and in an instant all my time has dissappeared.

oh jeez. I feel like time is spinning faster and faster every day and there's just no way to slow it down!!!!

so the next day our boat tour people never came and picked us up, so we called and rescheduiled for the next day...which was fine because it was pouring! we decided to go for a spa day and took a taxi to the local spa famous for it's mud baths. we enjoyed our mud, relaxed in some mineral water and then headed back to town for some food and to book our train up the coast to Hoi An. somewhere along the way I lost my amazing (and expensive) Marmot raincoat. ugh. we ended up wandering all day and then getting dressedup and heading to a local bar/hotspot that was hosting a Reggae(sp?) night. we had some drinks, danced a bit, played pool and met some nice guys who took us out for a late dinner. Marissas guy was from Wisconsin and my date for the night was from Barcelona. after our dinner we went out for a few more drinks and eventually called it a late night.

The boat tour actually picked us up the next day, and we were off for a fun day in the sun. good thing we missed it the day before! we stopped at a few different islands, had a nice buffet lunch on the boat, sang, danced, laid on the beach and got to snorkel in the most beautiful coral reef I've ever seen. it was an amazing day! we got back in the evening and mellowed out for a bit before our train that night. we caught our overnight train to De Nang and then (when we got in at 4am) took a half hour taxi ride to Hoi An. sadly, with the holiday, everything was full so we had to take a hard sleeper to the next town up and then backtrack. we got in and discovered that there were no hotels available yet. we found one that seemed nice and waited in the lobby till almost 7:30 for a room. finally we were given a room and we took a nap. eventually we wandered out into the town of a thousand tailors and met with the shopping city that I'm sure people only dream about.
think it, design it, copy it...who cares! just buy it! you can have anything your heart desires made for you in this quaint riverside town. oh, and for CHEAP. I spent my day designing two pairs of sandals, buying the most beautiful silk dress I've ever laid eyes on, designing a coat, buying and then altering another silk dress that I had found into a dressy shirt and eventually designing from scratch my very own pair of high heels to match my new dream dress...and everything is made to fit me perfectly. I chose the fabric, styles, buttons, clasps, trim...everything. I spent less than $60 on it all and am so excited to get home and wear it!!! (especially the dress and heels...now all I need is an excuse to go on a nice date. any takers?)
that night, feeling quite satisfied from our shopping, Marissa and I wandered down to the riverside and found a quaint resteraunt with fantastic food to share a romantic dinner at. afterwards we walked down the cobblestone streets and followed the river for a while...just enjoying the warm peaceful night. what a beautiful town, what amazing people, what an experience!
we walked around the next day collecting our custom made purchases and sampeling local foods. I took a nice walk by the river in the morning and ate my breakfast sitting on the banks and talking with the wonderful locals. Marissa went off on her own for the morning. we finished herding our purchases by 1...just enough time to head back to the hotel and catch our series of busses to Hanoi. it wasa long day of driving in a cramped local bus before we hit Hue and hopped on our sleeper bus for the night. we had bought tickets for a nice comfy bus but they just put us on the crap bus instead...so we were forced into tiny spaces, couldn't lay or sit and huddled like that for hours. it wasn't the best experience. Marissa was feeling quite claustrophobis...so she went to bed early. I entertained two sweedish boys who were laying next to me (literally they lay you shoulder to shoulder with people on these tiny mats on the floor...like 40 other people) with my laptop and the original Indiana Jones series. We all fell asleep somewhere through the seccond movie and I slept restlessly, unintentionally spooning with two very attractive Sweedish boys. thank god for small favors. haha. we finally made it into town around 7am, got a hotel, took a much needed nap, grabbed some really good vietnamese food and explored the city by foot and in a Cyclo (pedal-powered cart taxi).

all I can say is that this place is a beautiful madhouse and even while I'm typing this I can look out the windows of the hotel and see merchants sitting on the sidewalk selling everything from live fish to pigs feet, herbs, vegetables, clothes and even sex. ick. I just watched a woman take a live fish, throw it on the sidewalk, cut it's head off, throw it in a plastic bag and sell it to a man for dinner. yay. I'm getting used to seeing dead animals everywhere...although seeing the brains, organs, feet, eyes and faces for sale still creeps me out a bit. what I think will always bug me is the smell that these markets always have. and it's unavoidable because the merkets are the sidewalks...everywhere. oh well, I'm getting used to it. =D

time to go clean up,get dinner and go to a Vietnamese Opera with my wonderful date Marissa!