Day 5

I started the day with the same standard routine. Then we went to UEF for a lesson on the history of the Mekong River Delta. We had an older professor, and I liked him a lot. He seemed to be a wise and experienced man, and I enjoyed listening to him. After the this lesson, we took a long break because some students want to get fitted suits. I got fitted for a gray suit and i was really excited to see how it was going to turn out; I have never before been fitted like this. After the fitting, we went to the library to play some games. I was on team "winners," which in no way foreshadowed our performance. Our slogan was "we are better than you...and we know it," and once again not completely accurate. The first game we played was a guessing game where you had to put your hands into ice water, pick out a fruit, describe it to your partner and guess. Team winners had minimal time because Garrett cheated, but it's okay. The second game was  a passing of an eggplant between your legs down a row of your team. Team winners actually won this one but I feel like I got a little to close to Garrett in the process. Last was a kind of Vietnamese telephone were we took a phrase off a little card and passed it down the line much like an eggplant. We got a tough one. I think team Winners took second place, which isn't last so I can't complain much. Everyone still got a nice bag of candy and fruit. Then we all did the chicken dance and the Macarena, or maybe we did that before. Tonight we went for a type of pancake that the teacher recommended that we get. It was very thin and filled with duck. I wrapped pieces of the pancake in pieces of fresh lettuce. I was very good. Since we were warned not to ride motorbikes in the meetings before hand, when I was asked if I would like to go for a ride I said no. But if i rode one, which i didn't, I would probably say it was a little terrifying at first because you come close to colliding to almost everything else on the road at some point. Remember this is all speculation. We journeyed to a dessert place where we sat on little plastic tables and tasted an assortment of "sweet soups." It was like nothing I have ever had before but I enjoyed it.  After the sweet soup, we didn't ride motor bikes to the outside of town to see a beautiful view of the city.

This is what the view would look like if we rode there

We went to one other spot to take in the view of the city. It truly was beautiful. Lastly, we didn't attempt to ride the motorbike in a small circle. It was another great day in Vietnam.

Day 4

I have fallen into a morning routine, same as yesterday. Today, we went to UEF. First, we had a lecture on the history and culture of Vietnam. The importance of the buffalo was stressed in the lecture because cows cannot be used to plow rice fields because the low lands are to wet for them. we had another language lesson today. I can pretty confidently say Vietnamese is not my language. I was having a hard time with correctly pronouncing words. The company that we visited today was Glass Egg. They make graphics for video games. They got their start by making cars and now are moving into the mobile game market. The company felt more relaxed than the others. I think it would be an interesting place to work. Walking through the office, I could see the programmers writing codes in C++ syntax. I thought that was interesting because I could recognize the purpose of some of the lines, but a lot of it was far beyond the scope of what we learned in Engr 12.

The view from Glass Egg

 I was very excited for dinner tonight. The idea was to walk until something looked good, and it did not take long. A group of us walked what could not have been more than 3 blocks to the right of the hotel before we were lured in by the smoky scent of barbeque. We could see meat cooking on the grill and spinning on skewers. The waiter unfolded tables for us on the sidewalk. I had the pigeon and it was delicious. I was very happy with the restaurant we had chosen. After dinner we went to a little place called Broma. It sat beneath the tallest building in Ho Chi Minh City. It was lite up and contrasted beautifully with the black Vietnamese sky. We had a fun night just talking and getting to know everyone a little better. It was another great day in Vietnam.

Day 3

Today started like any other day. I got up, took a shower, and headed down to the lobby to have breakfast. We did not go to UEF today, but we started the day by going to Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park. VSIP reminded me greatly of Phu My Hung. It was an industrial park that offered many benefits to businesses that established themselves within the park. I thought it was a good idea to help growth there. Within the park was the second company that we would be visiting that day, II-VI. II-VI was the company I did my group presented on prior to leaving. I know I am a nerd, but I loved II-VI. Probably my favorite company visit of the whole trip. Seeing the processes and having at least some understanding of the science that went into it was exciting to me. The big bubbling electro-chemistry tanks were cool because we had just learned about them in Chem 2. All the oxidation and reduction, pretty neat.

