Wednesdays are for English. Maylin finished her Grade 1 English sections while in Thailand, and is now on Grade 2 material. Téa only has a Grade 5 book, so we have to get creative if/when she finishes the English section at the end of this week! But again, our focus is not on making our school day equal or comparable to what their classmates are doing, just to make them keep up with the curriculum so they can seamlessly reenter the school system when we’re back in Canada in September.
Our school days can sometimes be peaceful and efficient, and other days a true struggle. I admired teachers from before, but how they stay sane with a classroom full of challenging emptions, I will never understand. And who knew that 10 is the new 13?? The funny thing is, seeing as they only have each other on this trip, Téa is starting to act more like Maylin, and Maylin is starting to act more like Téa. I wonder how long it will last!
At some point, we have to close our books and consider the school day done and over with. We have a relaxed schedule, nothing rigid, and there’s another day tomorrow. Even though I prepare their school calendars every week, with goals of what we should be working on each day, we know when enough is enough. Joe made a stir fry of wide noodles and fish balls, which was very tasty.
After lunch, and after our AirBnb host had sent a representative to change the batteries in our electronic door lock, we got ready for the beach! It was a beautiful day, not too sunny, not too cloudy, and we found a spot in the area that we like. I do prefer the sun loungers, but they’re in the shade by noon, and the beach there is much steeper than in our area.
We plonked our towel and belongings down on the sand, and settled in for the afternoon. The girls played in the sand for a while, and then, it was time to conquer the waves. The whole family got in, we crossed the grainy sand, the belt of shells and seaweed, and got out to the silky soft sand, which luckily is still pretty shallow, we can all stand here. That is, until the waves come along! We jump and float and swim and squeal with each wave. Until today, this has been an “either mom or dad” type of experience, but we are finally both feeling good and looking forward to some ocean time with the girls.
Joe comes out of the water all red and itchy. Luckily the rest of us are fine, so he heads home first to get showered and ready for the evening. That means, that by the time the girls and I get upstairs, both showers are ready and waiting and we can get cleaned up right away. There is sand EVERYWHERE. A lifetime ago, when I spent a summer in Michigan on an internship, I as a guest at someone’s house right on the beach. She smiled when I complimented her home and told me, “it may look beautiful, but you will be sweeping sand every hour for the rest of your life”! I think I’m starting to understand…
We decide to go for an early-ish dinner. The sun sets at 6pm, so I always measure early or late on whether or not I need to wear my night vision goggles on our walk (my eyes don’t work in the dark). Today, we’re heading in the same direction as the restaurant with the sewing machine tables, but we’re going a different way, and seeing so much more of Nha Trang, or at least the northern part.
Joe has picked a Korean restaurant for our dinner tonight, and he and I pick some dishes that we know and miss from our favourite neighbourhood restaurant in Vancouver way back when (and it’s no longer there). I had a traditional bibimbap, and Joe went for a spicy noodle dish. The girls were in snack food heaven, with (our favourite Japanese snack) takoyaki, some French fries, and Cantonese har gow, unfortunately deep fried and not steamed.
The girls loved their snacky dinner, and praised the takoyakis, saying they want to come back and have them again. My bibimbap was good, I only used half the chili sauce and that was plenty spicy for me. Joe enjoyed his noodle dish, but I think we both would pick more adventurous items next time. There might be a next time, nothing bad to say about this place, with a Google Translate in each hand we were both able to read the menu and communicate with the staff. It’s kind of refreshing not to see both Russian and English translations on the menu, and come to a restaurant that deals mostly with locals, not tourists.
On our way home, we walked back down the long alley from the other day, and noticed lots of beautiful skinny tall mansions crammed in behind solid-looking gates. Joe said for a few hundred extra dollars, we could have rented an apartment in these buildings instead of the one we’re at, but also if we had done that, we’d be in this dark alley instead of across the street from the beach. We’re happy with where we are at, with the stores and quick takeout food options readily available.
Speaking of stores, there are large MOONMILK signs on two of the buildings, and it looks like this grocery store (was that not your first guess?) has just moved from smaller to larger spaces. We go in to have a look, and are amazed with their selection of fresh meats and frozen products. Now we know where to go when we are looking for ingredients! We’d been feeling a bit limited by the selection in our two Festival Markets that we’d explored so far.
Our favourite thing that we found today, is the Take Two Butter flavoured microwave popcorn! Téa has been missing movie style popcorn since we arrived in Vietnam, only being able to find sweet options with caramel, chocolate or matcha(!). But first: ice cream!
My chocolate cone was deliciously chocolatey, but the waffle bore evidence of having been frozen for a loooooong time. It was soft and crumbly, and falling to pieces. Thank goodness we also had popcorn! We were able to finally find Wicked: For Good, so Joe and Téa had an exciting movie night while I put Maylin to bed.
Nope. Not going to eat Alligator/Crocodile. It’s not about reluctant to try the meat but not wanting the animal unnecessarily killed.
I totally get that.