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5 July: Hoi Ann

Today would be our last day in Hoi An and with not few things to do. The first was a cooking class we had booked the yesterday. The cooking class would be held in a restaurant where one of the cooks would show us how the food is made after which we would re perform the recipe ourselves. The start of the course was good, we were taken into the market and shown the different fruits and vegetables we would be cooking with, it was short but informative. Our first meal of the day was the spring rolls, we watched as she made the first one after which we each made one. After making the spring rolls we sat down to enjoy the meal. The problem came with the second meal, fried and sauted aubergine, we only watched as she prepared it, taking notes. No preparation was performed by us only a look and see exercise, so we decided to tape it on the video camera.

We continued making notes of the recipes, while watching and taping some of what she did. She showed us the recipes for Coa Lau, Pho Bo and Mi Quang. By the 3rd meal, we were both full and having a fitting in an hour we didn't want to eat all of the last two meals. The Pho Bo and Mi Quang weren't like we were used to and didn't have much flavor so it was easy not to eat to much. We were not impressed with the course as we did nothing ourselves and only taped some of what she did - we could have gone to the market where we eat every morning and just taped the woman there! The thing that bothered us most was the fact that we had asked him a couple of times yesterday if we would be making the food or watching the cook and he said we would definitely make the food...We spoke to the manager afterwards and he gave us some of our money back. After the course we headed back to Hi for the last of the fittings.

The fitting wasn't to eventful but everything went as planned, there was only one dress of Leanne that they still hadn't been able to fix. They promised that if we came back in 30 minutes it would be done. We headed back to our room, collecting all that needed to be sent back home. Returning to Hi to find all the clothes packed and ready for posting. Checking everything was there, we paid the balance and thanked them, before heading down to the post office with all our hands heavily laden with newly purchased clothes! At the post office we split everything into 3 boxes and sent them over the ocean, unfortunately only to reach RSA in 3 or 4 months.

After the expensive ordeal we headed to a restaurant on the river to enjoy a cool beer or two watching boats and bicycles pass us by. We stayed there for almost another hour chatting and relaxing. Later we headed off to dinner trying the Cao Lau, Mi Quang, white roses and for desert coconut and pineapple pancake - still not the sweetest of desserts. Returning later to pack for our early departure to Lan Co.