Day 12

Dear Blog,

Yesterday we went to the Ho Chi Minh stock exchange to learn more about how Vietnam's stock market. It was not very big and many people do not money in stocks because they are fearful of the banks. The stock exchange only allows 49% of its stocks go to foreign investors.

After the stock exchange we went to the war memorial museum. It was hard to be there because they made the American soldiers look terrible. There were lots of pictures of Americans killing women and children and torturing the Vietnamese soldiers. Also, they were selling American dog tags. While they most likely were not real, I just could not believe they would sell something like that as a souvenir.

I had made plans of go out with Vietnamese students for the afternoon. About 4 Up student and 8 UEF students went out. The UEF students drove us to different places on their motorbikes. We first went to Saigon Square for shopping. I bought a few souvenirs for my family, but I still need to buy more. After that we went to a drink place. Huyen and I got lost on our motorbike. we eventually made it to the place. They make a drink called tea milk. It was very good. After we finished they drove us home. Since I have talked to Huyen more than any other Vietnamese student and she is the one that set up us going out, I decided to give her the gift that I bought in Philadelphia. She was very excited to get it.

We went to dinner with the daughter of the chairman of UEF. We got to grill out own food right in front of us and it was very good. I believe we had beef, goat, shrimp and frog legs. The shrimp was scary because they literally just killed it. Some shrimp were still moving while we were grilling them. After the dinner they took us to the Acoustic Bar and paid for all of our drinks. I got the soda and strawberry which was very different and very good. We stayed for a while to watch the live music perform. The singers were very good. I was once again too tired to go out so I just went to bed.

Only one more blog entry coming