September

We went to the movies with our friends from school Aine and Cillin. Afterwards we went for drinks. Can you guess who ordered the smoothies and who ordered the beers?

Which drinks belong to the boys and which ones belong to the girls? 

Yup... the girls were chugging the beer while the gents sipped on their smoothies.

Vietnam celebrated National Day on the second of September. We can see District 1 from our apartment (in the distance) so instead of joining the masses in town, we watched the fireworks from our bedroom window.

Mel won a voucher to an Irish pub through Facebook, and we figured who better to share it with than our Irish friends? We had some delicious pub grub (pies!!!) and watched the Gaelic Football final - which was rather interesting since we've never watched the sport. 

Cillin, Aine and Ross

The Dubliner chicken pie. 

With our new outdoor space we knew that we had to get a braai, so one Sunday Ross went out and found us one. He had some bungee cords and strapped it on the back of the bike and made the tricky (but luckily not far) ride back to our apartment.

The braai master.

Our first feast

Roald Dahl's birthday was celebrated in September and our school participated by having a dress up day, a drawing competition and some students read extracts to their class mates.

Some grade 4 and 5 students reading in the library

Saigon hosted a rugby 10s tournament and we went along to support, as a lot of the guys who play in the contact team play touch rugby with Ross. When we arrived they had a deal of 500,000k (around R300) for all we could eat and drink - all day! Of course the day came with its typical Vietnamese quirks, including an orange pushing a wheelbarrow filled with half time drinks and a nurse to support him. Each team also had its own set of cheerleaders from the university where the tournament was held and, of course, there were midgets wearing top hats and tailcoats.

Mel getting involved during the YMCA.

After the rugby, we went through to District 1 to watch a show at the Opera House. We had wanted to watch the AO Show since we arrived, but never quite got around to it. Mel is on the social committee at school, so she organised a discount for any staff members who signed up. It was a really great show - a mix of acrobatics with Vietnamese culture - certainly well worth it if you are in Vietnam.