We had a guide booked for the first day, and he was there to meet us at the airport to help us get to the hotel and to discuss any plans we had for our first day in Japan. It turns out that booking a private transfer from the airport to the hotel was absolutely the right choice as it left the thinking to others whilst we looked around in awe. We settled into our room and crashed for the night soon after.

View from breakfast

The morning brought us the first views of Tokyo in daylight including cherry blossoms outside the breakfast room window. What followed was a fascinating whistle-stop tour of a couple of the main sights of Tokyo. One of the other things to do in Japan that we learnt about before coming was to collect Eki stamps. These are special stamps that are located at a large number of the eki (train stations) and chikatetsu (subway stations) across the country and are a favourite collectable item for both foreigners and Japanese people. Unfortunately, the station closest to the hotel didn’t have one, but we did find one at our first stop of the day.

George stamping his Eki book
Asakusa Station Eki Stamp

Starting in the Asakusa area, we worked our way along the Nakamise Shopping Street to the Senso-ji Buddhist Temple and the Asakusa Shinto Shrine which were right next to each other at the end of the street. Our guide, Henrik, showed us the traditional way to purify yourself before praying at each of them and explained the differences in the method of praying or reflecting between the two religions. The Japanese Buddhists adopt a more minimal approach to praying when compared to the Tibetan/Mongolian approach that I’m used to. The Temple itself was an impressive structure, with the first of many pagodas towering into the sky above. This was where we got the opportunity to collect our first Goshuin, or red stamps. These stamps were a bit special compared to the Eki stamps. Firstly, you have to buy one of the special goshuin stamp books from a temple or shrine, then the book is stamped and a calligrapher will write the date, the temple name and sometimes a prayer or other relevant symbol in beautiful Japanese calligraphy across the page. We even saw our first geisha (actually not real geisha, but tourists dressed in traditional dress that could be rented from any number of shops lining the streets around the temple).

The next stop was a tranquil forest nestled within the high-rise buildings and busy streets between the Shinjuku City and Shibuya districts. The forest was home to our second Shinto shrine, the Meiji Jingu shrine. Once we were off the streets and through the opening Torii gate, the calm of the forest seemed to drown out the noise from outside, although it had already struck us that it was remarkably calm and quiet despite the number of people living in Tokyo. It was a long walk through the forest giving people the chance to centre themselves before reaching the shrine itself. We turned the final corner to see another beautiful gateway structure nestled within the trees leading to the shrine. Inside it was full of tourists, yet also felt very calm. It was not something you would expect this close to the center of a major capital city. We made an offering at the shrine and collected our second goshuin before heading to our next destination.

We got the train down to Shibuya, collecting some eki stamps on the way and stepped out of the station on the edge of the world famous Shibuya scramble crossing. It is a lot smaller than it looks in films! The main activity here was a visit up one of the towers to the Shibuya Sky viewpoint for views across the city. This was recommended by the travel agents, but we were not sure about it before coming. However, we were proven wrong. The Shibuya Sky is on the roof of one of the tallest buildings in the area so the views across the city were amazing. We could even see the scramble crossing from above.

As we neared the end of our guides time, he helped direct us one the rest of our evenings plans before showing us the statue of Hachiko, the worlds most loyal dog who supposedly waited for his owner to come back for ten years. Our evening then continued in Harajuku where we visited the 3D cat billboard, a Godzilla head on top of a building and finished up at a recommended revolving sushi restaurant called Kura. George thought this was amazing as we could pick what we liked off the conveyor (just like Yo Sushi back home), but if you ordered from the tablet the food was delivered at high speed direct to your table along a different conveyor. They even delivered drinks in this way. The best part was that there was a game of chance included with the meal. When you finished each plate, it was put into a slot on the table that took it to the kitchen, but once you had deposited 5 plates, there was a chance of winning a prize. Unfortunately we weren’t lucky on this ocasssion, but it added another level of fun to dinner time :smile:.

We finished the evening outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building where Tokyo Night and Light show is projected onto the building. The show brought back fond memories of our time in Hong Kong. Although the light show was very different here, it was still very good and we were glad we were able to see it.

include some pictures here and the strava map if possible

We pulled into Niagara Falls late morning and dropped off our car and bags at the hotel. At this point, we had no real plan so we walked down to the falls themselves to take it all in. :open_mouth:! It was just incredible to see the falls in all their glory. Not only are the main Horseshoe Falls epic, but the American Falls are also an amazing sight!

