And 9

Back to the usual shenanigans at UEF followed by company visits. Today we had culture class, followed by language class, followed by the same lunch place. After this, we went to the Nam Vietnam Bank, shortened to Navi Bank. Don't ask me why it isn't the Viet Nam Bank. This was a fun visit because one of our Vietnamese friends came along to translate.

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant called Pomodoro that was absolutely amazing. I got gnocchi which I rarely even get at home,so I was a happy camper that night.

There was nothing too noteworthy about this day, so I'm gonna take the rest of this blog to go through some random comments I have on Vietnam.

The traffic is still ridiculous but I'm starting to get used to it. I saw one accident the whole time I've been here, and it wasn't even that bad. I think the reason there aren't a hundred more accidents a day is because everybody is going pretty slow, like not above 40, and nobody ever gets angry at other drivers. If someone honks, they seem to do it in an amicable manner only to remind other drivers that they are there.

Everyone here is so worried about getting even the slightest bit tan. I talked a little bit about Dee, who wore head to toe clothing into the ocean, after wearing head to toe clothing on our 120 degree hike. He is a little extreme, but all the other Vietnamese I have met are also constantly worried about their skin tone. I have seen shorts on a girl once this entire trip, unless it is at night at a club, in which case I've seen some of the shortest skirts in existence.

Speaking about the clubs, they are pretty fun. We've been to a few and went back to one the other day, and we always have a good time. The one club, Apocalypse, is littered with prostitutes and security guards, so there's a certain aura to it, but because we always go as a group, we end up having a good time. The other one, Lush is more fun. I still don't have any pictures of it, though. Tuesdays nights are ladies night, where girls get free drinks til 12. We attended this, and it was nice to not have to spend any money.

Spending money here is easy to do. Everything is so much cheaper than America. There's a Starbucks a few minutes away by taxi, and me and Clarissa are planning to go there to see if its cheaper or the same. But you can get a 5 dollar entree that is so delicious that you come close to ordering another, until you realize you're full. I'm definitely eating a lot less here, but what I do eat is such high quality that I kind of don't even notice.

Just to reiterate, the food here is amazing. Some of the best food I've ever had. I've had amazing Vietnamese, Italian, French, and American.... Pretty high quality, yet still so cheap. I've lived like what I imagine celebrities to have lived like these past 2 weeks, between the stares everywhere I go, and the delicious restaurants at beautiful venues. I could get used to it, but alas, in less than a week I'll be back in the states.

More Than Halfway

After our weekend, Dr. Berman went easy on us for a day. We started out with a language class, and then we had a tour of Ho Chi Minh City. We stopped at the major monuments, including the Reunification Palace, the Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Post Office. The Palace was grandiose and gorgeous. I went to the top where there was a fantastic view looking down one of the main streets of Ho Chi Minh City. All over the city there are pictures of the North Vietnamese tank breaking down the front gates of this palace, and so actually being here was another time of reflection about the war. This is an important monument, because its where South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam, and finally put an end to the war. 

Reunification Palace

The tank breaking through the gates

Here are the same gates, tens of years later

Notre Dame Cathedral

Post Office

After this, we went to an authentic Vietnamese market in the Chinatown of Vietnam. This was quite an experience. It was a big indoor thing with a bunch of stands set up, and we were the only white people there. In class we were taught how to bargain with the sellers, but when we went to this market, every stand basically had a fixed price and you could maybe get things down 50 cents. Not at all what i thought it would be like. It was really interesting to see the lifestyles these people live, though, and I found myself thinking about how lucky I am. We saw some deformed people, and learned that this could potentially be from agent orange, even though its so long after. It was a valuable experience and really authentic. 

The tourist market is called Benh Thanh, and this is much more what I was expecting. A stand was selling shot glasses for 150,000 Dong each, and I bargained it down to 6 for 250,000. Felt pretty good about it. I got some souvenirs for my loved ones but still need to go back because I ran out of money pretty quickly. After this, we went to a phenomenal French restaurant called Titi. I have yet to have a bad meal here, by the way. Every place we eat is delicious. Especially the different places we go for dinner. The lunch at UEF is getting old, but so does anything after having it multiple days in a row.

