Day 8 - Clean Clothes and Great Food

After breakfast this morning it was time to get a bunch of laundry done, it's been a week so I had a lot get done., we all popped across the road from the hotel where we all dropped off our washing. They base the price on weight, mine weighed the most with the cost coming to 150,000 (about NZD $10), a little more than I was expecting, but considering I don't have to worry about it all, it's cheap.

We continued back into the old city and headed towards the the Japanese Covered bridge (Chùa Cầu), it was built in 1593 by the local merchant community to connect with the Chinese quarters. 60 years later in 1654, they added a temple/pagoda onto the bridge, according to local legend the temple was added to subdue a local mythical monster called Namazu, a catfish like create which the Japanese people myth caused earthquakes and floods.

Along the way we were greeted by more people trying to sell us their stuff again. It was early in the morning so everything was "Happy Hour", funny considering everything last night was also during Happy Hour, I was met by a Vietnamese woman selling items, she said to me "How old are you? I like you", I thanked her politely and walked off quickly saying to saying to someone, "Get me out of here, I think she's going to try and marry me"

We roamed around a little and then we made our way to get something to drink, along we way we came a group of woman singing, I can only assume it was for a music video of some kind, but not 100% sure. While we were having a drink Dad decided to take a few photos of the river, turns out while he was taking the photos, someone was taking a bathroom break into the river over the side of the boat, a few minutes later we also spotted someone else cleaning their bowls from their restaurant into the same river.

We decided for lunch we would make our way to a restaurant away from the river and not order any fish, we came across a Japanese restaurant called Samurai Kitchen. The food was amazing, honestly wasn't expecting too much, but wow what a great lunch, we all enjoyed what we had for lunch.

Mum and Dad went back to the hotel. I decided to head about and walk some of the streets while, Gill, Mike and James went and did some shopping.

I got back to the hotel and decided I'd get a workout in before going to collect my washing. The workout went really well, either the weights were lighter than what they stated, or the time off from the gym has given me enough rest to make the workout feel a bit easier than normal. Mike and Gills for a drink and some nibbles before heading to get something to eat

We got a recommendation from the hotel on where to eat and they suggested Morning Glory Original. Mum and Dad decided to take cyclos there, while Gill, Mike, James and I walked to meet them. When we arrived we got a table on the top floor, and I even saw a message from Dad saying they were already there waiting upstairs. I walked around but couldn’t spot them anywhere, so I gave Dad a call to double check. Turns out the cyclo drivers had taken them to the wrong Morning Glory restaurant. In the end it was easier for us to walk down and meet them, so we wandered about 700 meters along the same street to Morning Glory Mother’s Kitchen instead. Funny enough, we later found out there are actually four different Morning Glory restaurants all within the same area.

It worked out perfectly though, because the meal we had was one of the best of the trip. We started off with white dumplings and chicken and ginger dumplings, both packed with flavour and a great way to kick things off. For mains we ordered pork belly, duck and green beans, and ended up swapping plates so everyone got to try a bit of everything. Everything was cooked beautifully. For dessert we each picked our own, which meant we got to taste a whole range between us, and every single one was delicious. We couldn’t fault a single dish and I’d happily go back in a heartbeat. If you’re in Hoi An this place is definitely worth checking out.