Once we had our Adventure Passes we went straight down to the ‘Maid of the Mist’ dock, only to find that the ‘Maid of the Mist’ has only operated from the American side since 2013! Thankfully, there is still a boat that does the trip from the Canadian side and that is the ‘Hornblower’. The queue was tiny so we joined and got straight onto the next boat, complete with our awesome red ponchos! The actual trip is only 20 minutes long, but it’s actually perfectly adequate to see the incredible power of all 3 sets of falls. You set off past the American Falls, with massive amounts of rock debris at its base. Then you scoot past the Bridal Veil Falls, a much smaller set of falls between the American and Horseshoe Falls. Finally, you arrive in the middle of the horseshoe surrounded by the Horseshoe Falls as ≈2,500m³ of water falls down the face of the 50 metre drop every second! The noise is just phenomenal and you get absolutely soaked whilst the boat slowly turns around for the return trip. So the boat trip was only 20 minutes, but what a fantastic experience! Getting so close to the Falls really brings into sharp focus the true power of nature. Amazing!

After that experience, there was only really one thing we could do, hunt for food :smiley:. Rosie noticed previously that there was a Hard Rock Café somewhere in town so began our mission to find it. Although Niagara Falls is a massive tourist attraction, the town isn’t really that big so we headed to the ‘strip’ and our mission was accomplished. Given we were planning on eating at the fancy steak restaurant, The Keg Steakhouse, at our hotel in the evening, it would have made sense to have a light lunch, wouldn’t it? Well, we’re obviously not that sensible because we ordered full meals, oops!

The afternoon drew us back to the falls, but this time we took a ‘Journey Behind the Falls’ where we got yellow ponchos :grinning:. It’s definitely an experience! The tunnels were originally carved into the hillside behind the falls approximately 130 years ago and they take you to two viewing areas that look out through the falls. The first thing to strike you when you enter the tunnels is the noise of the water, then as you get closer to the openings you can actually feel the ground beneath your feet vibrating with the sheer force of the water falling over the edge. At each of the openings, there are barriers to stop you getting too close, but the wind, spray and noise do a pretty good job on their own. There is no way to hear what anyone around you is saying. At first glance, the falls just look like a curtain moving in the breeze, but when you look properly you can see the immense volume of water that is moving past the opening every second.

Once you’ve seen the falls from behind, there is then the option to view them from the side from an observation platform at the end of the tunnels. This is the real reason for the ponchos! Almost everywhere on the platform, it felt like it was raining heavily because of the amount of spray generated by the falls, but the view was spectacular. George struggled a little with the noise, but he really wanted a picture with the ‘Go Jetters’ in front of the falls so we got that sorted and got him out of there :smiley:.

We finished the day with a trip to Niagara’s Fury. This is a 4D cinema experience describing the history of Niagara Falls from about 12,500 years ago. We were given more ponchos on the way in, then shepherded into a circular room and onto a platform above a shallow pool of water. Rather than spoil the experience for anyone else going, I’ll just say that it was a brilliant, and very much immersive, experience that was perfectly geared to kids. If you are in Niagara, then I would highly recommend it :grinning:.

Given Niagara is a reasonable drive away from Toronto, we had decided to book a hotel for the night. We chose the Embassy Suites Hotel based on Karlene’s recommendation and it couldn’t have been a better choice! The view from our room on the 39th floor was stunning. The entire end wall of the room was glazing and we looked straight down on the Horseshoe Falls and across to the American and Bridal Veil Falls. We also got to eat in The Keg Steakhouse which is on the 9th floor of the hotel and also looks out over the falls.

Sadly, yesterday we left Ottawa (well, Carleton Place, but you know what I mean) and my family after a brilliant, relaxed week :disappointed:. It was definitely a good break after the stress of the last couple of weeks at work. Also, given today is Easter Sunday and it’s chaos, we decided to move Easter to yesterday morning. Friday night, Jacqui, Rosie and I sorted out an Easter Egg hunt around the house for George so that he didn’t miss out with all the travelling. Then, when we got up yesterday morning, he noticed that the ‘Easter Bunny’ had come early and frantically began hunting for his eggs. It was absolutely brilliant! George, Jacqui and the dogs seemed to have the best time before we had to go to the train station for our ride down to our next stop.