So yeah we went to Titi, and I had some ostrich, which tasted a bit like beef, but was just a bit more tender. So good. We were planning to do something fun after this dinner, but we came back to the hotel after and I lay in my bed for a few minutes and passed out for the night. Found out the next day that this happened with just about everyone else. We have really tiring days, even when were having fun.

7 Days

Today was our beach day to Vung Tau. It was the prettiest island I've ever been to but I can't upload any pictures of it because I took them all on my camera. We took a hydrofoil down the Saigon River and into the South China Sea, aka the East Sea, aka the Pacific Ocean. It was another insanely hot day and the sweating was ridiculous. Really brings the group closer because everyone's all suffering together. We went to a temple, which had very intricate designs and was beautiful. ( I forgot to blog about this, but we also went to one on the Cu Chi day, they were both intricate and beautiful.) The Vietnamese students came with us to this trip, but since paleness is revered here, they all cover up every inch of their bodies. It blows my mind that they don't get heat stroke more often. So, we went to the temple and then went on a sort of hike where we climbed up a whole lot of stirs until we reached a Jesus. By the way, this beach reminded me of pictures I've seen of Rio de Janeiro. Only this was on a smaller scale. But yeah that's the mental picture you should have.

So then we went to the beach and swam and relaxed. Usually at the Jersey Shore around this time, it's still a little too cold to stay in the water for 3 hours. Here, it's hard to stay out of the water for more than 15 minutes. Oh and the Vietnamese stayed under an umbrella for most of the time, and then finally came in the water fully clothed. A very interesting cultural difference. It was a relaxing day, and at the end we took the hydrofoil back up the river. After this I went back to the hotel and showered, followed by a quality bonding outing at a Japanese restaurant. The group dynamics somehow work out pretty seamlessly, and we're having a lot of fun together.

The Jesus statue we saw

The beach we were on, with the Jesus statue in sight on the hill.

Almost A Week

Cu Chi Tunnels today. For those of you that don't know, these are the complex underground tunnels the Vietcong made and used throughout the war. They're located out in the countryside, so on our drive we passed rice patties, rubber tree plantations, water buffalo, and emaciated cows.

 Patties

Rubber Trees

A few water buffalo

In the city, it feels like any other urban area, and its hard to picture where the war could've taken place. Once we got outside the city a little bit, I really started to feel like I was in Forrest Gump-like territory, and it was an eerie feeling. It's hard to not think about the war out there, and I found it difficult to thoroughly enjoy my day, when there was so much suffering right where I was standing only a few years before.

The tunnels were a once in a lifetime experience. We got to climb though a few different tunnels, and enter one through an entrance the Vietcong would've used, which I barely fit through. You had to crouch down and try to keep up with the tour guide, who was a pro at scurrying through the small spaces. The tunnels opened up into rooms at different points, and they had fake people acting out scenes, which scared me every single time. The crazy thing was that there were parts of the tunnel that weren't part of the tour, but also weren't blocked off, so you could easily take a wrong turn and explore the vast tunnels, at your own risk. There were bats at a few points in the tunnel, and keep in mind they are 3 feet high and there's really no turning around to escape, so you have to keep going through. Also, you know the scene in Harry Potter where Mad Eye Moody performs the unforgivable curses on that little spider thing? That spider is real, and a little bigger, and lives in the Cu Chi Tunnels. Greg has a picture on his blog I think, and its the scariest picture ever.

Me

Fake people scene

Spinning bamboo trap

So yeah the Cu Chi tunnels were crazy. Really my favorite event so far. This was also when we first got to really experience how hot it actually is in Vietnam. The whole week we really only had to walk from the bus to an air conditioned building, and we thought that was bad enough. But being outside with no AC relief for like 6 hours was rough. A few people puked. Still the highlight of the trip, though.

