God I love Vietnam!

Well, I will apologize for nothing keeping up with this blog (Colin also sends his regrets).  We have been extremely busy traveling about the city and performing numerous jobs for APU.  But, I will be glad to bring you all up to speed and discuss the past couple of days.

If it has been one thing I will not forget, it has been the gigantic dinners I have experienced here in Vietnam.  Dr. Tran, APU’s CEO, took us out to dinner the past three nights to experience cuisines from the south, central, and northern regions of Vietnam.  Personally, I enjoyed the southern cuisine the most, followed by the northern, and lastly the central region.  During the day, we would have lunch at some local places around town.  Breakfast here in Vietnam consists usually of a dish called “Pho`”.  Pho` is a bowl of noodles in broth with some chili peppers, pieces of meat, and some scallions.  I wish I could bring back some of the food because discussing it through words just isn’t enough!

American Pacific University is a unique building located on the corner of a busy street in district 11.  The university is currently comprised of students from 7th to 12th grade.  Colin and I were lucky enough to prepare a presentation about life at American universities and our own experiences at RWU.  Some of the students were very interested in what we had to say, and others seemed interested in just leaving class.  But in the long run, we provided the students with some helpful information that hopefully weeded out some nervous butterflies they may have had… or may still have.  We also provided the students with our emails in case they were shy during the Q & A session and wish to ask some questions.

Our trio has had some great opportunities to explore the city of Ho Chi Minh.  We have visited the Vietnam War museum, plenty of Vietnamese markets, Ho Chi Minh museum, and other district attractions.  The Vietnam War museum was extremely moving.  I have never seen war images from Vietnam and they had plenty portrayed for public viewing.  Before entering the museum, I thought it was going to be extremely bias but I was mistaken.  I was not offended at all.  They had plenty of pictures and actual war weapons such as tanks, planes, and artillery out in the court yard for viewing.  (Pictures below).  The Vietnamese markets were quite interesting.  Many have a plethora of items the people sell.  Items range from pocketbooks, watches, clothing, electronics, wooden trinkets, and most importantly, food.  However, in some parts of the market, the smell could be unbearable to the untrained American nose.  I would like to say that $100 USD will buy you tons of things in Vietnam.  The exchange rate here is incredible.  For $1 USD, you receive 15,900 VND. (Vietnamese Dong).  Typically, many of the items sell for less than 50,000 Dong.  Most amazing was how cheap our meals were.  Even though the three of us would eat like kings, most of the meals only cost about at most 120,000 Dong.  I am going to greatly miss this . 

Vietnam has been preparing for its Moon Cake festival happening this upcoming Friday.  Moon Cake can be described as something similar to our Fruit Cakes we make on holidays.  However, these moon cakes are not just filled with fruits, they have been found to contain meats, fruits, nuts, and chocolate.  We were lucky enough to try a few at APU because today (Oct. 5th) is Colin’s birthday.  We had a small party with the APU staff and enjoyed some moon cake with them.  Tonight, we plan to go to a very popular Vietnamese club called “Apocalypse”.  Tomorrow morning we are going to be flying to the resort town of Nah Trang.  In Nah Trang we are scheduled to scuba dive and some other interesting events found in the mostly tourist inhabitant section of Vietnam.  More photos to come Sunday.