Happily, last night we arrived in Toronto :smiley:. Karlene (Rosie’s cousin) and Joke met us at the train station, sorted us out with food and dropped us off at Karlene’s apartment for the night. Although it had been a bit of a long day, and it was quite late, George was absolutely bouncing off the walls so it took us ages to get him to sleep!

This morning we took a leisurely stroll through midtown Toronto to meet up with Karlene and Joke at Toronto’s really old castle, Casa Loma. It was built way back in 1914!! :wink: It certainly looks like an old castle but, as the numerous signs around the area allude, Canada is only officially 150 years old itself so it’s no real surprise that their castles are basically new builds.

The castle itself was cool, but it wasn’t until we had nearly finished looking around that we found out so many awesome films have used it as a filming location including some of the X-Men films!

Given it was Joke’s last night in Toronto, her and Karlene decided to go out for the evening, so we decided to do a little bit of wandering through downtown Toronto before looking for somewhere to eat. Everywhere we looked there were people in blue jerseys with both the Blue Jays (Baseball) and the Maple Leafs (Ice Hockey) playing this evening. So we ended up having dinner in a sports bar, which was a bit of a new experience for us. There were screens everywhere with all the different sports on so people could keep track of everything. It was a little bit confusing to be honest! The food, however, was very good.

Tomorrow, we are off to Niagara :smiley:.

On the approach, we got our first glimpse of the system used to extract the sap from the maple trees ready for converting to maple syrup. The network of pipes leading back to the ‘sugar camp’ was definitely something to behold. It seems we picked a great day to visit. When we arrived, we were told it was the last day of production for the year. Apparently, the sap from the trees makes the best maple syrup when the temperature is above 5°C during the day and below -5°C overnight so they’re just boiling up the last of the sap since the weather turned.

As we got out of the car, the sweet smell of maple syrup hit us. It was fantastic! Thankfully, our first stop was breakfast :smiley:. The choice for breakfast was surprisingly large given it’s a pancake house. There were various combinations of pancakes, french toast and maple sausages (yes, I said maple sausages and they are amazing!!). Ok so that isn’t really a huge choice, but there were lots of different combinations :wink:. The pancakes were enormous and they brought us 2 big bottles of maple syrup between the 8 of us. There was a stupid amount of sugar in the breakfast, but it was nicely tempered with a constant flow of black coffee :smiley:.

Given that it was Easter weekend, the Sugar Camp were hosting an Easter Egg hunt around the maple trees. I’m not entirely sure who was more excited about it, George, Jacqui or Becky (George being the only child of the three). Walking through the camp was quite peaceful. We came across some kind of a snake, that unfortunately scared George a little, but I think we managed to find all the Easter Eggs :smiley:.

To make the day complete, Rick decided it was time to introduce us to proper poutine (the national dish of Canada). We had some at the chip truck in Merrickville, but he was adamant that we hadn’t had proper poutine. Given he runs an extremely popular chip truck in town (The Potato King) for 6/7 months of the year, I figure he knows what he’s talking about :wink:. We were not disappointed! The blend of curds and mozzarella with the homemade gravy made for a significantly better poutine that was a real taste explosion! If you are ever in Carleton Place, then I highly recommend you visit The Potato King.

It was a nice, relaxing way to finish off the first part of our trip to Canada.

Another day begins bright and early thanks to our insistent, ever reliable alarm clock, George. As normal we were up to see Jacqui off to work, but this morning was a little different. Not only was George happy walking past the Wiener’s, he actually petted them :hushed:! He then told us that their ears were “as soft as socks”, much to everyone’s amusement :joy:. So it seems that George can get used to most dogs given enough time.

The plan for today was to drive into Ottawa with Rick just after rush hour to see what there is to see. When we got there we had the usual issue you have in any city, finding somewhere to park! After about 20 minutes we parked in the Natural History Museum car park which made the decision of where to go first really simple. Given we wanted to see as much of what Ottawa had to offer in one day, we didn’t have long so George was given the map and we were off to see the dinosaurs! We zoomed around them before discovering that what he was actually looking for was the weird jellyfish like thing that was hanging in the giant glass box above the entrance :flushed:. Nevermind, that at least brought us to a brilliant exhibit about the geology of the earth. It’s not something I would normally seek out, but it was fascinating and really well done for kids so George loved it. If it hadn’t been for our time constraints, I think George would have stayed there all day!