Lunch was on the Saigon River and was pretty good. It was a nice break from the food we have at UEF every other day.

This was the view.

For dinner, me, Sam, and Clarissa went to a place called monsoon that served really really good authentic food from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. It looked pretty ritzy so we felt out of place but it was also pretty empty. That seems to be the trend here.

Behind me is the ritzy dinner place. Things that are pretentious are mixed right in with the locals on the streets.

Five

This morning we had a really interesting culture class, and another funny language class. The Vietnamese are so cute and so willing to help. It's a great environment to try to learn this complicated sing song language. I also had to go to the school nurse again....always interesting. I was wearing sneakers and the lady was disturbed at this fact an d wanted my wound to get some fresh air, so she sent Tin Tin on a mission to find some shoes. He came back with these. I laughed for days. Nobody else here appreciates how funny these shoes are, so I guess you just had to experience the journey it was to get them. 

Also, as promised, here's Tin.

In the afternoon we had this culture exchange program, where there was planned fun for us 'Mericans. We were separated into 4 groups for the whole thing, and I was team Blue Dynamite, and one of our Vietnamese members made up our cheer, which was, "You want a piece of me, so come and get it!". It was a very entertaining afternoon. First we had to make up a dance with our 10 group members in 2 minutes, so you can imagine how that turned out. Our team came in 4th place, and we deserved it. Then we had a guessing game, where there were 7 things you had to describe to make a Vietnamese parter guess what it was, where the average number of things the Vietnamese actually got was 2. That language barrier will getcha. But it was funny to watch. Then there was this big twister-like board with dice that they brought out, but it wasnt twister at all, and I can't even begin to describe how you played. If you're truly interested feel free to ask me in person.

At night we had our club that the Glass Egg company set us up with. We all got dinner together as a group. It was fun to have it be just us. Oh and a Vietnamese student, Julie, came, and she's cool and basically fluent in English. We went to a French place, where we had heard there were, and in fact, are, amazing burgers. Then we took a cab over to Lush. I didn't bring my phone, so I don't have any pictures, but it was a pretty typical club, from my knowledge of clubs in the US. It was pretty cool and fun, though. We had a private little section on the second floor overlooking the dance area, and the manager came over and was talking to us for half the night. You know that scene in the social network where they're in a dark club and meet Justin Timberlake? It was kinda like that. So yeah we hung out there for a bit and it was fun. Then by the time we were all ready to leave I was exhausted so I went right to sleep once I got home. 'Twas a fun day.

The Fourth

Said foot injury was worrying me, because I didn't know if I needed stitches or not. I was convinced I did but everyone I said that too said I didn't. Went down to breakfast and found Dr. Berman and Brian in their usual breakfast spots. I went to Brian, who was actually an EMT at a point in his life, and only stopped worrying when he said it'd be fine. Shout out to him for being extremely helpful throughout this injury, and touching my foot, which not many people would do. He taped it together for me so that it would heal a little better. Then once we got to the school, Tin took me to the school nurse and I got to experience the good old Vietnamese healthcare system. The good news is that I'll have a scar to remember my first trip to Vietnam. No sarcasm there. I had previously thought about getting a tattoo saying "not all those who wander are lost" in almost the exact place the gash is, but I think this scar is the perfect alternative. This will absolutely thrill my dad.

This is the nurses office, pretty similar to home.

This is a picture I took while waiting for the nurse.

After my nurse visit, I returned to language class. Anh was my partner today and she gave me a little gel thing with fruit in it, which brought back some serious memories from my childhood. Mom, I don't know if you remember these little things but you used to bring them back from work and I had an obsession with them. In language class we learned how to count, and reinforced the few sentences that we know.

After lunch we headed to the Glass Egg, which was my favorite company so far. The CEO, CFO, and COO all met with us and gave us a tour of their company. It was a really creative environment and looked like the best job ever if you have an artistic ability or interest, and the interest is there for me but not the talent. There was an awesome view from the conference room, and the COO had a French accent that kept my attention throughout the presentation. The CEO was a Vietnamese American, and the CFO was American. The company basically makes 3-D art and sells it to gaming companies, and they had another great business model. At the end of their presentation, they invited us to their club, Lush, and said they would reserve us a table and get us discounted drinks. So that's our plan for Friday.

