Get in, We're Going Shopping

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling decently sick to my stomach, but this was one day that I did not want to miss out on any of the adventures.

After breakfast, we went to language class. Even though I wasn't feeling well, I still had to focus on the lesson because today we would actually need to use what we were learning to be able to go to the market in a few hours. We played this racing running game to learn numbers which I failed miserably at, and we practiced bargaining with our peers. I feel like my language skills are not fading away, but I'm having trouble with the pronunciations are per usual with Vietnamese.



After class, we went to the Ben Thanh Market which is basically a tourist market, and the store owners know to rack up the prices. I bought so many good things, but I don't want to tell everyone what I got them. I can tell you that I spent a lot more than I planned to, but seriously how soon will I be returning to Vietnam? Exactly. So I figured go big or go home, especially because the total I spent was still around $80. I hope that everyone likes their unique gifts! The market was in itself an experience because it was just crazy. Luckily, many vendors had calculators to bargain, but so many people reached out to me and tried to drag me into their stores. I had to walk away from a few vendors to get the price that I wanted, and even so, I overpaid for a ton of stuff but I felt bad bargaining for something that was already so inexpensive compared to the price it would be in the US.

After the market, I was pretty exhausted and still not feeling well, but we had another visit to go to. We drove not far to the VinaCapital Group and Foundation, a money-management company that has its own foundation to donate and help rural peoples. The profits from the Group go to funding projects in the Foundation. I thought the program that sponsors women with high test scores in the highlands was very interesting because women are considered to be more useful to changing a community. If you educate a women, she has the ability to change her entire community and family. I found this really inspiring that people are working really hard to help the 20 million in Vietnam who are below the poverty line (double of what is actually reported by the Vietnamese government because standards of poverty are different than the international standard).

After this visit, I was really tired, and I didn't go out to dinner. Malik, Kate, and I had a mini party before meeting everyone else for drinks and karaoke. The singing wasn't great, so we all sang along to the music videos. I guess it was fun for a while and the karaoke room was beautiful, but I'm ready to have my own independent adventures away from the group. I don't think that will happen, so I'm more or less going with the flow for the rest of the trip. I'll be making my own memories here.