HALLOWEEN!

Saturday 1st November 2008

Wow... November already! At school last night Mista Michael did his best to imbue the proceedings with some all-American Halloween fun and games. I don’t know how his class reacted to his bizarre Bin Laden outfit, but all I could hear were gales of laughter as I attempted to elicit Past Continuous Tense sentences from my students. Read his blog at... http://gymnastmike.blogspot.com/

After classes a group of teachers and students met up at The Garden Cafe for a Beer. The music was loud but one song caught my ear and Mr Duc, one of our teachers, was spontaneously moved to break into song and very melodious it was too! He explained that it’s the theme tune of the Cafe, being by an American group called the Garden something or other. (Should have written it down, but perhaps someone can enlighten me.) Anyway, it’s very catchy and tuneful, which is more than you can say for most music these days.

This very upmarket restaurant with fountains and palm trees festooned with fancy coloured lights has recently opened and is not far from where we live. The food is good, once we learned to recognise items on the menu, which is mainly beef, but the service so far in our experience is sloooooow. It took at least twenty minutes to get our beers! Not only that, but they tend to overcharge if we don’t have a Vietnamese friend with us. The first time we went there, the guys who look after the motorbikes were asking us for money, until the manager came over and stopped them. But the main drawback in the evenings is the LOUD music, which inhibits conversation somewhat.

Mark decided last night that would be the last time he goes there and I agree. He’s been having trouble with hearing and this morning he went to see the Doctor, who gave his ears a thorough examination and discovered that one of them has a fungal infection. He even has the pictures to prove it! How often do you get a picture of your ailment from your Doctor?