That's Dr. Berman on the left enjoying the view.

Ho Chi Minh Citay

At dinner time, Anh and some other Vetnamese students took us to a karaoke bar! It was really fun. But there wasn't dinner there so I started losing steam at some point. When we left, us Americans tried to pick up the bill but the other students would not let us!! It's an interesting culture thing because if anyone offered to pay for me, they would not get a single argument from me. Tomorrow is gonna be an easy day. No company visit, we're gonna learn to bargain in language class, and then we have an afternoon of games with the Vietnam students.

72 Hours In

Third morning waking up at 6 am. All time record. Same routine with the breakfast and coffee but then instead of going to the school we had 2 company visits. One being another industrial park called VSIP and then a company inside the park called II-VI. It was a really long bus ride. We had 2 presentations followed by a tour of 2 II-IV factories. Fun fact, it's called II-IV because its first products were made from elements in th periodic table from groups II and VI.  We learned about the workers' working conditions which were seriously not ideal, but what was the most sad was that they were away from their families, which is hard in Vietnamese culture because family is so important. It was sad. Walking through the factories, the workers would not stop staring at us. It was, for lack of a better word, fun at first but then it just started to get uncomfortable. I felt like I was always being watched here, just like Phu My Hung, but in a different, much, much less intimidating way.

Picture from that long bus ride

Ok it may not look like they were staring at us but I didn't wanna take a picture of them as they were making eye contact because thats weird. So this is them working.

After these visits, Tin Tin took us to a Chinese restaurant that was unlike any Chinese I've ever had. By the way I don't know if I've talked about Tin but he works at the Vietnamese school we go to and is with us like all through school and company visits and bus rides. He's a sweetheart. I'll get a picture with him soon. Back to the Chinese restaurant. I was expecting lo mein and fried rice and all those typical things but it was actually a bunch of quality seafood. My favorite was this shrimp where you could eat the shell and it had some tangy sweet sauce on it. Whilst eating it started pouring rain, in a pretty literal sense of the word. Had an extremely interesting talk with Dr. Berman about what Vietnam used to be like. He's seen it through all development stages basically, from rural with no motorbikes to the roaring city it is today. We're really really lucky to get to experience this country with him.

After lunch we had another long bus ride ahead of us to EIU, so we started some bus games. I had never played any of them so I was cracking up the whole time. We played Dirtay Dirtay and Mafia, but the former was my favorite. If you don't know what these games are I recommend you play them. We got to the school and it was still monsooning, so faculty and students greeted us with umbrellas off the bus. Someone tripped on the way out of the bus and we had a good laugh at his expense. The students at EIU were so excited to see us and they were so cute! They had speeches prepared for us and games and I loved the visit. One of the girls presenting was very good at English, and had an Australian accent. I never thought about it, but of course you'll have the accent of whoever's teaching you! It was so cool and I was wondering what a hardcore Scottish accent would sound like on one of these students.

We went back to the hotel and hung out til dinner. Just us Americans ventured out on our own to a pretty Westernized place with good Vietnamese food, but the experience was less fun because the waiters spoke English. Then we went to a club, which was weirdly hopping for a Wednesday night. One of the students was approached by a pimp, and politely declined when offered services. Then, something tragic happened. One of my peers dropped a glass on the dance floor and the inside of my left foot was at the wrong place at the wrong time and was struck by a stray piece of glass. Blood was gushing, so Clarissa escorted me to the bathroom and started fixing it up. One worker was disgusted, but another came in and started coddling my foot and being so so so helpful. She got me a band aid and gave me some extras. I tried to tip her two hundred thousand ( I'd never be able to do that in America, but she would not take it. No matter what I did :( so I had to be content with thanking her profusely. 

