Made to Measure in Hoi An

Early start at 7 again yesterday (I don't even wake up this early for school). I had a nice breakfast at the hotel.. down the road. The receptionist of my hotel have me a buffet voucher for breakfast next door. Strange but as long as I get food I'm not complaining. Then I went back to my hotel to get picked up for my tour which was a morning cooking class and the tour guide showed me the country side market which was more for the locals unlike the town market filled with tourists. We went on his motorbike as he showed me the actual non-tourist part of hoi an and it was beautiful and looked like a beach town. There are a lot of vegetable gardens.

When we got to the 'restuarant' which was like a small bed and breakfast type thing. I was the only one so that was kind of awkward especially since I thought the tour guide who is a few years older then me was starting to get a little too friendly (foreshadow!). So when I got there, they brewed me some local lotus tea from their own garden and gave a me wonderful leg and neck massage and I think the lady was surprised at how tense I was. She was all but hitting me to loosen up my muscles. After, we began the cooking class! I made (don't know how to spell this..) Ra, banh seio, and this thing of pork and shrimp wrapped in onion or something..delicious! It was just me and the tour guide having lunch together even though I asked the other lady who gave me the cooking lesson..awkward.

So Angie, the Scottish woman, decided to do a tour like me instead of just doing open-bus since her husband thought it was too dangerous. She left a week earlier than I did so she has been giving me advice on what to expect and warnings on scams and things. Since she has the same itinerary as I did, she told the tour guide about me..saying something about I'm beautiful 21 year old. I laughed it off because that is something Angie would say, like a mom would brag about her children. Except the tour guide mentioned that I was beautiful like 5 times which was nice, but he was kind of awkward and shy so I was like...this is weird..what's going on? And I think he was talking to the cooking lady about me in Vietnamese because she asked me what I thought of him, and I answered oh I think the staff here is great! *Nervous Laughter* During our lunch he asked what I was doing for the rest of the day, and I said something about going shopping and he asked if I'll go by myself. Since I was starting to get the vibe from him I made up nonexistent friends that I was meeting up with. Undeterred, he asked if I wanted to help him go get desserts for his mom and since I thought I should get stuff for people too, I said sure. Then he's like yeah then the beach. I was like umm I'll see what my friends want to do.

Apparently he didn't say dessert, he said dress and I just misheard his accent. When we were in the dress shop, I was so confused at that point since I was like where's the dessert?- the sales lady was talking to him in Vietnamese and I got the vibe that they were talking about me so I asked them what they were saying (In restrospect, I think this was happening all day since I rememer people at the market staring at us and smiling at him and then point to me and ask him questions that I didn't understand then he got this bashful look on his face...ugh). He said she asked where I was from since I look Asian and that you are beautiful (ok this is getting creepy), and asked if we were dating. I was like ahahahahahahaha that's funny. And the lady asked me in broken English if I was single and told me that  he is single. And then I was like oh nononnononononononono hahahaha we're not...this isn't....um no. Then he said why not? I pretended to not hear him and asked the sales lady if she was single and pointing to both of them. So awkward. I think he got offended because when we left he was silent and when he dropped me off my hotel, he didn't say anything. Oh well. Crisis averted.

The rest of the day I went shopping and walking around looking for my bus stop for when I leave. I can't stop drinking Che or whatever this is. SO GOOD. And sinh do (fruit shake).

Today, being my last day in Hoi An, I woke up early (yay) to have enough time to go to the beach and pack and check out before noon. I wish I could have spent more time at the beach but it was so hot by the time I left at 10 am. I took a motorbike since it was like 4 km away from the hotel. As it turns out, when I got lost the other day, that was where I was headed. Dang I didn't realize how far I walked! Hoi An is so beautiful. The rest of the day has been last minute fittings for clothes and sandals since I've walked so much that the shoes I've been wearing are falling apart. Surprise of the day was when I ran into one of the volunteers, the Aussie,  from Hanoi who left before I did and is doing her own tour down to Saigon!!!! Now I'm getting ready to head out for a 12 hour bus ride to Nha Trang.