DRAFT: COVID in Hội An: Suits & Quarantine

I awoke feeling fatigued and concluded that I was traveled out. So I ate a bowl of cereal and decided to take the morning off to relax, catch up on some TV, and then met up with Katie in the afternoon.

Feeling more energetic and quite hungry I ventured out. I met Katie at a tailor’s looking at some fabrics. She really wanted to get something custom made but non of the fabrics she had seen so far were quite right for her.

So we headed off to grab some food before being interrupted. First, by a shop owner that Katherine had befriended and he took us on a tour of the new building he was moving his shop into. Which was still very actively being built. With sparks flying this way and that!

Then secondly, when passing a well-rated tailor for men’s suits. We popped in to look for a suit for me!

Since watching the top gear Vietnam special where they got suits bad in Vietnam I have had the dream of doing the same. But I didn’t want to get a “standard” grey, blue, or black suit. Instead, I wanted to get something fun with a more eccentric liner than found in non-custom suits. Because, when else do you get the chance to have so much fun with formal wear

So when going into this store I was on a mission to find a fun and still a little classy purple fabric for the outside of the suit. This first store had a purple suit fabric but it was a bit shinney and felt like something between club wear and costume wear.

Striking out on getting tailored clothes we walked along the Thu Bõn River and stopped at The Hoianian wine bar & restaurant for dinner. We sat on the upper-floor balcony overlooking the river. The view was beautifully framed with a long arm of red lanterns outstretched over the street.

Kimmy’s take 1

After dinner on our walk back, we passed Kimmy Tailor (one of the top tailors Katie had researched) and decided to pop in and ask about their purple fabric. We were met with an “Of course! We have many purple fabrics. Let’s go to the warehouse!”. And in a moment we were back out of the store down a small ally, up a loading dock and into an unmarked warehouse. Each wall covered floor to ceiling with bolts of fabric. All perfectly organized by color.

Thankfully they had multiple shade of purple to make a suit from. I was able to find a really elegant shade that looked almost black in the dark and shown a nice deep purple in the light.

In our brief moments in the store, a green suit on display caught my eye. So Katie convinced me to look at greens as well. And amongst their massive selection, we were able to find a really fun shade. That would be the perfect suit to bring a splash of color to a formal outdoor gathering or wedding.

For picking out a liner I was torn. On one side I wanted to fulfill my Top Gear dream and get a super classing crazy paisley pattern but on my practical side, I want some thing a little elegant so that I would wear the suits on days other than Halloween.
the “recommended” silk liners were all too dated styles then I wanted

I had been dreaming of getting a tailored suit since watching the Vietnam top gear special in College
I wanted a liner that popped
the tailors really wanted us to select a silk liner but I insisted on seeing the cotton fabric book which had a wider range of fabrics
they warned me that it would wear out sooner. I didn’t care figuring if I wore the suit enough for the liner to fail I will have gotten my money’s worth :D
I picked a number of contenders.
I was torn from a suit that I would enjoy and was stylish vs living my top gear fancy and having the most obnoxious liner possible in the end, I decided on a liner for the purple that popped but was a bit more elegant and a liner for the green suit that was a bit more fun and popped
after picking the fabrics we then looked at an Ipad with 2 dozen different suit patterns.
I easily narrowed it down to about5 patterns knowing that I wanted a slim-cut single-breasted jacket. but between those cut, it was very difficult to find the right one
we eventually settled on one after viewing a few of them on the showroom floor
all in all the process took about 2 hours and after leaving a deposit I left with an appointment for my first fitting tomorrow at 1 pm

ceramics store

one the way back we stopped in a super cute ceramics store that I wanted to checkout the first day
we bought two bowels we liked as souvenirs and so we could eat cereal in something other than our emergency Tupperware that we purchased in Cambodia during our extension
we found out the store opened in ???
the owner was super nice

9/6

we woke up and chatted with Stewart and Grace about traveling to Seoul
- we chatted about Eddie and our travels so far
- I told them I was feeling a little under the weather
- we assured them we were down to travel with the newborn if they were willing
I was convinced I had a cold
Katie was instant that I test for COVID
I didn’t want to since my symptoms didn’t seem consistent with the disease
I tested positive for COVID-19 the first positive was super super faint so I did a second test to confirm and instantly as the sample ran through the test the second line showed up super bold Katie was still testing negative so she went to reception and got a second room
zooming from separate rooms in the same hotel
dropping off food at my door
putting my trash and sheets outside my door and the staff dropping off fresh ones
ordering food via Grab having a low-grade fever thankfully the room I was in had AC and a balcony
missing out on the mid-august harvest and moon festival
watching from my balcony and hearing the excitement
super bummed because we had planned our month around this day
and had rushed out of northern Vietnam to make sure we were here
had to cancel our food-making class I downplayed my symptoms to Katie so she would still do the cave tour and stop at hue
I knew I would be fine quarantining on my own and there was