Hoi An

    The last place we went over Tet was Hoi An.  It is famous for its tailors and its lantern festival.  We arrived at night and the river side streets were packed with people.  Once we finally made it to our hotel and checked in we were back out to the streets.  It was bright and fun as we made our way over a fancy bridge and into the main part of the city.  While browsing at clothes Janet found a jacket she liked and 20 minutes later we had a price agreed upon and she was measured, we agreed to come back the next night and pick it up and we were back off down the street.  All at 9:30 at night.

The footbridge at night.

Jon trying on a jacket and if you're thinking what I'm thinking... yes it goes with the shoes.

The lanterns were every where and different as we walked along.

     It is the year of the snake and that was the theme of most of the lanterns.  There were some non-snake designs, but I've mostly left those pictures out.

 Doesn't seem like an animal that many people would be scared of from this little guy's expression.

 










A few of the other designs.

The watermelons were my favorite.












    There was one with sphere that housed a group of figures that rotated.  I had some fun with my endless shutter feature (and left off 30 other pictures).

There was another river that wrapped around the back of our hotel.  The hotel had a boat that brought us around into the downtown area of Hoi An.

 Hotel jetty.

 I really love the eyes on the boats.

There were many, many of these boats transporting motorbikes everywhere.












    Hoi An has a lot of nice old merchant's houses for tourists to stroll into for a small fee.  What surprised me was that these weren't just for tourists.  The families still lived in the house.  They weren't importing / exporting goods, which was the history of all the houses, but they still needed a place to live.  In both of the houses there was a small room with a curtain over the door and some people watching TV inside.

 These wise men were everywhere.

The houses had narrow stairs so moving a bed up stairs would be difficult.  These are trap doors that have a nice looking pulley hanging from the ceiling.  Pop 'em open and haul up that 54" HD TV!  I want one of these when I eventually have a 2 story house.

Jon needed a suitcase that was a little bigger to bring some clothes home.  He ended up with this neon gem, but it was still pretty early in the day.  We carted an empty bag around Hoi An for a few hours looking like some crazy people.

This is the famous Japanese bridge, it had side rooms on the far side with little alters in them. There were some nice carvings on the inside as well.

 There are a number of pagodas around town as well.

 These spiral incense burners were awesome and everywhere.

 I never figured out the pattern, but this guy was moving lit incense around the whole time.

There were flower designs on all the beds both nights.

This place was delicious and a lot of the food was cooked right behind us.

 I still prefer my tailor in Hanoi, but this one was pretty good as well.
I like that I can now use phrases like that, it makes me feel very fancy.

   Hoi An was a great place to stay for a few days.