Suits

Dessert

Lunch

My Sprint Roll

Chandelier in the Hotel

May 13

This morning we got to have a bit of a later start to the day for a change. Our Vietnamese cooking class did not start until 10:30 so we had a nice morning off. I used this time to miss breakfast at the hotel and take it upon myself to go find a nice café to get breakfast before class. Class today was held at one of Ho Chi Minh City's nicest five-star hotels. From their sous chef, we learned how to make fresh spring rolls (rather successfully I might add). Then we were treated to one of the best lunches ever. A friendly mix of Vietnamese food and American food, all of which was fantastic, had most of us repeating the phrase "what did we do to deserve this". Dr. Berman repeatedly told us that we were not living in the real world for the few hours that we were in the hotel but that didn't matter to us. After returning to the real world though we went off to our final site visit of the trip. We traveled to the Saigon Newport Corporation's Cat Lai Terminal, one of Vietnam's largest ports. In the briefing at Saigon Newport, we learned about the interesting organizational structure of the company, partially owned by the navy, and the growth and various lines of business for the company. Following the briefing, we were given the opportunity to go up into the control tower and get a view of the port's operations, seeing freighters and containers covering a massive plot of land and sea. Upon our return to the city, we took another trip to the market to do some more bargaining and get more souvenirs. Next, we grabbed some more bahn mi for dinner, after being thoroughly impressed by it just the night before. Just a few minutes after starting our pool party for the night, Dr. Berman came in and surprised us by saying that our suits would be arriving this evening instead of tomorrow. When the suits came, we naturally had to try them on and get a look at the incredible craftsmanship. The delivery of the suits was a very exciting moment for all of us. By the time we were done trying on our suits, time was almost up for our planned Dairy Queen run for ice cream to close off the night. We ran a couple of blocks (maybe more than a couple) to the Dairy Queen and treated ourselves to ice cream that was a fraction in both price and size of the American version. With only two days left here in Vietnam, it is sad to be running out of time but great to be enjoying every day.

May 12

For today, we had an early morning wake up to head to the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP). After an hour outside of the city, VSIP is one of the country's premier industrial parks and attracts companies from all around the world. In a presentation at their headquarters, we saw models of the park and heard about the past, present, and future projects of VSIP. Additionally, we had a presentation by David Baker, the chief engineer for II-VI in Vietnam. II-VI is a diversified manufacturing company based in Saxonburg, PA right outside of Pittsburgh, with significant factories in Vietnam based at VSIP. We learned about the company history, their unique product line, and their reasons for doing business in Vietnam. After the briefing, we were able to tour their factories and see how some of their high tech products were made. Most of the tour was over my head, but seeing the factory was still pretty cool to see. Leaving VSIP, we went to another great lunch at a restaurant nearby. Returning home after lunch, it was a good time to take catch up on some sleep for a few hours before going back out with our Vietnamese friends for the evening. We got some bahn mi, a very good Vietnamese sandwich, and then headed to a Vietnamese fast food restaurant for French fries and ice cream. After dinner we headed out as a group for the night to check out some local places recommended to us downtown and had a great time.