Hoi An scooter tour

Today we went on an electric scooter tour of Hoi An. We started out and went to a private home where the lady was making rice crackers, these were delicious and she makes them for restaurants, about 200 a day. They are used to eat with salad, you break the cracker into pieces, pop a bit of salad on top and eat it that way.

We went and had a look at the boats and were meant to visit a ship repair place, but it had moved. This is Trevor testing a ‘monkey’ bridge. Apparently, according to our guide, they use iron wood in making their boats and they smear buffalo poo between the joins to make it water tight and strong.

This seasame and peanuts – they grow them together, inside the pods were seasame seeds. The white seeds we mainly use are young, and the black ones are when they are mature.

We then went to a shoe making place, it was just someone’s house, and it was chaos. Both Trevor and I had been measure for and had shoes made so was interesting to see where some of the shoes are made.

We then went to a lantern making house where a husband and wife made the traditional Hoi An lanterns, but I forgot to take any photos there. Again, they soak the bamboo for making the lanterns in buffalo poo and water, this makes the bamboo very strong and last longer. One of the ladies at the cooking school told us they bury the bamboo for making houses in mud and water to strengthen it.

Then we went off to visit a local organic community garden where they grow all their vegetables for themselves and to sell at the market.

There are small pools all around the garden from which the water is taken for hand watering, although they also use sprinkler systems as this particular garden gets a government subsidy. In the pools are fish to eat the mosquitoes, and when the fish are big enough the Gardeners eat the fish. The mint they have here is lovely, with very small leaves and it is tender and tasty. They spread a mix of buffalo poo and seaweed on the beds, leave it for three days and then plant it out. So buffalo poo is very useful it seems over here!

It was so fun riding the scooters around all the little alleyways and off the beaten track from what you would normally see on a tour as well as in amongst the chaotic traffic. Our guide was young but fun and full of knowledge.

Half way around the tour, we stopped at a Vietnamese cafe and had a drink, Trev’s bike was swapped for one with a bit more power left in the battery. The owner of the cafe was a older man who collected antiques, he took us into his home to show us, they were beautifully displayed and he was very proud of them.

My scooter started losing power so I swapped with the guide and the support guy pushed him along with his foot while we were driving, hilarious we only just made it back to the depot.

It was, once again, so hot and so when we got back to the resort, a cocktail by the pool was in order.

Something to do with the moon, there was a lantern night in town that we went in to see, was really pretty with the lights and boats floating on the water.

Hoi An

We arrived at our lovely beachside resort in Hoi An, and were delighted with our room. We mistakenly thought it would be cooler by the coast, um no, its no different here, but lovely to cool off in either the pool or the sea.

Hoi An is famous of its lanterns, cobblers and tailors

The food is beautiful, fresh and very delicious.

This lady was having her eyebrows threaded whilst waiting on her lunch!! Anything goes around here.

Fascinated by the construction methods here, the slowness of the work and how they do it, very very different here, I am guessing no compliance or health and safety paperwork to contend with.

This morning we went to a Cooking class with the Red Bridge Cooking School. We started at a local cafe for a drink and then they took us into the market and explained about the Vietnamese cuisine and how and what they use.

This lady was making rice noodles – we learnt how to do that at the class

The market is divided up into different sections, our guide told us that they come to the market at 5am to get their food and earlier in the day was better than later – there is no refrigeration so the meat etc slowly gets less ‘fresh’ as the day goes on. She said she wouldn’t come to the market later in the day as it was very smelly.

We then boarded a boat and travelled down the river to the school.

We were showed the art of food presentation, this was the chef’s one

And this was my one, lol I guess I have a bit of practicing to do.

We ate all our creations for lunch and are now relaxing by the pool

Ha Long Bay

We left our hotel early yesterday morning bound for Ha Long Bay. We didn’t realise at the time that it would take 4 hours to travel by shuttle to get there.

On the way we stopped at a large tourist place where they had all kinds of artisan products. They employ local disabled people to do some of the work, here are the embroiderers stitching away they make small to large silk paintings with amazingly neat stitches, you can see some of their work hanging on the wall in the background and in the foreground, all hand embroidered with silk.

Of course, I had to buy a piece, and of course I really liked the black and white pieces -there weren’t many of them, but the shading detail in them was exquisite, there are only two of the embroiderers that can stitch the black and white as they are single strand paintings and some can take two-three months to do. Here I am with my piece and the stitcher, she was mute, but very beautiful and was a joy to see her work.

I have never bought a ‘nude’ before and now we have purchased two in two days eekkk!

The weather in Ha Long Bay was no cooler, despite being beside the sea. Seriously 47!!!

We boarded our boat and were assigned this lovely cabin with ensuite and balcony.

We were then served a 5 course lunch!

While we were eating lunch we were cruising along. We then visited a dry, limestone cave, one of many in the area, but some are not accessible, either because they are protected or you have to scuba dive to get there, or they are under water at high tide. We then pulled into a bay and swam and kayaked they water was very warm, we were probably in the water for over an hour, for those of you that know me well, know that that is extremely rare lol. Then a sumptuous buffet was provided for dinner.

This morning we awoke to a beautiful calm, hot day. We were taken to a nearby floating fishing village, it was sooooo hot but very enjoyable.

We also had cooking demonstrations, tea ceremony, the staff were so lovely, the Vietnamese people are so friendly and helpful, you never see them flustered or grumpy.

We got back to our hotel in Hanoi and went for a wander around before a lovely dinner.

Cafe, Vietnam style

Pop up restaurant!

Hello Hanoi

After getting an earlier flight out of Queenstown to avoid the blizzard that was on its way, we were delayed out of Auckland and missed our connecting flight from Hong Kong to Hanoi, a boring 10 hours in HK airport was endured and we got to Hanoi at 8pm, but had a lovely surprise when we arrived at our hotel that we had been upgraded to a premium room, yay.

