
Type: Pair Work
Grammar: General

Question Time is a great way to get natural speaking flowing, enhance student talk time and get students thinking about English in a practical way. Ss work in A/B pairs.

I usually hold this session at the beginning of the class as a warm-up activity to get ss speaking from the outset. Create between 10 - 20 interesting, wacky, weird, controversial questions relating to a theme or grammar point. It can be anything - honesty, aliens, health, dreams, politics etc (Give ss a print-out in the previous lesson to take home or write them on the board).

Your questions can relate to your lesson theme, grammar or be general. Tonight our topic was generic and my questions were on 'change' and its various meanings.

E.g.

• How would you feel about a change of government?
  
• What do you do when a beggar asks you for change?
• If you buy a faulty product in Vietnam, can you exchange it?
• If you could change one part of your life, what would it be?
• What are some changes that might be good for our planet?
  
• How do Vietnamese generally view sex-change operations?

Quickly review each question and explain new words, idioms or concepts. Remind ss to ask each other follow up questions - WHY? HOW? WHEN? WHAT?

Then, pop them into pairs to ask questions in the order they find most interesting. (Be sure to 'hover' unobtrusively and correct pronunciation as you go.)

After 15 mins or when the energy drops, as a take-up, go around the class and ask a few ss their opinion on random questions.

Be aware, the more controversial the questions the more discussion (with a capital D) will ensue, which is GREAT, but makes this section go for longer.

And I say go with the flow! I've learned some amazing things about my students and their feelings and thoughts about their country and the world. Plus, discussions are more natural when ss are personally involved in the subject.

My class has passionately discussed China's one-child policy and how they feel about Vietnams two-child policy, sidestepped into censorship, tiptoed over same-sex marriages and careened into corrupt cops..haha, that one was fun..

It's a great way for students to relax and it ensures they clamour to be understood in English!

Peace, love, kindergarten

Hmm, happy Year of the Ox everyone.

I guess post Tet, this post should be about Tet..an adjective packed piece about the tranquility of Hanoi's eerily quiet streets, the customs and intricate rituals for luck in the new year. Visiting incense smothered pagodas overflowing with prayers, scoffing traditional cakes, the free flowing red wine..(sorry, not traditional, just me.)

.. but instead, I'm going to talk about myself and my job.. again... hehe...

Isn't that what a blog is for? To talk about yourself??

Anyway, concerns about narcissism aside, I have a new job. Yes, another one added to the list of lawyers, executives, kids and teens. It's temporary, with a contract offered in few months, but it's been such a fantastic experience.

I'm working in an international kindergarten and taught my first session with the 'TIGERS' class. My 8 tiny students are just are 20 months - two years old, of various nationalities, Dutch, Swiss, Vietnamese, Japanese and French.

Having already taught ESL at a Vietnamese kindy classes has helped with my confidence, but real kindergarten is so different. There's much more eating and napping and crafts and outdoor play...I'm in heaven. I'm yet to learn all the developmental aims for my age group. And it's a learning experience for me.

Each class involves arts and crafts, singing songs, painting animals and learning the alphabet, colours and about the natural world and a nap! I'm also the art teacher.. and I totally dig that.

The pay is terrible, but ending a day's work with an enormous smile, covered in hugs and kisses is a PRECIOUS thing!

Spa-licious

In the hectic lead up to Tet I took some time out to have a ME day :) Luckily, this is a very easy task living in Hanoi.

I went to the local spa. I don't really need to say more.. but I will anyway...

I began with herbal indulgence, bathing in a large wooden barrel filled with a steaming mint and herb concoction. After relaxing it was into a spa bath with a tea, herb and ginger soak. Then shuffled into a steamy sauna with a ginger foot bath/soak ready and waiting.

After the cool shower was divine, being towel dried by someone else, a wee bit awkward. But they are too brisk for you to have a second thought. Then whisked into a pleasant smelling room for the massage of a lifetime.