Our next experience was a local diner for lunch. Now I’ve seen them on TV where the waiter/waitress refills your coffee cup before it’s empty, but I never realised that was actually how things work over here! I was mildly disappointed with the size of the cup having asked for a large, but then it was filled up repeatedly without us having to ask and it was only $2! It was amazing! This is a lesson we really need to learn back home!!!

With our bellies filled, we continued on to our planned first stop of the day, the ticket place for access to the Peace Tower in the Canadian Parliament building. It seems that today was not to be our day. Apparently all the tickets had been given out within an hour of the place opening, so about 30 minutes before we even arrived in Ottawa! Ah well, maybe next time. We instead spent the afternoon seeing the sites, like the Parliament building, the Rideau Canal, the bizarre mixture of architecture that wouldn’t be allowed in the UK (there doesn’t seem to be any draconian planning rules in force here) and we even managed to have a mini snowball fight, it was ace!

During our wanderings we were introduced to the most amazing sweet snack ever, Beaver Tails. They are simply a dough flattened out to the shape of a beaver tail and deep fried with a topping added. There were loads of options, but they were mainly sweet toppings and Rick recommended the maple butter. It was incredible and I cannot recommend them highly enough, you just have to try them! I admit that the volume of sugar consumed in such a short period of time can be a little overwhelming, but its nothing a strong cup of coffee won’t fix :wink:.

We picked Jacqui up from work which was possibly the bit George was excited about most of all. She works on the 15/16th floor of her building so she invited us up to the 16th floor to get a view most tourists don’t get. We looked out over the city at the Peace Tower so it turns out it wasn’t such a bad thing that we missed out earlier :smiley:. The plan then was to take Jacqui and Rick out for dinner, but given Rosie and I don’t know the area, we said they should choose. Again, things didn’t work out how we would have liked. The restaurant couldn’t seat us for another 3 hours and George was snoring away in the back seat so we instead made the decision to have Chinese takeaway and go home.

George must have been exhausted because he didn’t wake when we got the Chinese, he didn’t wake when we got him out of the car, and he didn’t wake when we tried to wake him for food. Instead, we put him straight to bed and had a quiet evening meal just the four of us.

Tomorrow is possibly going to be the best day of the first half of our holiday because we are going to the maple syrup place. I’m not sure who is most excited about it, but I have a funny feeling it may actually be me :blush:.

First stop was a Tim Horton’s drive through, and Rosie had only been commenting a few hours earlier that we hadn’t done that yet! I can’t get over how cheap it is, we had 2 coffees and a tea and it was only just over $5, and it was reasonable coffee, amazing! We then made our way out to Merrickville. The first thing that struck us was the amount of open space everywhere. Given it’s only just turning to spring, there isn’t much green around, but I imagine that once the land recovers from the snow it must be beautiful. The whole area is incredibly flat so we could see for miles in every direction and mainly all we could see was trees and grassland, with the occasional house thrown in for good measure. And the houses were massive by our standards (actually many of them were massive by Canadian standards too), it was definitely great to see the countryside :smiley:.

Merrickville is a tiny little town somewhere relatively close to Carleton Place. It is basically a single street with not a lot going on. However, it is a nice little town to visit for us foreigners. On arrival in the town we crossed a raging torrent of a river that was incredibly impressive, and then a few minutes later, my cousin Jon (Becky’s brother) passed us in his work truck, how’s that for an amazing coincidence! He stopped by to say hello, and somehow scared George because he didn’t recognise the coat! Strange child! We continued our stroll through the town and watched some glass blowing before deciding it was time for lunch.

This was a more difficult decision that we had anticipated. There was a chip truck in the town, and Rosie wasn’t sure about ‘cheating’ on Rick at another chip truck. Then we weren’t sure about having poutine for the first time from someone other than Rick. In the end, Rosie had a pulled pork poutine and I had a chilli dog so that we could have ‘proper’ poutine for the first time from Rick :smiley:.

On the way back we drove through some more quaint little towns and over some surprisingly narrow and rickety bridges for the more ‘authentic’ Canadian experience. We then lazed around for the rest of the day, playing Lego, Go Jetters and other random games made up by George.

