Vietnam: Day 4

Four days in Vietnam has already blown my mind, I can’t imagine what’s to come in the next ten days.  This morning, I woke up, showered, and ate breakfast at the hotel, as per the usual.  Following breakfast, we took our bus to UEF and began the day with a Vietnamese culture class, one of four lectures about Vietnam that we will have during our stay here.  After about a half hour break, we had our third Vietnamese language class.  The Vietnamese student that sat between Laura and me on Monday and Tuesday was not there today; however, we still seemed to learn quite a bit.  We briefly went over what we had learned previously, followed by learning how to ask how much something costs and how to say prices (the numbers one to ten and the word for 1000; strung together you can say pretty much any number).  Lunch at the canteen was wonderful, like always.

Today’s company visit wasn’t a company, per say.  We went to the US Department of Commerce, a sort of branch of the US Consulate of Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City.  While there, we learned a lot about the United States exporting goods to Vietnam and the difficulties and benefits of doing so.  We also briefly talked about the differences in government and price points, and how they affect the commercial relations between the US and Vietnam.

Back at the hotel, a bunch of us decided to go swimming before our next set of plans commenced.  The pool (which was on the roof of the hotel, by the way) was a nice way to relax after class and visiting the consulate this afternoon.  Laura brought her camera up and took some pictures before deciding to join us in the pool; Eric’s camera was waterproof and thus was in the pool with us.  All in all, it was a fun hour or so.

Motorbike traffic in Ho Chi Minh City

Once dried and changed, we joined the UEF students for a dance class which happened to be on the roof a building as well.  We had a teacher and everything!  We learned a dance (that was pretty easy after you got the hang of it) that was sort of like the tango, mixing Pittsburgh students with UEF students, all one big happy family.  I danced with Phuong, which was indeed an interesting (and all over fun) experience.  Being only 5’1” or so, the foot plus difference in height made dancing both funny and a tad difficult.  I had to take really small steps to avoid stepping on her feet, which was pretty hard, considering I have long legs and am used to taking long strides.

Our circle on the roof before dancing

We cut out of dance about 20 minutes early to go out to dinner with some of the UEF students, who took us to a small outdoor food place where we sat on really small metal stools at a long metal table that was pretty damn low to the ground (by my standards, at least).  We ate spring rolls and chicken with rice, and I had a bottle of water.  The meal was very good (I mean, when hasn’t it been?), despite the fact that I decided to eat a full chilli pepper without having anything else to drink left.

Dinner

The chili peppers Tom, Laura, and I ate

The other table at dinner

To end the night, we took a walk around the area and ended up getting ice cream at a place around the corner.  I got an orange juice-type of dish with ice cream, which was different than what I was expecting but still very tasty.  A great end to an even better day.

Austin after eating his ice cream