Week 25 - Beach Holiday

This is the private beach at Le Belhamy Beach Resort about 6km outside HoiAn in Vietnam.  We are stayed here for 2 weeks, and enjoyed the beach and blue sky every day!  You can see the Cham Islands out on the horizon, and the sun loungers under the shade umbrellas to give us somewhere to relax and the kids to play.  

What a wonderful holiday spot!! 

Week 24 - Water Puppets

We are on holidays in Vietnam for largely a beach holiday but we had 2 days in Hanoi and wanted to see as much as we could in the short time.  We didn't really know what to expect when we turned up for this show.  But we had front row seats, and so walked along, tempted to drag our hands in the water which was the stage.  Roi nuoc is a traditional Vietnamese art of water puppetry, where the puppeteers are also in the water, behind that green screen at the back of the set. 

The show went for about an hour with 12 short scenes, each telling a Vietnamese folk story, myth or legend set to traditional music. The puppets 'swam' through the water, and were cleverly manipulated to struggle and transform under water.  This scene is from a folk story of a carp turning into a dragon, Thang Long, which this particular puppet theatre was named after.

Week 23 - China Maritime Museum

We keep finding little gems even after 4 years here - this amazing building is the China Maritime Museum out past Pudong Airport in Shanghai. The heat of the day was conquered by the air conditioning inside.  We spent about 3 hours exploring this museum, which was deceptively huge, there were control rooms to play in, engines to adjust, models to look at, phones to talk into, films to watch and computer simulated welding and crane driving exercises.  

It was amazing, and the kids loved it too.

Week 22 - Early Years Graduation!

Such a proud moment, my little girl has officially finished the Early Years Program at school. Where has the time gone?  It doesn't seem like three years ago that she first walked through the gates of school into her morning Toddler class, and then her days seemed suddenly really long when she started full day Nursery, and this year she has learned to read and write in Reception!  And now she's done, completed Early Years.  After the long summer holiday she'll come back to school into Key Stage 1 - big girl now!