Second Day

Second Day

Woke up this morning and got another delish breakfast. Me and Clarissa went back to the street vendor and got cafe sua da, aka the best iced coffee I've ever had in my life. It has like condensed milk in it that makes it thicker than US of A coffee, and is really sweet. I had 4 of them throughout the day today. 

We had language class this morning and I set next to Cham and Com. They were really good at English and really helpful with teaching me the language until we started talking about Facebook. Then we went on our phones and started adding each other and it snowballed into a conversation about social media until the teacher I think scolded them in Vietnamese. Anyway they started teaching me again. Now I can say Hi my name is Brooke. What is your name? Hi. Bye. See you again. Nice to meet you. So yeah, pretty exciting. Haven't used it on anyone on the streets yet but I will.

After language class we went to Phu My Hung Corporation in South Saigon, and on the bus ride up I sat next to Anh. She was sooooooooo nice and we talked the whole way. We had another Facebook exchange (they seem to really love Facebook over here) but also talked about more serious things. She invited me over to her house and said she wanted to cook me a real Vietnamese dinner! So I hope I can do that. Dr. Berman said prior to the trip that if we were half decent human beings that this would happen, so that made me feel pretty good about myself. Phu My Hung was a crazy like utopian/dystopian 1984 type thing. It was this huge industrial park that had residential areas and malls and companies and was huge. The business model they described to us was so impressive as well as the view from the building we were in. See below. The only way I can think how to convey how great the planning was for this place is by telling the people reading this, who are reading this who is probably my mom aunt and maybe brother (hi fam love yall), that they had guesstimated that in the future there would be metros throughout the city, so they left space for thins so they didnt have to tear anything down. This was 15 years ago they thought of this, and theres still no metro so kudos to them for thinking in advance. The guy who presented to us went to school in the US so he knew English pretty well and told us to hit him up if we wanna go out. We haven't yet. But yeah so the place/ park/ development was really really nice and only for the rich folk of Vietnam, but it almost had a George Orwell feel to it where I was always being watched.

This is only part of the view. That's the tallest building in Vietnam all the way in the background. It's near my hotel.

Here's the bae Anh!

We got back to the hotel and swam in our balcony pool overlooking some rock climbing wall. Then I should've blogged but instead had a gin and tonic and tried to nap, to no avail. I'm kinda always tired here but it don't realize it because we're always doing something. Then we went to dinner with our Vietnamese friends. This meal was like a do it yourself hibachi, on the roof of a building. We started with some goat and beef, who knew I liked goat. We sat next to Dwan and he kinda did the cooking for us. It was my favorite meal so far. Then the waiters brought out some shrimp on skewers with their heads on, and I was a little grossed out but I love shrimp so I was down. Then the shrimp started moving. Like wiggling their feet and squirming. On the plate. On skewers. I freaked out but figured it was kinda like a chicken, so when you cut off its head (or stab a skewer through its body), its already dead but it still moves for a bit. So that was a little inhumane but it doesn't get fresher than that. And once you got over that you watched it die, it was delicious. Also there were cats roaming around this rooftop and I wanted to touch one but was scared of rabies.

When we got back to the hotel we had an awesome conversation with Brian for a half hour. I checked Facebook and I had about 10 friend requests form my Vietnamese friends. I was already the cover photo and profile picture of Anh, so I felt pretty important. Then I checked my messages, and had one from this kid I kinda remembered saying, and I quote, "Found you in the river of pure emotions. :D". So once again feeling pretty good about myself, cuz I don't you're found in that kind of river everyday. Overall, another really amazing day in Vietnam. Never wanna leave.

There's that rock climbing wall

Day One

So we got into Vietnam last night at around 10:30, after over 30 hours of transit from Pittsburgh. We were told that every year someone's baggage gets lost, and I was sure I would be the victim, but luckily everyone's luggage made it to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon as the locals say). Dr. Berman and our Vietnamese guide Tin met us at the airport and took us to the hotel, where I was too pumped to sleep, and killed time by unpacking and exploring the hotel with my roommate.

