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