Thursday (day 4)
The students took us to karaoke after i finished blogging. They rented us a room and there were like 30 of us in this tiny room singing out hearts out. It was funny how many different kinds of music they listened to! I was impressed how much American music they knew. For example, Springsteen by Eric Church, although somehow I ended up being the one with the mic in my hand. It didn't matter though. Everyone sang every song. The best by far though was when we turned on Sweet Caroline. Probably everyone in the joint could hear us singing.
Friday (day 5)
Today was one of the most fun days we've had here!
We spent the whole day at UEF. The morning was pretty ordinary. We had a cultural lesson on Vietnam. It was interesting learning some of the cultural distinctions. For example colors are very symbolic here. The respectful colors to wear are red, green, yellow and blue I believe. You don't want to wear white or black, especially not to a wedding, because white represents death and is what they wear to funerals. Black here is symbolic of the ghost.
Language class is getting better and better each time. I now feel like I can actually pronounce some of the words accurately. And I'm starting to remember things too! The students have been so helpful with that.
Lunch was good. We keep going back to the same restaurant. The atmosphere is lots of fun but there are flies everywhere and the braver you are with the food, well, the crazier the things that happen to your stomach are.
Now here was the best part of the day. We had an event with the English Club. Basically it was a cultural exchange but seemed an awful lot like a field day. They put us on 4 teams and we did a variety of competitions.
Meet team CoCo, the champions.
We had a dance competition, a tie all the balloons to one persons head competition, a pop all the balloons we blew up competition, a twister like game and finally the human hula hoop game. All in all it was lots of fun but we were exhausted by the end.
The day was finished with lots and lots of picture taking. The photographer even asked to get a picture with me. He turned to me and said, "You so tall... you SO tall. Picture?" They love their pictures more here than teenage girls.
Next Carly, Amy and I wandered the streets shopping a little. Going in these clothing stores feels like walking into a preteen store. It's very unlikely that I can find anything that fits at any of these stores. The sizes typically range from an XXS to a S...
One of the most interesting cultural things here is the people's drive and desire to remain as white as possible. Looking in their grocery store lots of their face washes and lotions have skin whitening in them. I think it's a thing where you want what you can't have. Like in the US everyone aspires to be tan because most people are pretty pale. Well here it's very hard not to get tan, so they all strive to be white. Thats just one of my theories. They will be in full pants and jackets in this 100 degree weather and just be sweating so so much.
After shopping we went to Glass Egg's investment club, Lush. They gave us VIP access which consisted of a couch and a couple tables on a higher level where we were overlooking the downstairs main area. It was definitely cool to be VIP.
Saturday (Day 6)
So yesterday we got up early and went to the Cu Chi tunnels. What an experience. Firstly it was an 1.5/2 hour drive through not the smoothest streets in the world. With my queasy stomach, the car sickness definitely kicked in a bit. But boy was it a pretty drive. We finally went out the city and it really made you remember that you were in the tropical jungle. There were trees and water buffalo everywhere.
The tunnels themselves were amazing. We got to crawl through a few of them, and when I say crawl I mean crawl. The tunnels were a meter to a meter and a half tall. You came out of these tunnels drenched in sweat and very, very out of breath. My legs are definitely a bit sore this morning from all the crouching. We saw a few different styles of bunkers and entrances. I was so proud when I fit through the tunnel entrance. They had an enlarged one that people could try out if they were a bit bigger and the small one did not look like I would fit through. But I was determined to try and try I did. It was a bit of a tight squeeze in the hips but the worst was the shoulders. Everyone seemed to have the same problem. Our shoulders are just so much broader than theirs.
After the tunnels the dehydration kicked in. I made the mistake of not drinking very much water that morning and we were sweating so much being out in the heat. I have never been so dehydrated before in my life.
We then made our way to a temple which was honoring the fallen of the Vietnamese. These temples were absolutely gorgeous. I could've sat on the steps for hours just looking at the surrounding buildings and plants.
Next up was lunch on the riverside. For lunch I had water and lots more water.
The bus ride back was the quietest one yet. Almost everyone was either sleeping or resting. We were all so exhausted from being outside in the sun all day.
When we got back to the hotel Amy and I just went straight to sleep, waking up at dinner time.
After dinner we were just laying low in our hotel room when all of the sudden this lizard shoots across the wall and behind my bed. Well of course being two girls we run and go grab some boys to try to catch it. Well they found the whole situation hilarious and sat there while we were panicking a bit. They proceeded to tell us what other exotic animals were also probably in room. Needless to say it took a little while for us to fall asleep.
One of the best parts of today was that the tour guide at the tunnels called us a family. It's so true though. It's very rare when you get a group of 14 very different kids together in a group and they all get along. Dysfunctional and discombobulated as we may be, this is an experience I wouldn't want to share with any other group of people. We fight and bicker but at the end of the day, we are all there for each other, even if it is just to laugh at one another.
Great Blog!!! I am glad that you got us all caught up on your adventure. I missed seeing your blog the past couple days. Sounds like you are having a great time. Enjoy your last week in Vietnam.
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