The next day Clarissa and I woke up at 5:45 and went down to the hotel breakfast, where we got our first glimpse of the Saigon traffic. The breakfast was what we would consider lunch, but it was my favorite meal of the day. I tried everything from the fresh juice, fresh fruit, to the dumplings, fried rice, and famous beef pho soup. We sat right by the window and watched as the streets filled up, and the motorbikes weaved in and out of cars, buses, and other motorbikes, onto the sidewalk if it seemed necessary.

Motorbike traffic

Beef pho and some more traffic.

I thought New York City traffic was something, but there are 4 times the amount of vehicles, smaller and maneuverable, making the traffic much more intense and scary. I decided I wanted to ride on the bikes as soon as possible.

After breakfast we roamed the streets and got some cafe sua da, which is an iced coffee with condensed sweet milk and was one of the highlights of my day. This was my first real experience with the language barrier, and it was weird but manageable. The culture is so different here and certain things are offensive here that aren't at home, so I try to keep my gestures to a minimum. Crossing your legs means you think everyone is below your feet, ergo below you, and crossing your arms means you are uninterested by what a person is saying. Anyway, we got this amazing coffee for less than a dollar and then headed back to the hotel because it was time to go to school.

We arrived at UEF to a banner welcoming us as well as some people taking video and pictures. We went into a big room where we met the Vietnamese students we would see over the next two weeks, did introductions, and then had some welcome performances. The first one was a hip hop dance that was kind of sexy, which I was not expecting at all.... like at all.... And then the second one was more traditional, and at the end one of the dancers gave me a rice farming hat, which I was planning on purchasing, but now don't have to. Then we went to our language class, which was ridiculous. We were there for an hour, the end product being the ability to speak a poor, poor attempt at two sentences; Hello, my name is Brooke, and See you again. The language is fascinating, though. The alphabet was almost the same, but there are 5 different sounds for every vowel, each meaning a totally different word, which is what we focused on learning the first day. The teacher is very good, and there are two Vietnamese students to every one of us who sit next to us and help with pronunciation. I should be able to bargain in the market by the end of the week. So they say. We left the school after this and had lunch down the street, where you had the option to fish for your shrimp in a little pool right next to the table. We skipped on this luxury and just ate our lunch and headed out. Lunch consisted of rice, shrimp that still had a face, pork, rice, a broths soup, a slimy vegetable, some beef, and rice. It was served family style and was pretty good, but I preferred breakfast.

Then we went to the U.S. Embassy and had a really interesting conversation with 2 men who were public servants and serving in Vietnam. Their jobs sounded awesome, and made me start to think about doing what they do, although I'm not entirely sure what that is. What I do know is that with this job, they get assigned to a country that they have to serve, and they go through intensive language training, for up to two years, and then they live in the country for an extended amount of time. This sounded like such a cool job, because you would be totally immersed in the country's culture and language, but they said it wasn't always easy.

After, we were given a tour of the rest of the embassy, and this was another highlight of the day. We stood on the ground where the Tet Offensive took place, some of the landmarks still exactly where they were. We learned some recently declassified information about this attack, and then were shown the to conflicting memorials of the event, one commemorating the US soldiers, and one commemorating the Vietcong. This was so eye-opening for me because it really shows how history can be skewed. We were warned that there will be more of these conflicting viewpoints later in the trip.

For our welcome dinner, we went to Wrap and Roll closer to the center of Ho Chi Minh. There was too much food for us all to handle, and one kid fell asleep at the table because we were all so jet lagged. I went back to the hotel hoping to go to sleep, but some Vietnamese students were waiting there to hang out with us. With motorbikes. Suddenly not so tired anymore, I hopped on the bike ready to take off into the traffic. It was so different being on the bike compared to the bus, and I felt like a local. They took us around the city and then to an ice cream place. The motorbikes were my favorite thing so far. But it's only the first day. More language class and Phu My Hung visit tomorrow!