Today was supposed to be a partial sight seeing day accompanied by my bra search. After breakfast and a slow packing of our day bag we headed out. The tea we had at breakfast had been Vietnamese green tea which Liam doesn't like, so first thing on the agenda was to find somewhere for coffee. We walked the bustling streets until we found a highlands coffee which I suppose is like Vietnams costa. We relaxed with a drink before heading out to find the elusive devil bra. We were first directed to another market by somebody who assured us they have western bras...we went in and straight away were accosted by several women at once shouting "buy this" "buy that"....we walked about 3 meters and had had at least 5 different people shout us down and I just wasn't in the mood for it today so stopped in my tracks, turned around snd flew my hands up in the air with an exasperated " I can't be doing with this, we need to leave, now". Liam was more than happy to oblige!
So we kept going, saying no about 20 times to people telling us to get on their bike or come and buy something. We found another market, which we went into and were greeted my a fairly normal amount of hastle you would expect to get from a market. So we managed to walk around without feeling stressed and found a few bra stalls. All of which were for pancake chests. There were some nice stalls with lovely stuff so we spent a while nosing around before leaving. We had all but given up, Liam despairing because my discomfort was making me awful to be around. We went into a shopping centre that looked a bit posh, with Liam stating he doesn't care how much if it will shut me up! .....no underwear. Directed to another market....no underwear. Bloody Nora. We gave up again....then came across another shopping centre with a sign "2nd floor; underwears" up we went and YES there was underwear in MY size! I tried on about 20 bras to make sure I got the right fit, Liam telling me he would kill me if it wasn't right. I came out with 2 new bras and a 2 pairs of nicnaks thrown in for free...perfect. Went straight to the toilet, changed into my new bra, threw the old one in the bin and sighed a huge sigh of comforted relief!
All of this had worked up a sweat, it's so humid here and really hot. That with all the traffic and fumes really makes getting around quite a task. We followed our map to the best of our ability, getting a little lost along the way and walking a lot further than intended as usual. We saw the sky tower so went to see how much it would be to go up but it was a bit much for what you got so we decided against it. We also saw the opera house which to be honest isn't much it's just a typical non stand out French building. After about 50 minutes or so of this we saw a heavenly sign....SUBWAY...oh my god. We just had to go take a closer look. Then we just had to go inside. And then once greeted by the universal subway smell we just had to order a sub of the day....and cookies. Not vietnamese but Heavenly all the same.
After this short break we set off in search for the revolutionary museum again, we went past the people's committee hall which we were were more or less ushered away from when trying to figure out what it actually was. Then we came across the old post office it's a nice old building which is still being used today. We went in and asked about prices to ship stuff back to England, just as expensive from here as it is for you lot to send from there! We will have to use the service at some point. We finally got to the museum, which had lots of information about the history of the citysindustry from work in the harbour and fishermen, to pots, jewellery, shoes etc...it's kind of interesting if you're interested in that kind of thing which in all honesty, I'm not. It's a stereotypical museum with odd looking staff lurking around, old and dingy hall ways and all the relics need a good dusting and polish! I forget exactly the dates and people but it was used as a palace, i think a meeting hall and as a base for some time during the war for political people and has some bunkers underneath. They were shut unfortunately, which really was a shame because we would have liked to see that. The highlight for me was seeing some wedding couples having their photos done there, it was nice watching them pose for their wedding shots in their lovely dresses in front of the old building and cars.
We then went to the cathedral notre dame, which is nowhere near as impressive as the real one! A nice building but quite a let down compared to some of the masterpieces of architecture you see in some cathedrals. So by this point we had spent a very large chunk of our day walking in the heat and were exhausted. We went from coffee shop to coffee shop trying to find somewhere with half decent prices and ended up finding a lovely little one called "tous les jours". It had a proper little bakery and they give you a tray when you walk in to go round and pick up what you want. We ended up sitting upstairs for about an hour overlooking the streets with a hot chocolate and muffin which was lovely. The rest of the day was spent shopping for lunch items for the next day, eating our dinner and generally just getting back to the hotel which takes a while. We also stopped off in the park to watch the activities of people who go after school or work, they all go and play a popular game of passing a sort of shuttlecock around in a circle using only their feet. They have all sorts of stuff going on and there's a real sense of community involvement which is nice to see I guess. But on the other side we did both feel a little uncomfortable at times because you notice some people watching you as though they might plan to snatch something from you or pick pocket. So due some people seeming a bit dodgy we're both on our guard all of the time. Looking forward to our day tomorrow because we've booked on with a little tour group for the day.
