Phu My Hung and Motorbiking

Once again, another early morning. We went to breakfast and had the usual… fried rice, biscuits, beef or beef noodles. But once again I had several cups of the passion fruit juice. It is so much better than the orange juice. Once again we rode to UEF. Today we were hearing from a PhD of urban studies. He talked to us about the urban development of Vietnam. It was very interesting the changes they were planning in Ho Chi Minh City and the rest of Vietnam.  In language class we learned how to count from one to one million and more. Similar to English, they use a combination of words to form different numbers. It took me awhile but I think I may have mastered the number system. Although large numbers (like 123.456.789) take me a long time to say… I’m pretty sure I sound ridiculous saying it. I used periods instead of commas in the number because that’s how the Vietnamese typically do it; at least I think it is. We also now know enough to be able to bargain in the market, but I still don’t feel comfortable with a ll of the pronunciations. We again had lunch in the UEF canteen, I can use chopsticks pretty confidently now although rice troubles me. At lunch our Vietnamese friends told us that they would take us out to dinner on the motorbikes tonight. Although I am feeling slightly hesitant about it, I feel like it’s gonna be a great experience.

After lunch, we traveled to Phu My Hung in South Saigon. South Saigon is a newly built part of Ho Chi Minh City. It’s very nice and comparable to a Floridian town in the tropics. A lady at Phu My Hung gave us a presentation about the work they’re doing in South Saigon. I was thoroughly amazed. The city of Ho Chi Minh is incredibly overcrowded so the government is looking for a way to decrease this. They asked a group of companies to expand. The resulting work is unbelievable.  Phu My Hung, along with a few other companies, are, in effect, building an entire city. They began in the early 90’s and still have decades of work left. But what they have done is mind blowing. The size of the operation is unlike anything I could have imagined. There are residential areas. There are commercial and retail areas. There are industrial and working areas. There are new mega highways, metros, and sewage systems. I am still in shock about the magnitude of it.

After coming home from Phu My Hung, we had short time to rest before going with our new friends to dinner. We took the motorbikes to and from dinner. This was absolutely the highlight of the night. After driving through the streets of Ho Chi Minh in the van, I was eager to experience it from the other side. I loved it and I can’t wait to do it again!

Although I am very interested in trying as much food as I could, my stomach was not feeling very good so I decided that I would pass on the food. The name slips my mind right now, but the food was some kind of pancake wrap almost. It’s hard to explain but there were mixed feelings about it; some of us loved it while others did not. I guess you get that with all foods, even those in Vietnam. After eating dinner at a local Vietnamese restaurant, our new friends took us to get ice cream. I got apple pie and it was very good! It absolutely settled my stomach. I did not have a very healthy dinner but hopefully I’ll be feeling better at dinner tomorrow.

Because we had found out that getting suits tailored for us is much cheaper in Vietnam, Tran talked to one of her friends and brought a tailor to the hotel. Several of us decided that we wanted to get suits. I don’t really need a suit but I did want a sports jacket. A personally tailored sports jacket is sooo much cheaper here than it is at home so I figured that I might as well make an investment in a sports jacket.

That’s all for today. I know that there will be even more fun and excitement tomorrow!