Urban Adventure

Day Two keep things rolling in HCMC. Another easy morning today; woke up and ate some more delicious breakfast at the Victory Hotel. We took our bus to UEF and had our first guest lecture of the trip. Du Phouc Tan (PhD), a Chair from the Department of Urban Management at the HCMC Institute for Development Studies, spoke to us about Urban Planning and Development in HCMC and how it is advancing into the future. It was a very insightful lecture and provided us with ample information on the current state of HCMC and the plans for the next 10 years. The city is rapidly expanding and more residential areas are needed to accommodate this influx. There are also plans to develop a public transportation system as one does not currently exist; this will consist of busses, a monorail, and a metro. Most people in the city ride motorbikes so it will be interesting to see the outcome of the projects in the near future. After the lecture, we had a short brake and were able to walk down the street to try some local restaurants, I had some "Atom" ice cream, which was basically vanilla custard with a chocolate shell, so good. We went back into UEF for language class: MORE FUN! Today was more greeting phrases and more practice with the tones, tough, but getting used to it. We left with tired jaws (from odd pronunciations) and headed to lunch (again, another great meal). We cleaned up back at the hotel and put on our business casual attire for our first company visit, Phu My Hung. This company develops residential and business complexes around HCMC. The projects are absolutely amazing, building small cities from just the old marshes of Saigon. After a talk about the company and the progress it has made in the city, we took a bus tour through some of the new residential developments and saw several of the international schools. Only half of the residents in these developments are Vietnamese, many spots are filled by people from Korea, Singapore, and Australia. These are foreign investors who have stake in Vietnam; Phu My Hung provides a draw for them to conduct business in HCMC. The bus the made its way through thick traffic and finally made it back to the hotel. We relaxed for a bit and enjoyed some refreshing bubble tea from Kate (Ngoc), a student at UEF and president of the English Club. She, along with a group of other UEF students took us down town to take in the HCMC night life. Transportation may or may not have included motorbikes which may or may not have been amazing. There also may or may not have been a situation in which I initially didn't have a helmet and my incredibly nice driver had to stop and pick one up. (I'm really sorry mom and Dr. Berman). Anyway... we went to restaurant towards downtown and finally ate "phở". This is a very popular Vietnamese dish consisting of rice noodles in broth and some kind of meat (I personally went with Nam, well-done beef). THIS WAS SO GOOD!! A nice man sitting at another table gestured us to different items on the table to add to our bowls of phở and we followed his instructions with pleasure. We continued downtown after this to the cathedral and ate some more food, this time street food. Again, everything was delicious, though I had some difficulty with the tofu, but the corn and crab mix made that go away. We walked to what was essentially the HCMC equivalent of Time Square to take in the full effect of the lights of HCMC. Side note: it is significantly cooler at night and a breeze swept across the street to make it feel pretty great. We bought some kind of light toys on the street that launch high into the air and come whirling back down with little wings, more great fun. We wrapped up our day with a walk back to the hotel to relax and recover. I'm so glad we're staying busy and getting to experience Vietnam to the fullest, but it's late again so I'll have to say Xin chào! Hẹn gặp lại! (Good bye! See you later!)