Letters en route to Lao Chai!

I am honoured to announce that I am currently the mail carrier of 26 amazing letters written by a grade 4 class at Nelson Elementary School!

A couple weeks ago, the CBT Vietnam team came up with the idea to develop a pen pal relationship between an elementary school class in Vancouver and Lao Chai Elementary School.

So I got in contact with one of my elementary school teachers, Mrs. Chan, and pitched the idea to her. She loved it!

On Friday, I went into her class to visit and talk about the Vietnam trip. When I entered all the students knew me by name and eager to get started. For the letters, we asked them to introduce themselves and draw a picture of their favourite activity to do outside. All the students were so nervous about writing their letters. I kept getting questions like “How does this look?” or “Do they know this sport?” Many of them even did the letters twice just to make sure it was perfect!

Check out some of their letters! It seems like soccer is the class favourite.

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First Days in Hanoi

Talk about a whirlwind first few days! 

From our smiling faces, you would think that we are having the time of life, taking in the sights, sounds and experiences of life in Hanoi…. and you would be right! 

Everyone is adjusting well and we've been maximizing our time in the city with numerous activities, meetings, and meals. Our first day was filled with sightseeing, as we cruised around Hoan Kiem lake and enjoyed a delicious meal of bun bo (noodles with beef, herbs and salad). With many photo opportunities along the way, we made sure to make our mark on this chaotic and energetic city. 

At the end of the first night, the team met up with our HOU counterparts, Ms. Que, Ms. Ly, and past student volunteer Trung, for an amazing meal at the Sen Tay Ho buffet. We were also fortunate to have a member of Vietnam's Ministry of Tourism join us for a toast. As some of the newer team members realized, Capilano University's Cross Cultural Tourism class definitely is important to our understanding of these meetings!

Tomorrow we're off to Sapa and we're spending the day gathering supplies, wrapping up some prep work and getting ready for the night train. We'll be checking in regularly over the next few weeks so please make sure to follow us along on this blog and our various social media channels.

We now have Instagram, the highly addictive photo sharing site! 

As you can see from our feed, we LOVE sharing almost every moment of our adventure :)

Follow us at http://instagram.com/cbtvietnam!

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