I'd received an email the night before about an art lesson at the Lifestyle centre that I could join someone else in doing. I'd wanted to do a whole morning, but there had to be a minimum of 2 people and there was no way Edd would join me for that. I'd left my information with them in the hopes that I could still do the painting class and had received the email I'd been hoping for. I left Edd in bed and went downstairs for breakfast, having my usual banana pancake and coffee.

I left at 8.00am for the centre, only needing to be there at 9am, but not wanting to be ridiculously late like I was the day before. Even though I knew where I was going this time as I had the right map, having not consulted the Internet. I grabbed a bike and made my way to the centre, arriving far earlier than necessary.

I parked my bike outside the centre and walked around the empty streets. People were still busy setting up for the day, pulling away the wooden shutters to reveal their unsold treasures from the day before. I walked into a few open stores and browsed their stock; one lady wouldn't let me in unless I was planning on buying something, it was bad luck and she wasn't interested in my custom unless it was going to be lucky.

I made my way back to the centre and sat on one of their couches, waiting for the other aspiring Asian artist to arrive for the lesson. At 8.55am I was asked to pay, the person I was supposed to be joining was a no - show, but they had to accommodate me, so I got a 'private tour' much to their dismay. (It was more expensive and I had no intention of paying the extra, never mind the fact that I only had exactly the right amount of Dong for the lesson).

I went upstairs and was greeted by a spritely Vietnamese guy that was going to be my teacher. He told me about the type of brush used (it was not to be washed if you were planning on using it for more than a week) and the way Asian ink was used. (A mad process of capturing smoke on a screen and then mixing it with water - it was an ancient technique and they used machines now a days).

I spent the next hour and a half learning about how to use the brush in different ways to achieve different types of dots and lines. The lesson ended with me having created my own card with a boat on a river, some flowers and a sunset. It was one of the most challenging things I'd done in a while and I left mentally exhausted - he was a total perfectionist and when I used my wrist instead of my arm for a line, I had to practice making the same line a hundred times until I just used my arm.

I met Edd back at the guesthouse, ready for a day on the beach. We packed my small backpack and headed down, paying 5000 Dong to park our bikes at an undercover parking lot. We walked down to the beach and after much contemplation and negotiation, opted for 2 sun beds under a beautiful umbrella near the edge of the line of options.

The sea was warm and we played Frisbee as the tide went out and then soaked up the sunshine in order to darken our suntans. We ordered delicious seafood and ate on the beach over looking the ocean.

At 5pm we made our way home for a shower, we'd had an amazing day of relaxation and I blogged while Edd watched a movie; we were enjoying the fact that there was a TV in our room with English channels on it. We had another fitting at the tailor and made our way there at around 7pm, having a few more alternations done to our orders - Edd was starting to make them crazy with his 'snag list' of things to fix and change.

We decided we were hungry and I wanted to eat somewhere closer to our guesthouse; we'd spotted a few restaurants 1 block down and headed back in that direction.

We looked at a few restaurants menus and then split up, he grabbed the menu he was looking at and walked over to me to also have a squiz; the restaurant he'd checked out had a wide variety of things to choose from and their G&T's were reasonably priced. While I was flicking through the pages, the lady ran over and snatched the menu out my hand, muttering incoherent English. Edd suddenly became irate with her and told her what an awful person she was, fundamentally rotten on the inside. I had absolutely no idea what had transpired, even though it happened right in front of me, but we left. She told us she'd still like us to eat at her restaurant and Edd told her that in no uncertain terms would we be eating anything she had on offer. We cycled a bit further down and I enquired as to what on earth had happened. He explained that she'd run over saying that the other woman made bad food and that she couldn't cook properly; she also didn't want her opposition looking at her menu. They stood 10 meters away from each other, outside the restaurants that were right next to each other, the chances of them not knowing what the other person made, was slim.

We then walked into a local restaurant and sat down, after discussing whether or not they had Gin and Tonic. They brought over a bottle of white wine and we explained that it was not Gin. He then brought over a bottle of vodka. We explained again, that it was not gin. He then said he did not have gin, but I could have vodka tonic or sprite or coke. The funniest part about the whole situation was that we couldn't buy a shot of vodka either; we had to buy the entire bottle! It was local stuff and the bottle wasn't that big or expensive, but we had no desire to purchase the entire bottle of vodka for an evening meal. We enjoyed having a few drinks, but that was a bit more than either of us had bargained for! I ordered a Sprite and they took the array of alcoholic beverages away.

Our food arrived and it turned out that I had totally over ordered. We normally order dishes that we can share with an additional bowl of rice. We could have fed the 5 thousand with the amount of food in front of us. The best part about it was we finished it all! After feeling like total piglets, we made our way home, which was only a block away, and had an early-ish night.