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!

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.

This morning we went to the Yazawaya Department store  at Kamata, this is a Mecca for quilters, sewers, jewellery makers, stationery fiends and more. If you are into any type of craft, this is the place to visit in Tokyo.

Huge selection of Echino fabrics at half the cost we pay, this was only a third of what they had!

This is half of the Liberty fabrics they had

How they display their buttons

We then headed off to Ometesando, the hip area for young people to hang out.

We had another group meal last night and farewelled Toshi, our guide, her sense of humour was brilliant and her Japanese English was good but funny.

Sorry forgot to take photos of the food, was too busy eating it!