Friday

Today we went to our last classes at UEF. The language class was again really fun, and we had our test (where we just read a short paragraph and answered one question). I will miss Tuyen, our teacher, because she was very enthusiastic and happy. Then we had a farewell lunch at UEF, which was the best lunch that we had there. After that we had freetime, so we went to Saigon Square again, where I bought the first 5 seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm and the first 12 seasons of South Park (best deal ever). I got all these movies and shows (including the ones from Thursday) for $30.

Bruce Willis Collection - 24 movies (doesn't include Armageddon or last Die Hard)
Apocalypse Now
Role Models
Curb Your Enthusiasm - Seasons 1-5
The Office - Seasons 1-4
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Southpark - Seasons 1-12

Then we walked through the Ben Thanh Market and up to the docks of the Saigon River, which had a ton of barges and cargo ships. For our last meal, we had a farewell dinner at the Indochine Restaurant with Tuyen (our language instructor), all the guys that drove us to the site visits (Huy included), and more people from UEF (including the daughter of chairman). The food was once again really good. It was a great way to end the trip.

Thursday

Today we woke up and went to the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange instead of our normal visit to UEF. It was interesting to see their stock exchange, especially because it's in a communist country. However, it did not seem to be that different from ones in the United States.

After that we went to the War Remnants Museum, which was only a few blocks down away from our hotel. Initially, it was called the American War Crimes Museum, then the War Crimes Museum. For this reason, it had a bias against the Americans during that time period. On the outside of the museum, there was real American war equipment, such as tanks, mortars, and planes. Inside it looked like a normal museum, except it was really just pictures of violence of Americans towards the Vietnamese, particularly Vietnamese women and children. An entire exhibit was devoted to how Agent Orange destroyed their environment and caused many genetic effects and diseases. On this they did have a point. However, other facts were not completely historically accurate.

After the museum, it was lunchtime, and we had a lot of time to roam the city. So a bunch of us and Krysta headed over to Pho 24, which sold one of Vietnam's most famous specialties, Pho (Noodles and Beef). I would highly recommend it to anyone that has the chance to have it. After that we went on down to the Ben Thanh Market, where we shopped inside. Immediately, I saw a stand of really cool stuff that I could get for my family. Mostly all of the stuff was made from bamboo. I purchased a bamboo plate, wine holder, bamboo figure, and rice bowl. Then I saw a place that sold really cheap movies. There I bought the Bruce Willis Collection (24 movies), Seasons 1-4 of the Office, Apocalypse Now, Role Models, and Curious Case of Benjamin Button. From there I took a motorbike taxi back to the hotel to meet Jim, Anthony, Nick, and a bunch of UEF students waiting with motorbikes. They drove us to Saigon Square to shop once more. I didn't buy anything, but it was neat to see the clothing stores in Vietnam. From there we went to a tea and juice place, where we just hung out with the Vietnamese students for a while. After that, when Z (his really name is Phan, but Z is a sick name) was driving me back to the hotel, we stopped at an intersection. When we stopped, a motorbike carrying a large amount of scrap metal ran right into my back. Luckily I got out alive with only a few scratches. Feeling invincible, I asked Z if I could have a go with the motorbike, and I drove back to the hotel in the famous traffic of Saigon. It was one of the more fun parts of the trip. A little while after that, we headed to this awesome restaurant called 3 T. There we were served a couple platters of raw food, and we got to cook that food over the grills in the center of the table. It was kind of challenging, but the food was really good and very interesting. The beef was delicious, yet the goat nipple and the frog legs were pretty gross. The whole meal was paid for by two of the investors of UEF. Then they took us to Acoustic, which is this place for live bands. There we witnessed some real talent of Vietnamese musicians.

Wednesday

Today I was severely exhausted during both of our classes.  After classes were over, we had a 2-hour party/meeting with the university’s English Club.  At first I was dead tired, but we played some games like the limbo that woke me up.  Then I had a 15-minute power nap.  This nap was imperative in order to get me awake for the soccer game against the UEF soccer team.  We played at this sweet soccer arena in the city.  It started out rough in the first half, with us losing 3-0 against them.  But then we obtained a secret weapon – Cho Dao (Mrs. Dao).  She’s from the Vietnamese Women’s National Soccer Team.  Considering she played in the Olympics, she was so good.  Then things turned around, and we scored 3 goals to tie it.  Then we took the lead, 4-3… and then 5-4.  But then they tied it, but it was a ton of fun, and I’m glad we didn’t get schooled by them, considering football is their national sport.  Plus Vietnam won last year’s Asian soccer cup.  It was one of the highlights of the trip.  For dinner Mike, Kevin, Lauren, Nick, and I went to this local Vietnamese restaurant, which was crowded with locals and tourists.  They had a huge menu, with tons of cheap, good foods.  I got garlic chicken wings, sweet & sour spare ribs, and Beef Pho.  They were all really good; plus it was cheap.  That night Mike and I just crashed at like 9:40, because it was the most tired I have been in weeks.  The next day we learned that every single person had done the same thing.

