The day began very similarly to the previous one with waking up and having breakfast. No biggie. I tried some dragon fruit, but that was the only new thing for me.
Then we went to the UEF building for our classes! The urban planning one was not that interesting, but it proved useful for later when we were touring Phu My Hung. I was kind of surprised that they are looking to expand urban sprawl more because there is so much of the population already located in the city. Ho Chi Minh was designed by the French for 400,000 people, but there is already over 8 million people in the city with an expected continuous growth rate.
After this class, we had some time off and a bunch of us went to get drinks before the language class. We walked outside of the university to a little coffee shop. They had free white tea, which in itself was delicious. What's even more scrumptious, you ask? Iced coffee and strawberry smoothes. The iced coffee (which I stole a sip of) tasted like my favorite coffee ice cream. The strawberry ice cream was very smooth and tasted exactly like strawberries, no added sugar. It was very refreshing and helped get me through the language class...
The language class was somewhat overwhelming. We learned a lot of words, which I am learning and writing in my phone. We can have extremely simple conversation now, but I'm having personal problems with the language; My natural tones of talking are very sing-songy, and I can't get a handle of changing how I talk to adjust to the necessary meaning of words. I can read everything perfectly fine, but I can't control saying the tones perfectly. It's frustrating, but I'm happy that I can pick out words from road signs, restaurants, and listen in on conversations. The teacher giving the lessons is very in your face about everything, and it's tough for me because I like to be good at languages. I'll keep trying though!
After the class, we went to get some lunch. Same thing as yesterday, but I took some pretty awesome panos of the city.
After lunch, we went back to the hotel to change for our trip visit to Phu My Hung. This is the company that I studied and will write a report for at the end of all of this, so I had to make sure, even on day "three" that I had to be alive and ready. The trip to Phu My Hung took about 45 minutes, and it gave us a chance to do a lot of sight-seeing per say. We were able to take in the streets and people for the first time, which was probably the most enjoyable part of the trip thus far. It was interesting to see how as you left our city center, there was a clear change in the style of buildings and streets traveling into Phu My Hung.
When we arrived at PMH, we had a very formal and interesting debriefing about the "master plan" for the development of the future city. The plan is for a new city center to bring more foreigners, investors, and entertainment, education, and jobs for the people living in the community. Personally, I find the utopia society of it all a bit scary, and I would like to know the true opinion of the people if there is resistance at all to the development. Unfortunately, this country is communist, so the world may never know. Meanwhile, it's extremely beautiful, clean, and organized compared to the part of HCM that we are staying in. We took some pictures and went to the q and a session, which was quite interesting. I took a lot of notes, and I'll post the document here later with more details about PMH.
After the tour, we took a driving tour around the PMH and saw a lot of the development that I was expecting. A lot of the stores were strangely western like KFC and Baskin Robins ice cream. It was interesting to see, but we were happy to be meeting with the VP of the PMH and then to be driving on our way back to the hotel. It was a long drive back, and we were all ready to sleep even though the UEF students were coming to take us out tonight.
We got to the pho shop easily, and let me tell you: pho is delicious. Like absolutely. I used some hot sauce and lime juice, but otherwise it was very very tasty. The noodles are a good texture, and the chicken broth tastes like a really good broth that my mom makes with burned onions in the base. It was just really really good. (I'm still waiting to try the magic purple soup.)
After the pho, I was lucky to take the motorbike again to the church. There, we ate some of the street food like cotton candy, asian quesadillas, fried foods, corn and crab something or other, etc. to name a few. It was so so delicious. I like the pho and street foods more than the "fancy food" from the welcome dinner. That's the way to go, for all of you adventurous travelers out there looking for advice about food.
After sitting for a little while, we walked to the equivalent of Times Square near the Rex hotel. There were some fancy shops, and it was very touristy. The UEF students enjoyed taking a ton of selfies with us, which was kinda fun. Malik and I took selfies with strangers which proved interesting, and we all bought these crazy, light-up helicopter things. The temperature at night is very nice. It's still hot but definitely not sweaty. We then walked back (across treacherously busy roads) to the hotel. I was feeling so wiped out, so I just had to relax in preparation for tomorrow.
All in all, it was a really good day, and I'm happy to know that I like the food (more than just rice) here. Remember kids, accents always matter, and there is always time for pho.
Hẹn gặp lại!!
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