Day 2

Day 2 began after some much needed rest. I had been working on very little sleep over the past few days (not exactly sure how many days, the whole time zone shift really threw off my calendar), and a long sleep was necessary. Breakfast was again delicious, and again quite interesting. It does take a little getting used to, but the food really is quite good. That holds true for all of the meals so far. As an added bonus, most of them have been free and all-you-can-eat, which can help make anything taste better. I also was able to find the fried egg station, which added a nice touch of "traditional" breakfast food.

At UEF, we continued our classes. Today we had two: a continuation of the language class, and a class on Vietnamese business. We had the business class first, which was interesting. Not being a business student, it was certainly outside of my realm of expertise. The topic of the lecture was “Tax Policy Reform in Viet Nam.” It was an interesting topic; the only problem is that I know almost nothing of tax policy in the U.S., so I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Either way though, it was informative. Afterwards, we continued our language class. I’m really enjoying that class. Our professor teaches Vietnamese as a Second Language (VSL?), and she’s very encouraging and really engaging. The language is still really difficult, but I’m enjoying it.

We did have one rather interesting experience. On our way down from the Can Tin at UEF (on the 6th floor), we decided to get into an elevator. The elevator was rated for 9 people (i.e. 9 Vietnamese-sized people). So naturally, we fit 10 Americans and 1 Vietnamese person inside (upon reflection, we figured the girls are Vietnamese-sized, and though there’s no direct conversion, the 8 American guys are approximately 12 Vietnamese, giving us a grand total of 15). We were all crammed pretty tight inside the elevator. I was facing away from the door and couldn’t turn around, though the walls were mirrored so I could see. We proceeded downward from the 6th floor, til we neared the 1st. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I know I saw the doors open while we were still moving. Suddenly, we dropped, hitting the basement floor (only 1 story at most though, so not a very hard hit. I barely even felt it). I was pretty much in shock. The elevator seemed to instantly heat up. Several people were pretty claustrophobic, and things were getting rather tense. Thank God we had the Vietnamese man there. He told everyone to remain calm, whipped out his cell phone, and called the emergency number. Within 5 minutes, someone came to pry open the doors. It was an incredible experience, but one which will forever change the way I look at elevators.

In the afternoon, we had our first site visit: Glass Egg Digital Media. It was a very informative session. Glass Egg essentially created the industry of outsourcing video game art, and they are currently one of the top businesses within that field across the globe. They regularly work with some of the biggest names in the video game industry: Microsoft, EA, Sega, and many more. It was really cool to see how they developed digital art (something about which I had very little background knowledge) and to get a glimpse of the growing tech industry in Viet Nam.

Just as our meeting was ending at Glass Egg, the men who we were meeting with (executives of the company) suggested a destination for us that evening: Club Lush (their offer had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they were partial stakeholders of the club). It was a very trendy place. The music was mostly modern American music, the same kind that would be played at any dance club back home. There was also a mix of Asian music in there (mostly Japanese, I believe). It was a cool club, and everyone had a good time.

Oh, forgot to mention my exciting dinner: KFC (the most popular fast food chain in Viet Nam. In fact, I can’t find a McDonald’s anywhere). The food was similar to the U.S., but the service was much more welcoming. They even had employees walk around to give you toothpicks (a big thing at Vietnamese meals) and they cleaned the food off the table for you. Also, they gave us our drinks in glasses! Though not quite Vietnamese food, it still was a cool experience.