Hot towels, a cucumber facepack, head, face, arms, legs, back, stomach everything massage. All finished off with a nice warm shower and ginger lemon tea to revitalise you.

All for 150, 000 (a little less than $10).

I'm liquid... and doing this next week!

I forget the name ~
78 Duong Yen Phu
Hanoi

Drumming at Puku Cafe

It seems our group is now called, da da da...The Bongos! As that's how we were introduced by the Vietnamese MC.

We were invited to play at a fund raising event, raising money to ensure kids in remote villages have access to schooling, including transportation, books, pens, clothing and proper health and nutrition.

Puku Cafe is a hidey hole cafe, frequented by expats and locals, and well known in Hanoi for ambient decor and ridiculously good food! Last night it was packed to the rafters with musicians, photographic exhibits and Vietnamese supporting a great cause.

Afterward, the group, still in a drumming mood, wandered down to Hoan Kiem lake to play in the green evening lights...until the police came....which is always to be expected!

Puku Cafe
60 Hang Trong
Hanoi


Photo The Bongos from Dat Tie Suc and David Pricco.

The Art of Tet

As Hanoi disintegrates into Tet madness, Vietnamese scramble in preparation for the most important festival of the year. Best described as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, moon worshiping and everybody's birthday combined!

The Vietnamese dedicate an entire week to this new year celebration, a time for family, food and harmony to welcome in a new year. It heralds the beginning of the lunar calendar and the beginning of Spring. Surprisingly, Vietnamese follow the solar calendar during the year and on the first night of the full moon they switch to the lunar calendar.

All seemingly confusing, so don't bother asking what actual 'day' Tet is. Just know you'll probably be given 10 - 12 days off sometime between the 17 - 30 Jan. It's really time to simply go with the flow.

Hanoi has a dream-like quality, floating through the end of the solar year. Hanoians are shopping to impress with delicacies, new clothing, new furniture, traditional cumquats trees. Driving in Hanoi has become like walking through an orange grove. Supernaturally bright orange cumquat trees and peach blossoms lining the streets or strapped to the back of motorbikes.

The myth or superstition attached to these plants is probably similar to the one that recommends releasing a fish at this time of year to appease the Kitchen Gods!! hehe. I hadn't thought about the fact there might be kitchen gods out there...ever.

Traditionally expats take this opportunity to leave! Flying of to more exotic locations like Thailand or Indonesia. Considering that during Tet, the whole of Hanoi shuts down and closes up shop, it may have been wiser to flee the sinking ship. But since the budget doesn't allow for Thai beaches just yet, my first Tet will be spent with the few friends left in the city.

I'll be soaking up the quiet ambience of the surprisingly peaceful city and relaxing!

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Spring...is that you?

Today the weather changed, and just like that it feels like spring.

How bizarre.

We've had all of ONE month of winter (of course I exaggerate, it was actually two) and of that month only one week was cold...like proper cold...mitten weather.

Temperamental at the best of times!

Anyway, the good news is that we've had the most gorgeous sun filled days recently. I've been spending each one painting the walls of a friends apartment. He lives in a gorgeous space, so peaceful.

The joys of living in Vietnam..paintbrush in one hand, wine in the other. Sunny afternoons in the middle of winter.

I suggest anyone with a creative urge visit Hanoi...a city where if you feel like a rainbow, tree drum, spiraling pattern on your walls (and you have access to paint), your wish is easily a reality.


Anyway... Happy Faux Spring! I suppose...

Drummer Girl

Oh hello, here's me playing drums..and trying to look sober :) Last night we played spiraling beats in an upstairs studio cafe. A soulful Hai Phong/Israeli band with a blind singer that was amazing, some poetry and a packed crowd.

And..free red wine..my cup overfloweth and my tongue looseth..but the beats stayed good and the dancers kept coming forward (with more wine) all night.

Good news is regardless of the state of the subects, the photography remained excellent all night :)
and here's my photos.

Photo Tab Drumming from Phong Le :)