Day 4: August 24, 2014

This morning started bright and early at 7am. Instead of having street food for breakfast, I decided that I wanted some of the delicious fresh fruit here so I had a banana and a passion fruit. The only bad thing about wanting to eat all of the fruit that I've never had before is that I don't always know whether it is ripe or not!

My delicious but non-traditional Vietnamese breakfast.

At 8 we were on a bus and headed for Bình Quới which is kind of like a park here in Vietnam. It was very beautiful and along the Saigon River. We were given a few minutes to walk around and then we had to team building activities with both our Bách Khoa and Open University partner students. Since it is 85-90 degrees here, we were sweating in no time. As a group of United States students with Vietnamese students, we drew a crowd and soon there were all kinds of people surrounding us and taking our pictures doing the activities.

Lunch was in the park and it was a buffet. Thao led me around and told me what all of the food was. I tried to try most of it, but there was so much! Fish, pork, mouse (yes, mouse!--didn't try that one though), buffalo, and frog. Rice, spring rolls, noodles, and corn (kind of like grilled corn on the cob and tastes like popcorn). And so much other stuff that I don't even remember! Although I didn't have any buffalo or frog I did have some squid and chicken. We had iced tea to drink in very little bowls and dessert was coconut milk with fruit and jelly. I also had a sweet yam with sugar on it, although I didn't like that. It was very good and so nice that it was a buffet. Since Vietnamese eat with chopsticks, it takes me a little longer to eat than them but I am learning how to use them properly very quickly. Also, Vietnamese eat at tables that are very short. As in so short that my legs don't quite fit under them. So instead I just put my legs awkwardly to the side because they have no where else to go!

My legs don't fit under the table!



My first of many plates of food. Rice, pork, fish, noodles, an egg, and some diced shrimp on a shoot. 

Between lunch and supper we had a good chunk of time do as we pleased so I headed to the Co-Op Market to get some supplies. A water bottle to replace my broken one for 16,900d, 2 rolls of toiled paper for 20,800d, and some Q-tips for 21,400d. Since the smallest bill is 500d, they round the change they are to give you. So for example, I was supposed to receive 40,900d in change but they gave me 41,000d, meaning I made 100d. Not really a significant amount, but strange how that works.

The market is 3+ floors and each floor has different items. The first floor is groceries, the second floor is bathroom/kitchen, and the third floor is jewelry. There are checkouts on each floor because you cannot bring items from one floor to another. I explored the first floor a little bit and went back to the meat/seafood department where there are tanks of live fish and prawn. The fish were catfish and what I think were carp. Or you could buy some other kinds that were already dead at the counter. You could tell they were all very fresh! Another thing that is different is that when you buy fruit you have to have an employee weigh it for you and they put a sticker on the bag so the cashier knows how much to charge you for it.

We had supper at Chris Albright's apartment, who is the director of the program. We took taxis to get there and met our partner students from OU. We have always been told to take VinaSun taxis and I now I understand why. We left in two groups from the dormitory. One group went in a VinaSun and the other group went in a different taxi. The VinaSun cost was around 100,000d while the other taxi was three times as much! Once we got to the apartment we had pizza and talked with our partners as well as some other people from the US that now live in Vietnam. It was a great time and all of the partners are very interested in how things are done in the states. We took taxis to get back to the dormitory and brought the extra pizza with us, giving one to the security guards to stay on their good sides in case we are ever past curfew. Tomorrow we get to go Open University (OU) where we will be taking classes for our final day of orientation!

Some things noticed today: Google is set to Vietnam but I changed my results so they appear in English. The Facebook homepage is also set to Vietnamese but after I log in everything is in English. Also, when I go to an internet page often times it says it is unavailable but if I hit refresh it shows up. Might have something to do with certain pages being block here at times (such as Facebook) but it doesn't really seem to be a big deal. My OU partner also knows how much I like corn and has told me there is place outside of OU that cooks it differently than we had today. Can't wait to try it!