Tomorrow we are heading into Ottawa, which should be a great day :smiley:

After the hustle and bustle of yesterday, we took a more sedate (read: lazy) option. I checked out the Trans Canada Trail and ran through the snow towards Ottawa and George and Rosie played at the local park in the morning. Then Becky took us to the local kids play centre, Kids Kingdom, before lunch. It turns out that kids don’t get Easter Holidays over here in the same way that we do, so it was absolutely dead. There were only a couple of other kids in there and we hardly saw them, it was brilliant :smiley:!

We spent a couple of hours defending the kingdom. George spent the bulk of the time dragging Becky around and making new friends with the locals, so that meant Rose and I were able to spend the morning getting to know Dayna (Becky’s 17 month old daughter). It’s amazing how quickly you forget what toddlers are like! We had so much fun just going round and round and down the slides, with regular interruptions from George and Becky. Eventually Dayna got tired and George got hungry so we made that lunchtime.

George then had a simple request for lunch…McDonald’s please :innocent:! Simple, quick calories and a crappy toy to keep the kids happy, sorted :smiley:! Well, I’ve never had table service at McDonald’s so that was a bit of a surprise. Well done Canada!

We finished off our lazy day by taking George to the Lego shop we saw on the way in from the airport. Turns out when Lego discontinue their sets, they send the leftover stock to Canada! It’s no wonder it’s so expensive to buy old sets back home! Needless to say we didn’t buy anything, but had some fun on the trampolines in the shop and headed home for some amazing home cooked food courtesy of Rick :yum:.

It’s been 26 years since I was last in Canada, but one thing I do remember is the time it takes to get here! We left home yesterday at about 09:30, got to the airport for 12:00, boarded the plane about 15:00, bounced across the Atlantic for 7¾ hours and arrived in Ottawa at 18:30. That messed with George’s head a little bit given it was bedtime twice before he actually got to bed. He was shattered by the time we got to Carleton Place, but he completely ignored that because of the extreme excitement of seeing Auntie Jacqui! He crashed fairly quickly (along with Rose and I), but he wanted to get up again at 03:30 :sleepy:.

Thankfully we managed to get him back to sleep for a couple of hours, but we were still up by 7! Given it was our first day in Canada we didn’t really want to do a lot so Jacqui and Rick arranged for the tribes to visit in the afternoon. It was great watching how George interacted with all these people he didn’t know. As soon as someone new arrived, he pounced on them to tell them all about the playroom downstairs and the Lego and insisted that they had to come down and play! Everyone did what they were told until Jon arrived because he was hungry and nothing, not even George, was getting between him and food! Funnily enough this didn’t seem to bother him, he just grabbed someone else and carried on!

It was really nice, if a little hectic, to see my cousins again, and their families and to meet Rick’s kids and their families too. Just a bit of a shame Rob, Chelsea and their tribe couldn’t make it. Hopefully we’ll get to catch up with them before we move on to the Toronto leg of our holiday on Saturday.

Time for bed now and maybe I’ll get this posted before the end of the week :smiley:

For our first family holiday, we decided to take a different approach to normal and stay relatively close to home. We have been threatening to visit the Eden Project for at least the last 4 years, so we headed to Cornwall for the week after Easter.  We started our journey on Easter Monday, but to keep travel times short, we stayed with friends in Wellington Monday night where we were kindly fed Chinese food :smile:. With George around, there’s rarely any danger of having a long lie in so we were back on the road again by 08:30 Tuesday morning on route to the Eden Project. Contrary to the forecast, the weather was glorious so we were able to fully enjoy our drive down. On arrival, we were shepherded into the top car park and directed onto a bus, the first bus George has ever been on! The bus weaved down into the quarry where we got our first glimpse of the huge Biomes that house the artificial habitats of the Eden Project.

We started our day in the Core, which is the latest addition to the Eden Project. It is essentially an education centre with lots of hands on exhibits for learning about the environment, wildlife and plant life etc. The building is of a sustainable construction, highly insulated and very energy efficient. The roof has been build using the principle of ‘phyllotaxis’ which is the mathematical basis of how plants grow and looks amazing. It also houses a large photovoltaic array to generate electricity for the site.

The building is centred around Peter Randall-Page’s seed sculpture which was created from a single hunk of granite found at a local quarry. It is an incredible sculpture. It looks so simple, but it is geometrically perfect (by natures standards) and quite beautiful to look at.

