Sorry I have not bloged in a while I have been very busy.
In the morning we went to class again. We had Vietnamese Business class. I was very bored during it. We were talking about Vietnamese banking and the economy. Most Vietnamese people do not trust the banks and rather have all of their money in gold and cash. After Business class we had Vietnamese language class again. The language is getting a little easier, but not much. I can say "My name is Jim", "I am American" and "I am a student." Their are some words that are still very difficult to say.
The site visit we went to was an engineering firm called Ascenx. The firm provided engineering services to people and companies around the world. The chairman was born in Vietnam, but went to the United States till he was nine before returning to Vietnam. He escaped Vietnam on a boat with his Uncle and Aunt. He later met up with his mother, but his father was lost at sea. Afterwards we got a tour of the company and talked to workers. I was talking to an Electrical Engineer name Tung. He was showing me the programs he uses and how he tests a circuit board. It was interesting learning about what he did because I hope some day to be doing the same thing as him. After that the chairman bought us all coffee from Highland Coffee. I got a Vanilla Cafe Freeze and it was delicious.
After the visit we went to eat dinner at a local house. The house was big and extremely nice looking. The owners were also the owners of a restaurant. They had a beautiful view of the river. After the dinner we had a sip of banana wine. It was very strong and had no taste of banana in it. After dinner we decided to stay in and play games instead of going out. It was extremely fun and relaxing.
Today we went to the Mekong Delta. It was a 3 hour bus ride from the hotel so we had to be up early, thus the reason I have not been blogging. We stopped at a soldiers memorial. There were about 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers buried there. All of the coffins were above ground and there were signs to honor all of them. After that we visited caodi, a religious institution. It was very beautiful and we had to take our shoes off before entering. It was a combination religion, that combined multiple religions into one. Than we stopped at one more rest stop on the way to get drinks. This rest stop was very nice looking and had many ponds of fish.
We finally arrived at the delta and went on a boat trip. We went on a walk to a historic house. The locals were very nice to us and all of them said Hello to us. We took pictures with them and than continued to walk toward the house. The house was huge and very interesting. After the house we went back on the boat to go to another local house. This time the house was home to a home company, that manufactured coconut candy. It was very good and you could not taste the coconut. We got stuck in a monsoon. IT WAS AWESOME!! Parts of the roof blew away and we just sat their waiting for the storm to stop so we could go back to the boat. After the rain had stopped we went to dinner. We were on the boat for about 1 hour to go to lunch. The place we ate at served a Fish on stick and we were suppose to pick meat off of it and make a roll with it. After finishing dinner we finally started our trip home. We hit bad traffic and arrived home 2 hours late. We had plans of going to a night club with Khoa and Chi.
Yesterday we went to a cooking class and learned how to make shrimp rolls, fresh shrimp rolls, and a couple of other dishes. We went to the market to buy the food. The Vietnamese make very Unique food, that taste good. It was fun to make the foods and I hope to make the shrimp rolls at home.
After the cooking class we went top the water park with an orphanage. I have never met kids with such energy. We ran to different rides. I like the zipper ride because every time you did it something else happened. The kids were so excited to be their and I am glad to have had that experience with them.
We went to the MTV cafe. It was a terrible idea. We were there for 3 hours and they brought out different dishes at different times. The food was very good and cheap. IT is not a place to go when you are hungry though and thats what made it so bad. After the restaurant we went to get ice cream. I got vanilla ice cream on a cone. It was so good, but it does not taste the same as American ice cream. Than we finally went back to the hotel. We decided to not go out tonight, but to stay in and play games again.
see ya blog
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