Tuesday

Today we went to our Business class and language class.  Then we went to our site visit at the US Principal Service, where we had a meeting with the Principal Commercial Officer.  The organization helped get American businesses started in Vietnam.  Then Krysta took us out to the Hollywood Film Café, which is owned by a Chinese American, who just moved to Vietnam 2 years ago.  He was pretty cool, because he just graduated in 2006 from college, and he never spoke a word of Vietnamese until getting here.  The restaurant was five stories, and where we ate, they had a movie playing on big screen.  Then we went to bounce and lush.

Monday

Today we woke up and had our Vietnamese history class and our usual language class at the university.  Then we went to this real estate company called CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), where we met with a woman named Patti.  The meeting was very informal, and the conference room had a great view of the city.  Unfortunately, I left my cell phone in the meeting room, so Anthony, Greg, Jim, and I went back to the building.  However, when Patti gave me my phone, she told us about a late of restaurants, including the Black Cat, this awesome burger place.  It was nice to have some familiar food for a change.  That night we went to the Rex with Dr. Berman and Kyrsta and had a fun time.  Then we went to Apocalypse Now. 

Sunday

Sunday we started off the day by meeting a local restaurant owner, who told us the words for the ingredients for our cooking class.   He split us into three groups of about 4 and went to the local market, with only 20,000 dong allocated to each group (about $1).  Our group had to buy tofu, pork, and shrimp, and we had to bargain with the vendors in Vietnamese to get everything we needed, because they spoke almost no English.  Bargaining is a big part of Vietnamese trading, and we learned that a vendor starts with a price that is too high, and it is the customer’s job to bargain down the price.  The market was such a good experience, because it had every type of meat, fish, and produce imaginable.  There were so many different/odd smells that I have never smelled before.  At the restaurant we cooked spring rolls, fried rice, catfish, shrimp/banana rolls, and soup.  The food was all very interesting, and most of it tasted really good.

Then we headed to this water park in the city for the most rewarding part of the trip, which is hard to believe because we were at a water park.  However, the business that Hui works for talked with an N.G.O. (non-government organization).  This N.G.O. had about 25 Vietnamese orphans between the ages of 6 and 16 come and hang out with us at the water park for the day.  We broke off into smaller groups, and we each took some kids to the waterslides.  The water park was actually one of the best water parks, because it had a zip line over a pool that launched you in the pool, one of those toilet bowl/water slides (which aren’t even legal in the US), and a bunch of tube and body slides.  The kids were sooo happy and excited to go down the slides with us.  They were really hyper and enthusiastic, so it made for a great time.  Eventually I found these four boys that were probably about 12 or 13, who followed me around to the various water slides.  They were awesome to hang out with, because it brought back memories, and I felt like a 12 year old again.  It was pretty sad having to say goodbye though, because a lot of them had nothing at all and spent nights on the street.  For dinner we went to this Café which took forever, but whatever I guess.  We then got ice cream and went back to the hotel.  This weekend was freakin awesome though, for it was my 19^th birthday, we went to the Mekong Delta, a dance club, and a water park with a bunch of kids, and for what I’m about to tell you: When I got back to the hotel I crashed a Vietnamese Wedding on the floor above me.  No lie.  I heard loud music, so I just loitered right outside the ballroom, and some dude just calls me in and gives me another dinner.  After that table left, I was called to another table and then another two tables.  Then I got a picture with the bride and groom! Hehar!  Then I went down to our usual hangout, Steve and Anthony’s room.  

Saturday

Saturday morning we got up at about 6 and headed to the Mekong Delta, which is where the Mekong River flows into the south of Viet Nam and down through Cambodia.  It was about a 2 and a half hour bus ride, where Hui (check spelling) was our guide (Hui has been our guide throughout our trip, driving us to the sites and stuff.  He is the man).  We were able to see the Vietnamese countryside for the first time.  It was really cool to see farms and stuff.  Plus we stopped at a couple awesome places like a cemetery for those that died in the war against the French colonists and in the Vietnam/American War.  Then we stopped at a temple that was a place of worship for Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, and Confucianism.  The architecture was really something else, because it just had the very traditional Asian design, with the curved roofs and bright colors.  Then when we got to the Mekong Delta, we hopped on a boat with just a driver and us and then started our journey along the river.  We then stopped at a tiny village on the river, where Hui took us.  We walked along a path in this tiny, hidden village, where we saw a bunch of tiny children and dogs.  It was incredible, because it was the first time I have been to a habited place that was so detached from society.  It was just so interesting to experience the small villages on our boat ride that lead us far into the Mekong Delta.  We stopped at another small village that made these coconut candies from scratch.  Right as Hui was showing us how these children made the candy, a monsoon came with some of the strongest winds I think I’ve experienced.  It tore off the roof of the hut/pavilion and threw dust in all our eyes.  The funny thing was the local kids didn’t really duck away.  After that we hopped on the boat to go to another village, which was where we were served a late lunch at this outdoor restaurant.  For the lunch we had to use chopsticks to pull the meat off of these fish.  It also had these shrimp, soup, and these pork rolls.  The best part was I had a dog chilling at my feet the entire time.  They had just a ton of dogs and chickens throughout the delta.  When we got back from the visit, we hung out in the usual spot, Steve and Anthony’s room.  Mike and Lauren were gone for a while, and when they got back they said they were walking around Ho Chi Minh City looking for a birthday cake for me.  They got me some delicious ice cream so I was pretty happy.  Then we went out with Khoa and Chi for my birthday.  So it was the best day really to have my birthday, because it was such an awesome experience.

