I haven’t really got a chance to write in my blog yet so I will sum up the last three days as best as I can. We got to Hong Kong airport Sunday night after a 15 and a half hour plane trip. It was absolutely gigantic, but the best part was we got Business flight from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City. I had a full-out recliner to sprawl out, eat some gourmet food, and watch Gran Torino. I felt like Bruce Wayne. When we got through customs, we first got a glimpse of the huge number of people outside of the airport. Dr. Berman had a van waiting for us, and we checked into the hotel, threw our stuff down, and immediately went out into the city at night to explore. None of us guys new where the heck we were going but we did make it to our goal: the rooftop of the five star Rex Hotel, a destination at which we will probably spend a lot of time.
Yesterday, we woke up, ate at the hotel breakfast buffet (which was nothing like an American breakfast buffet). Then we headed on to the University of Economics and Finance. For our first car ride, we really got to see the traffic of Ho Chi Minh City. It’s like nothing I have ever seen, as thousands of mopeds flood the streets in utter chaos. In America we have things like lanes and traffic lights and stop signs, to keep people from smashing into each other. Here in Viet Nam, people drive wherever they please, whether on the right or left side or the sidewalk. I saw a moped with five people on it! When we got to the university, we were given a pretty awesome reception from students and faculty. Here we met a bunch of students including Khoa, who is the man by the way. After this we headed to our first Vietnamese language class and got right to it. Our teacher is hilarious/awesome. Students from the university helped us with basic pronunciation and with learning useful words. From there we went down a floor to the school cafeteria for lunch, where a meal was served family-style. Then we headed on back to the hotel, swam in the pool, and then headed to the presidential palace a couple blocks away. The place was pretty massive and was captured as the Viet Cong tanks rammed through the gates during the final days of the war. We then went to the U.S. consulate, where two American officials explained the role of the consulate as well as their jobs in the Foreign Service. For dinner we went to this restaurant that was hidden way back in an alley. It looked as if it were in a forest, because there were trees and vines. We were served multiple courses of pork, chicken, rice, and seafood. We were pretty tired, but Anthony, Jim, Greg, Steve, Nick, and I met Khoa at the top of the Rex. There was a live band and stuff, and it was a really fun place to be and relax.
I woke up today at the usual time of about 6:45 and went down to eat. We then went to the university to a business class and then our second language class, which was just as fun as the first one. That language is so difficult to speak, with its 11 vowel sounds and 6 different tones. Oh yea, and speaking of 11, we fitted 11 of us into the elevator, which had the capacity of about 9 [Vietnamese] people (who are smaller). The elevator fell down to the garage floor, making a loud crash, and all 11 of us were stuck. We would have been done, but our clutch van driver who was in the elevator made a quick call, and we were out of there quickly. We then went right to Glass Egg Inc. where we got to see their company firsthand. It was a pretty sweet company, because they designed the graphics for a ton of the new video games for Xbox, PCs, Wii, PlayStation, etc. When we walked around their office, all the programming artists were designing a piece of a car in a new video game. When we got back to the hotel, all of us students went for a walk around the local area. We went to this big supermarket, where they had really cheap everything (food, clothes, etc). The best part we had a snack at KFC, but it was quite different than one in the states (ie better service). Tonight we are going out to this Diskothek, because the CEO of one of the largest video game artist companies told us to. Should be a fun time, especially if we can convince Dr. Berman and Krysta to tag along.
So far, Ho Chi Minh is the sweetest place ever.
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