Days Nine, Ten and Eleven

It is hard to believe that we only have 1 more day in Vietnam.  Tuesday and Wednesday we started the day like many others with a trip to UEF.  Both days we had a Vietnamese culture class followed by a language class.  In our language classes we reviewed everything we have learned so far and also learned more of the fundamentals of the language.  It continues to be obvious that English and Vietnamese are two very different languages.  In addition to the tones, Vietnamese also has more vowels and verbs are not conjugated.  For example "I go to the market" and "I went to the market" look exactly the same.  They differentiate the two by using words like today or yesterday with the phrases.

On Tuesday, after our morning at UEF, we went to Glass Egg.  Glass Egg is a company that is hired by other companies like Microsoft and other gaming companies to produces 3D graphics for video games.  When we got there we got a tour of the floor.  It was amazing because we got to see the artists working on current projects.  They mainly design cars and tracks for racing games but will occasionaly do characters or landscapes.  It normally takes an experienced design artist 32 days to finish one car...sometimes a company will ask for more than 200 cars for one contract.  After our tour we got a briefing about some of the details of the company.

Thursday we had a day trip to the Chu Chi Tunnels and the War Remnants Museum.  The tunnels were extremely eerie because we were on a site where the Vietnam War was actually being fought.  We got to see some of the traps the Vietnamese used against our soldiers and we also got to go down into the tunnels that they built to escape the enemy.  The tunnels were insanely small...definitely built for Vietnamese and not Americans.  We were only in the tunnels for less than five minutes and we came out completely drenched in sweat and dirty.  After the tunnels we went to the Museum.  It hit most of us very hard because we were seeing the Vietnam War from the complete opposite side.  It was rough to see how the Vietnamese were affected by the U.S. during the war and how they saw us a result.  Don't get me wrong, we have not seen or recieved any negative emotions from any of the Vietnamese we have encountered on our trip.  They have been nothing but welcoming and kind, however seeing the museum definitely hit home.  Tomorrow is our last full day here and it is jam packed with activities with our UEF friends!

Day Eight

The start of our second week here was spent with the Viet Thai International.  This company was started by David Thai who was born in Vietnam, moved to the States as a child and then return to Vietnam to start a coffee business.  That one coffee chain, Highlands Coffee, turned into a franchise that include multiple branches.  Basically, there is one main company, Viet Thai, at the top, then that is broken into four branches.  In one of the branches, Viet Thai teams up with a well known company like Nike and helps them develop stores in Vietnam.  We learned that it is very difficult for businesses like Nike to be successful in Vietnam because they do not understand that most people in this country make only about 1 to 2 dollars a day.  We had our meeting with Dan Thai at The Hard Rock Cafe in Ho Chi Minh which is run by the Viet Thai company.  The Hard Rock here is much like the Cafes in the States.  There is music memorabilia everywhere and the food is very good.  We also got to go the the Hard Rock Shop and buy what ever Hard Rock gear we wanted. 

After lunch at the Hard Rock we went to the Highlands Coffee training center in Ho Chi Minh City.  We talked to the Director of Highlands Coffee and he told us about how the company operates in the city and showed us how they make one of their most popular drinks.  He also told us about his background and what it was like to live in Vietnam and work for Viet Thai.  From the training center we all split up and I finally made it to the market.  It was interesting trying to bargain with the local venders and I ended up getting some very cool items.  Later on that night we were invited to karaoke with the Viet Thai company and it was a lot of fun! 

Day Seven

Today we spent the day in Vung Tau, a type of beach town.  We started off at 8:00 in the morning with an hour and a half boat ride from Ho Chi Minh City to Vung Tau.  The boat was called a hydrofoil and it was a really interested ride because we got to see the shoreline all the way to Vung Tau.  When we got to the town we stopped at a very cute coffee place to relax and have drinks before making our way to our site seeing stops.  We stopped at a Pagoda where locals go to pray.  The most interesting stop was to a huge statue of Jesus.  We had to hike all the way up this insanely large steep mountain to get to the statue.  I do not think I have sweated that much in my entire life.  When we finally made it up to the statue the view was amazing.  After climbing back down all of the steps we went to lunch at a local restaurant.  The food was very good with multiple courses like the other dinners we had before. 

When we finally made it to the beach we all headed straight for the water.  It was warmer than bath water but still very refreshing.  Tinh and An came up with a bunch of games for us to play on the beach...they made us look a bit weird but were still fun.  We had a banana relay race, a contest to see which team could fit all of it's members on a small piece of paper and a race to fill up containers to get a toy from the bottom.  After all of the games each team got a prize and we left the beach to head back to the boat.  All in all it was very hot, fun day at Vung Tau!

Day Six

Today was our first long day trip in Vietnam.  We woke up early to leave the hotel at 7:30 and headed to the Mekong Delta.  It was about an hour and a half long bus ride but we made a pit stop so it wasn't too bad.  We stopped at the Mekong Rest Stop and got to go into the gift shop that they had there.  It was a very pretty rest stop with a restaurant out back and a pond in the middle.  Our first destination in the Delta was a meeting with people for ACDI/VOCA.  They showed us around their compound and where they seperated and fermented the seeds from the cocoa.  We then went to the actual cocoa farm and got to sample some of their products.  The chocolate bars they let us eat were amazing!  They had milk, dark and white chocolate.  We also had the chance to buy the products they make.  I bought a container of hot chocolate mix made from the cocoa grown at the farm. 

