Rain!

Happy St. Patrick's day!

First sighting of rain since we left. Must have come straight from Ireland. This morning it was pretty cloudy and, on our way to the water park, we found ourselves under a chilly drizzle. Then we also realised the small, cheap water park is no more. The dry rides were rusty hunks, the wave pool had been converted to a pond, the kiddie's pool had been stripped down and was now an up-market sunbed lizard paradise with a cocktail bar, and the slides had been taken down. Phu Dong water park must have died a death and the salvageable parts of it converted into commercial ventures.

We promised the pool if the weather got better (at least it had some lilos and rubber rings to play around with) and headed into town on our trusty #4 bus. Thank god for shopping malls. You normally don't see us a hundred miles from one back home but when the weather is bad the play area and arcade are a life saver. I even had a peek on the last floor to check out timetables for the cinema if the weather stayed ugly in the afternoon.

It was already warming up when we headed out to the bookstore opposite. Bought some more nice activity books for the kids and then headed back to the pool. Soon it was cold and cloudy again so after a quick dip we were ready to leave. Took the kids back to the centre where there were some rides (purely for local kids - they reminded me of the sort of rides I used to go on when I was small). All in all we made up for the lack of water park. At least the kids thought so.