Look at all the science

After II-VI, we went out to lunch and we visited a porcelain shop. They had lots of little interesting figurines, a good spot from some trinkets for people. That was the end of the structured part of the day, so we headed back to the hotel. For dinner this night, we went to a French restaurant. The food was pretty good, but I wanted some more authentic Vietnamese food. After dinner, we went to a karaoke place. It was King Karaoke, and their motto was "Keep Impression Never Gone," which i thought was funny. We had a good time and sang some songs, but I think everyone was a little tired. It was a fairly early night comparatively, but all in all it was a good day.

Day 2

After breakfast at the hotel, everybody went to UEF for a lecture on the development of Ho Chi Minh City. I learned a lot about the advancements made by HCMC in the last few decades about the obstacles that must be overcome in the near future. HCMC is the economic center of Vietnam, and its GDP is expanding at a much greater rate than the country's as a whole. After the lecture on economic development, we had another language lesson. Again, the student that was helping me today was Julia. She was very helpful with the lesson, she even taught me a couple words that I should be more careful who I say them around. Also, in class we had to go through the scenario of meeting a new person. My partner was Uma , and you could say we did well...  you'd be wrong, but you could say it. To me it seemed to be a fairly standard script we had to go through, and Uma decided to change it up on me and cut a few of the parts out. I guess I could have been listening better, but I wasn't. As a result I responded totally inappropriately. At least everyone got a good chuckle out of it. I've been told before that when having a conversation with someone most people are more concerned with what they will say next than what the other person is saying. I guess I was guilty of that and I should probably work on that. We had lunch at the canteen, and started our way to the company we would be visiting that day, Phu My Hung. Phu My Hung is an industrial park and their goal is to construct a perfect utopian city in accordance with their "master plan." They had a very futuristic and interesting presentation, but it kind of gave me the creeps. First, I always get skeptical when I am being targeted. Little things of the presentation indicated that it was made for an American audience, like the use of the term "Vietnam War" instead of "American War." Also, the ideal of a utopia always raises red flags with me. The idea of living in a place that "has everything one could ever need, with no need to leave for any reason" makes me a little uneasy. This being said I think with the population growth the need to develop southward will be needed, and I loved the idea of the competition that was held for the best city plan for this expansion. After a brief history of Phu My Hung, we made it into a room, and we could so out the window the large inflatable duck who recently made an appearance in Pittsburgh, so a picture was needed.

A lot of pictures were taken in the room and the tour concluded. Now, it was time for us to return to the hotel. We later went out to dinner with the students from UEF. Everything was delicious, and I had my first taste of Pho in Vietnam, which I was looking forward to. After dinner we went out to do some group bonding. I had a very fun and interesting second day in Vietnam.
 

Day 1

Today was the first, real day in Vietnam. We all started with a breakfast at the hotel. All the food was delicious. I tried various dumplings and noodles, but my favorite thing was the coffee. It is stronger than the coffee and home and its mixed with condensed milk. Then after breakfast, everyone got on to the bus and headed to UEF to meet the students that will be spending the next weeks with and to have a welcoming ceremony.  The first person I met was named Julia. I was immediately impressed by her English. She spoke very clearly and was able to understand very well. She seemed cool; we made small talk until the beginning of the welcoming. The first thing they did was a traditional dance. After the dance a girl came to sing to us. She wanted everyone to join in and as she was walking between the desks with an extra microphone to find someone to help her sing, I kept my head low and broke eye contact because I did not know the words to the song. Luckily, she walked up to Abe and put the microphone in his hand. Like me, Abe did not know the words either, which was funny. After this welcome, we had our first language lessons. We started by learning all the tones and vowels of the language. I was having a little bit of a hard time getting all of them. After he language, we had lunch at the canteen in at the school. Everything they served us was very good. After lunch we headed to the US consulate for a little history lesson on the attack on the former embassy and to talk with some of the workers. After the consulate we went to dinner as a group at Wrap it or Roll it. We got to wrap our own spring rolls. Tin Tin said i was the best wrapper. It was all very good, and we all had fun. After dinner the whole group went out to bond on the first night. It started slow but I feel like it ended well. It was a good first day and I am excited to see what tomorrow will hold.