Once we had finished up in the Core, we headed over to the rainforest biome to explore the various tropical habitats located within. The temperature range was from 20-30°C at approximately 90% humidity so within minutes of entering the biome we had to start stripping off! George’s pram came in very handy for storing coats and layers, as well as George! The winding path through the biome takes you on a journey through the various tropical climates around the globe profiling the forms of plants and trees that grow there. In the middle there was even a typical hut from Malaysia.

We spent about an hour and a half in the rainforest biome before heading out into the cold again, well comparatively cold anyway! Outside the lobby between the two covered biomes is the outdoor seating area for the café, but George was getting hungry by this point so we wandered through the gardens and took a seat on one of the walls for our lunch.

It really was a beautiful day to be out and about, but we only stayed out for lunch before diving back into the mediterranean biome. This was much cooler than the tropical biome, and a fair bit drier to try to simulate the climate of the various locales around the world. This biome was definitely not as exciting and interesting as the tropical one. I think Rosie and I have much more interest in the more exotic locations around the world so the olive and citrus trees didn’t really do it for us. I feel that that observation is probably fairly unique to us as the café within the biome was packed and there seemed to be a lot of people in it generally.

The Eden Project is built within an old quarry so the whole site has it’s own microclimate and, as such, the outdoor growing areas have been dubbed the ‘outdoor biome’. The whole area was alive with medicines, foods and common British plants & trees. There were people working all over the place planting out the new seasons growth and harvesting things that were ready. It was incredibly lively and really made me want to put more effort into our garden, but we all know that’s never going to happen! Once we had seen all that we wanted to see, we meandered our way back up to the start to be herded through the gift shop before leaving. I picked up a little coffee plant (don’t want to get too excited with this gardening malarkey :wink:).

George was absolutely brilliant all day, although, I think he managed to miss virtually everything yet again. We left the Eden Project and decided to find our hotel for the night. The directions took us around three sides of the Eden Project grounds, through a little lane to a beautiful old house that had been converted into our hotel, Boscundle Manor. It looked like just the right place to spend the remainder of our second anniversary in style. The place was amazing, and we were given a bungalow, including kitchen, as our room :smile:. Apparently, when you book through Red Letter Days, if an upgrade is available at the time of booking, you are automatically upgraded. Bargain! It was a great end to a fantastic day out :smile:.

More photos can be found here

The final stop on our whistle stop tour of Huế was the Tomb of Tự Đức, the fourth emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam. The tomb was hidden within a pine forest in a valley just outside of Huế and was significantly larger than I was expecting, mainly because it is also a temple, with the two areas separated. The whole place was full of people sitting and drawing or painting various parts of the impressive structures within the complex. It was quite hot and humid so we wandered fairly slowly around the place before returning to the bus for the next stage in our journey to Hội An.

The road to Đà Nẵng held further intrigue in the form of a coconut hat and incense stall where we learned how the typical Vietnamese hat is made, as well as the incense. It turns out that the process of making incense sticks is pretty simple, once you know how to do it, and get enough practice. Rosie had a go, decimated the first one, and then managed to produce 3 or 4 really good sticks. I was very proud!

This lead us quickly onto Đà Nẵng and the mountain pass looking down onto Đà Nẵng, although the weather was pretty murky up top so the view was fairly limited. In Đà Nẵng we took a trip into the Marble Mountains to see the Buddhist Temple at the top and the beautiful caves that were used as shelters and places of worship during the Vietnam War. In the temple, we were fortunate to be visiting when two senior monks were chanting to the whole temple. It was a wonderful sound, so calm and enchanting. Within the temple complex we also saw some fairly huge Buddha Statues. It was a very warm day, but we were sheltered most of the time so we were able to enjoy the experience fully.

We arrived at the Golf Hội An later on that afternoon in time to have a shower before heading out into the Old Quarter with the rest of the group for dinner at a fairly Western appearing bar, Before and Now. It turned out that it was still a very Vietnamese restaurant, but they did serve Western food. Most of us enjoyed some wonderful local dishes recommended by Hai. Hội An is apparently the place to go for tailored clothes in Vietnam and as we were there for 3 days, Hai showed us some tailors he recommended. So, after dinner, Rosie and I headed to one so I could get some shirts made for work. Within 10 minutes the measurements were taken and the materials chosen. A bit of umming and ahhing from Rosie about buying a suit and we were done. Maybe Rosie will get a suit, but she’s not sure at the moment. Off to bed now.