We hang around the hotel and eat breakfast until it's time to collect our tailor made sandals. Rachelle is happy with hers and wants to wear them, but I don't allow it, because it's not her birthday yet. I'm happy with mine too and I wear them for the rest of the day. We are doing lots of walking around Hoi An today as we explore the 'Old Town'.
Hoi An is an historical city and there are many old houses, communal houses, museums and temples. In order to see these places, you must first purchase a ticket from a ticket booth - there are lots in the city. What Rachelle and I hadn't realised was that you can only visit five places with one ticket. We only realised that after the first two places, and thought we might have wasted two entries. They seemed just as good as any other place in the end.
We started by visiting the Japanese covered bridge - this didn't count as one of the five - and it is guarded by monkey statues on one side and dogs on the other (supposedly something to do with the Chinese year system). It also had a small worshiping area coming off the middle of it. It's a small bridge, but it looked very sturdy. The next historical place we visit is Old House of Phung Hung. Women in traditional dress explain about the house, which is 230 years old and was built with Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese architectural design. Upstairs was a trap door, which I liked the idea of. When a large Asian family overcrowded the house, we left.
Thirdly, we visited Cam Pho Communal House, where an elderly man showed us things to take photographs of and also took a couple of me and Rachelle together. It was here that we realised the 'only visit 5 places out of 18' rule. It was written clearly on the ticket, but I hadn't bothered to read it. It's hard to blame anyone else for the mistake, but it wasn't a big mistake. We enjoyed the two places.
Next we visited the Museum of Folk Culture. For some reason they didn't take on of our remaining three credits. We guessed museums didn't count, but tried not to draw any attention to ourselves in case it did count and they had just forgotten to take one. Afterwards, we went to the Museum of Hoi An History and Culture. Again, the museum didn't cost a credit, but as we entered a part which was like a worshiping room, a credit was taken. Two credits remain.
We knew what we wanted to spend out last credit on so we saved that for last. The fourth was used on a nice looking temple called Quan Cong Temple. It was a tranquil place and loads of incense burned. Most of the incense was above our heads in the roof and the perfumed smoke floated down around us.
The last ticket was to be used on the Hoi An Handicraft Workshop. This was saved until 3:15PM, because they put on a show at that time. We went for a drink until it was time to go in. First, we looked around at people making lanterns and then the drum sounded the start of the performance. We grabbed seats in the second row (I say seats, but they were actually stools) and music was played on traditional instruments. There were three acts: A 'comical' dance about a fisherman; two women singing; another dance with Asian hand-held fans. I liked it, despite its amateur quality.
Back at the hotel I checked my emails and my mother had given the go-ahead for me to get a suit made for my birthday in light of my new job. I had done some internet research on good suit makers in Hoi An. We went to check Yaly tailors out. I looked at fabrics, options and designs. I'm indecisive and it took me a long time to choose the material and quality. I went for high-ish quality and a black with subtle stripes design - trousers, jacket and waist coat. They measure me up and the order is placed. I also order shoes to be made to match the suit and am pursuaded to have a shirt made, because it's material that doesn't need ironing and I can't iron shirts yet - the collars are hard.
We go for our dinner at a restaurant across the river. They made excellent chicken burgers and banana-coconut-rum cocktails. A cockroach jumped on my face and then ran around my body, but it didn't ruin the night. We went back to the hotel after that.
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