The heat/humidity is incredible, even the locals are fanning themselves.

We went out exploring today. This post is very image heavy.

The above photo is typical of the pavements here, they are rugged, but I haven’t seen anyone fall over yet

We went on a 60 minute tour of the old part of Hanoi in one of these electric buses

Pavers anyone?

Piles of silk yum

Local Habadashery, the place to go if you need a zip or three. The streets here a lined with trees, its lovely, and helps keep it a bit cooler, ha what a joke, its soo hot.

View for lunch, they even had a sewing machine in the restaurant – definitely my kind of place.

We bought a piece of art, here they are rolling it into a tube for us.

Construction sites are hilarious, not Health and Safety here!

This is a guy who hand carves intricate stamps for you.

Stationery Shop. And Food market

These turtles were waiting to be bought and eaten – they were still alive!! Trevor was quite traumatised by that!

When you need a toilet delivered, give this guy a call

 Need a teapot, or cup?Local butcher

 

2018 Tokyo Quilt Show Part 5 (last one)

View Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here

Fireworks in Moscow, Lyudmila Tsvyleva

It was such a privilege to view the work of the mainly Japanese exhibits, they are such meticulous, patient, dedicated quilters and stitchers. I guess they like hand stitching because they live in small spaces and it is easier to stitch by hand in those circumstances. I’m sure these quilts would take many, many hours, if not years to complete. So glad I was able to come to Tokyo and take Lisa Walton’s quilt tour with Opulent Journeys, overall a brilliant experience and would recommend it to anyone who loves quilting. Oh dear I see they have more coming up ……

 

2018 Tokyo Quilt Show Part 4 – Molas

This special exhibit was a highlight for me, stunning workmanship and sense of colour, this post is devoted solely to this exhibit and this was, by far, not all of the pieces! The embroidered pieces were first and then it flowed onto the Mola quilts. A stunning body of work by Nakayama Fumiko. Had I known she had a shop in Kyoto ………

Ops this one below was not part of the exhibit, but it was used on the cover of the catalogue

2018 Tokyo Quilt Show Part 1

This post will be the first of a few. I would like to point out that these photos are in no particular order, they were of quilts that I liked and where I am able, I will credit the maker, but the majority of the signs were in Japanese (the title of the quilt and maker will be above the photos of that quilt). The photos are not of the best quality due to the lighting, shadows and number of people, also my bad photography skills. I have taken detail shots where I could and not all quilts have been photographed in their entirety due to the sheer volume of people there.

The photo below shows the big spot lights that were around the arena, which made photography harder.

I was gobsmacked by the percentage of quilts that were hand done, hand pieced, hand quilted, hand appliqued, embroidered etc. Whereas our quilt shows are 97% machine made, theirs were 96% hand made. Just a visual symphony of meticulous detail and patience.

Hope you enjoy.

A wish, Masako Katase

Colours of the Four Seasons, Kyoko Yoshida

 

Vibrant Autumn, Lively Flowers, Taeko Shinozaki

 

Firefly, Satoko Okamura

Karara’s Home, Fisherman’s Town, Ayako Kawakami

Spring in Japan, Mieko Miyama

In the Kimono chest of drawers are …. Naeoko Takeshita

Dancing Gingko Trees

Rata, Ross Munro (NZ)

Blue Holes, Jeongseon Jeong

The Beauty of Thai, Sasiwimol Sujit

Tokyo Quilt show Part 2 here

Last day in Tokyo and some more Quilt Show

Today we had free time until 2pm, so after wrestling with my bags and jumping on them to close them, I decided to head back to the Quilt Festival, after all that’s why I came to Tokyo. So off I went on my own for a couple of hours.

If you need a taxi in Tokyo, just go to a hotel and the porter outside will hail one for you, and its as easy as that. The doors on the taxis open and close on their own (I assume the driver pushes a button.

You are not allowed to smoke outside, but they permit smoking in the restaurants!

I thought that being a Monday the quilt show might be a bit quieter, um nooo I was wrong.

The (mainly) women queue outside entertained by a big screen playing an old black and white movie!

Once they are inside they go straight to the seating area and put their coats, bags etc onto seats to book them for later when they sit down. Several also take pieces of string and rope off an area big enough for their group to sit.

This was my lunch today, you purchase a bento box and a drink, I was asked whether I wanted hot or cold, I chose hot – this was how it came – in a bottle like this, and it stayed hot for ages.

Some of the stands have hilarious names but most of them are only in Japanese.

Even some sake tasting!

I finished my lunch and headed for the exit, I threw the bag with the empty bento box into the bin and walked towards the exit. I looked down at the bag I was carrying and realised that I had thrown my shopping bag into the rubbish instead of the bento box, I ran back to the bin, which was one of those big bins that had a sloping top then a sort of roof on it, with a gap of about 30cms, I couldn’t see into the bin and I wasn’t game to put my hand in there. There was a young guy working at one of the food stalls nearby so I tried to communicate with him that I had put the wrong bag into the bin, he thought I was asking him if I could put my rubbish in the bin!!! Dear oh dear, anyway, I got my phone out and went to my translation app and typed in what I was saying, it translated it beautifully into Japanese and he said ‘ahh’ and opened the bin for me, phew there it was on top, yay, got my shopping back and popped my bento rubbish in.

I got into the taxi to head back to the hotel to catch the transfer to the airport. I checked my emails while in the taxi and yahoo Air New Zealand had upgraded me to premium economy, fantastic – looking forward to the bubbles and a good sleep.

Goodbye Japan, its been amazing, such lovely, fun people, a clean and unique country.