 

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

Friday

Last night was pretty wild…  we went to the Banh Thanh Market, which is just this huge market in the street, where you can bargain with street vendors.  I bought some ridiculous stuff, you will have to wait and see mom.  Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure its okay to take on a plane.  But that place was sweet, cause I bargained a t-shirt from 120,000 VND to 50,000.  Also, Khoa was like my personal translator/agent for getting certain things.  After that, we did the usual walk around the city.  Then we did work.

Friday we went to U.E.F. for our usual lessons.  For the afternoon we went to e town 2 for our site visit.  It was my favorite visit so far, because the speaker was very interesting.  He started the meeting by telling us his personal story, which starts when he was about nine.  The Viet Nam War was ending, and his family wanted to flee the country.  So one day his parents sent him to his uncle’s house in the Mekong Delta, yet this is very difficult because there were curfews and you were not allowed to just go on trips.  He actually did not even know what he was going for, but eventually he got on a tiny boat with his uncle, and I think about 50 others, where they had to lay down face up the entire ride to Indonesia.  He made it back to the U.S., and his mother later caught up to him.  However, his father’s boat was lost at sea.  The U.S paid for him and other refugees to fly to America, as such a ticket is very expensive.  They were sent the bill about 15 years later.  Then he went back to Viet Nam years later as an electrical engineer and had the opportunity to start a semiconductor company.  That night we just stayed inside and hung out in Anthony and Steve’s room and balcony. 

Thursday

Last night was a blast, as we went again to the Rex, which had another live band.  We just relaxed and drank a little beer at the same table as last time.  I found a rice hat in a garden, so I already have a pretty sweet souvenir.  Anthony and I took a moped taxi back to the hotel = awesome.  Today we got up and went to a local high school in Ho Chi Minh City.  The school was absolutely beautiful, with a central courtyard and all types of trees and sculptures.  The principals told us about the school in a conference room, and then we got to interact with the eleventh grade Vietnamese students, who were all very happy to see us.  I believe that the assistant principal said these were all very gifted students from around the city, who hoped to go abroad for college, particularly in the U.S.  The most amazing part was that they all had to take about 13 classes, with a huge emphasis on English.  They spoke great English. 

We had a large chunk of free time after the school visit, so we just started walking through the city.  We got some food at one of their fast food restaurants.  It was like 2 bucks tops.  We continued walking around, just looking at different shops and stands.  Jim, Steve, Kevin, and I then stopped at an open-faced, take out restaurant.  Kevin and I got a meal of chicken and rice for a whopping 20,000 dong (about $1).  It then started to downpour, so we attempted to find our way back.  This was not so easy.  We even saw Dr. Berman at some random shop.  When we got back, I changed, and we left for to go to another hotel for a meeting at 1:40.  At the hotel, we met with a British lawyer from Duane Morris.  This man seemed to know everything about Vietnamese economics, policy, and politics.  So that was pretty interesting to see more how the country really works.  Solid day so far. 

Oh yeah, they were selling Cobra wine at the hotel in these glass bottles.  These are bottles with literally a dead cobra chilling in the bottle (some even had scorpions).  Apparently they are okay to drink, which is insane.

Wednesday

Last night was a real adventure, as we went to a Vietnamese nightclub.  Getting there and back was the most interesting part.  It can be very difficult to navigate through such a foreign city, so Steve used some of his newfound language skills:

“Adal, Lush,” which means, “Where Lush (the name of the club).”  This eventually got us there. Not surprisingly, however, there was a good amount of Europeans and some Americans.  I must say that they, like us, stick out like sore thumbs.  I met some people from the UK, France, and Minnesota.  All of the foreigners, including the Vietnamese that I met so far have respect for Americans, which is nice I think.  Today we got up at the usual time and headed to the university for a history/culture class and our daily Vietnamese language class.  The history professor was extremely passionate about Vietnamese culture, so it was a really interesting class.  I did not know how much crap the Vietnamese had to take for the past 1000 years from China.  We had a military presence in Vietnam for about two decades, while the Chinese attacked during every Chinese dynasty.

Our site visit today was a trip to the south edge of the city, at the company, Phu My Hung.  We met a company representative on the 12^th floor of their building and learned all about this infrastructure project they were doing.  They are transforming the area into an extremely nice urban area, a place fit to house a hundred thousand people.  A model showed the plans for the layout of the new South Saigon area.  It looks like it will a really modern, cool place to be for Vietnamese in the area.

After getting back, I took a nice nap, as I went to bed around 2:30 and woke up at 6:45 today.  Just got back from eating, now we’re all gonna go explore the town.  We haven’t made up our mind yet where we’re yet.

The past three days

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.

Tomorrow we go to Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.