on the outskirts of town.

Happy lunar new year! In Vietnam Tet is a time for family, feasting and taking time off work. The whole country shuts down for the first few days of the new year, but not the eve. Further down the road out of town is an enormous flower market. We didn’t make it all the way there yesterday, it was icy and damp after a few days in the 30s. Cold, perfect Tet weather, if it is cool and drizzly you can eat more, see. Just a few pictures from the street corner, as people buy last minute plants.

Just plants, see everyone stocked up on food previously if Friday at the Fivimart was anything to go by. Queuing behind couples buying cases of Johnny Walker and bags of pistachios, chocolate, boxes of wine. Just like home. Happy New Year.

Oh, more photos here (I finally did that flickr thing).

Photos taken an eternity ago around Truc Bach lake, back when it was cool. Today was in the 30s, blue sky divine if only I didn’t yearn for winter and an end to tet traffic madness. Tomorrow I’ll leave the lane, promise.

Hanoi is full of amazing old dilapidated tiling. I took these pictures around xmas-time then life got in the way. The tiles in these pictures are like my CELTA classmates, mismatched and disheveled, our course will be finished in two days. I have been taught so much, but there is also this feeling of stepping into line, doing all the right things so all the right boxes get ticked. The cracks are starting to show.

There isn’t much to say. Recovering from the excesses of the season, processing these photos taken last week. Mum and I went for a walk around the lake. Embassies, courting couples, graffiti and spiders. Getting lost and finding the way again. Much is happening, holiday starts tomorrow.