After the cocoa farm we had lunch at a very nice restaurant in the Mekong Delta.  The lunch was set up much like our welcome dinner with multiple courses shared by the table.  The meal was very good and everyone left the table stuffed.  We boarded the bus for the third or fourth time that day and headed to a dock to hop on a boat for a river tour.  The dock was loaded with shops and most of us bought the cone hats rice farmers where.  Our tour guide took us to multiple banks and islands all along the Delta including coconut island where we got to sample coconut candy.  All of the food and candy that we got to try in the Mekong Delta was extremely good.  We left the Delta around 4 o'clock and returned to the hotel just in time to meet up with some UEF students for dinner.

We decided to go to a restaurant called Kishi Kishi for dinner.  Basically it is a building with a huge conveyor belt with chairs and hot pots around the belt.  You sit down and on the belt are all kinds of raw food that you take and boil in your hot pot.  There was everything from shrimp to noodles and it was an all you can eat type thing.  It has been easy to tell so far that the food here is much more unique and good than most food in the States.  Today was a very long day and I am looking forward to our day trip to the beach tomorrow!

Day Five

The fifth day was very fun and interesting.  We started off the day with a lecture about the Mekong Delta, where we are taking a day trip tomorrow.  The guest lecturer taught us about the culture and ethnicities that are located in the Delta.  We learned that there are four main ethnicities in the Delta and each one has a different country of origin.  This is good information to know so that we do not offend or embarrass any of the Vietnamese that live in the Delta.  After the Mekong Delta lecture we had another language class.  In this lecture we learned the structure of sentences and verbs.  We also learned the days and months and reviewed numbers and conversation phrases. 

After our language class we went on a company visit to ACDI/VOCA to learn about the Success Alliance that is going on in the Mekong Delta.  Basically the Success Alliance is a program that helps the farmers plant and successfully grow cocoa.  The company executives were very nice and gave each of us a hat and bag.  When the company visit ended we went to karaoke with a few of the Vietnamese students.  Karaoke is apparently a very popular hobby here in Vietnam because there are Karaoke bars everywhere.  It was so much fun to hang out with the Vietnamese students and sing very old American songs, like N’sync Bye, Bye, Bye.  I am very excited for the days ahead because we have two day trips coming up this weekend, one to the Delta and the other to the beach!  

Day Four

Today we had our first vietnamese culture class at UEF.  It was very interesting learning about how the Vietnamese use all of their senses to read people.  I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do when talking to the local people.  Also, we learned how our body language and facial expressions are interpreted by the Vietnamese people.  Their way of communicating with each other is very different than in the United States.  After our culture class we had another language class where we learned numbers and how to bargain with people in the market.  I am very excited to put our new language skills to the test.  We also had a very interesting trip to U.S. Department of Commerce today.  We learned how the Vietnamese people have become more comfortable being consumers and have a very positive outlook for the future.  They believe that each day is going to be better than the last and each year is going to be more positive than the previous.  I was surprised to learn how much the country has improved in areas such as its poverty rate and consumerism. 
After we got done at the Department of Commerce we went to a dance class with some of the UEF students.  It was on the roof of one of the University buildings overlooking part of the city.  Even though it was insanely hot and there were mosquitos everywhere, dancing was a lot of fun.  We learned the tango and some salsa and also showed the students some "American" dance moves.  Some of the students took us out to one of their favorite places to eat after dance class.  It was a shop type place with little tables set up on the sidewalk...the chairs were about the size of kindergarten chairs.  I'm glad they went out with us because I would have never known that the place we went to eat was an actual place to eat just by walking by.  Tomorrow we are planning on going to the market and then to karaoke with the Vietnamese students so I am very excited for that!

Day Two and Three

Our second full day in Vietnam was a long one.  Language classes are definitely my favorite part so far but its still early.  The teacher is so up beat and funny and makes us speak Vietnamese into a microphone in front of the class which is fun.  We visited Phu My Hung Corporation which is nothing like anything in the United States.  Basically Phu My Hung leased a large amount of land from the Vietnamese Government and developed it into land suitable to rent to other businesses and people.  Their compound is amazing and they are only done with part 1 of 5 seperate parts.  They have four districts within in their "park" and each district has everything a person would need to live within a ten minute walking distance.
On our third day we had 2 company visits and then a visit to one of the largest banks in Vietnam.  We got a tour of II-IV which is an engineering company that makes optics and thermoelectrical equipment.  The compound was very surprising because we got to see everything being hand made.  There were literally workers sitting in rows physically putting their products together.  After we got back to the hotel we decided to explore the area around our hotel.  We went to some shops around the city and bought a bunch of different things.  Within the next few days we are planning to go to the main market here in Ho Chi Minh City which I am very excited for!