During the day we went and had a look at some apartments in District 1 & 3, not finding anything inspiring. In the evening I sat in on a class at a primary school. I had met the campus manager and asked to sit in on a kids class - but the class I went to was 15 to 18 year olds. An interesting experience, with a Vietnamese teacher also present, who frequently interrupted the English teacher (who had no idea that I'd be sitting in on the class). Midway through the lesson the VN teacher thought it would be good if I took the lesson instead - yikes!
While I was at school M was putting his time to good use checking out another apartment he'd seen on the internet. The agent he'd contacted didn't respond to his emails, so he went to see if the place also had a sign out. Luckily it did and he had a look. One difficulty we've had is that most places want at least a six month lease signed. We're not in a position to commit to that yet.
We returned to Phu My Hung and had a wonderful dinner at Saigon Korean BBQ, where the restaurant manager translated the Korean/Viet menu for us and then told us she was Korean and had lived on the Gold Coast for two years! Excellent food and very friendly service too. Each table had its own barbecue hotplate where your chosen meat was cooked for you.
On Friday M took me to see the apartment to check I liked it as much as he had. We had a look at another on the way, but the one he'd previously checked out was by far the most appealing. It's small but the bedroom is separate from the living/kitchen areas, very new looking and light so it feels spacious even though it's compact. We can't move in for another week but we're returning to our favourite spot in district 3 for 5 nights. We had a great taxi ride home as the sun was starting to go down, and passed a spot where there were 14 or so kites flying. It was a beautiful sight.
This morning we attended an MBA presentation we'd been invited to, by the Director of a number of different educational programs. We weren't exactly sure what we were attending - and ended up sitting on the dias with the speakers! But in the end we learnt more about the MBAs the organisation runs and how we might fit into such a program. So some work may come of it, but it's yet to be discussed in concrete terms.
No pics yet as blogger is being recalcitrant.
