Phu My Hung: Ho Chi Minh City Day Two

Another day in Ho Chi Min and another day in super humid and 90 plus degree weather. Breakfast at the hotel was similar to yesterday’s, and after having it both times, there’s something different about the orange juice here that I like. We had a lecture at the university about the urban development of Ho Chi Minh City, and unlike America, Vietnam is rapidly expanding in population, foreign investment, gross domestic product, and overall development. It’s crazy how a city originally developed by the French a hundred years ago that was meant to hold less than a million people has developed enough to hold an estimated ten million in the near future. After that we had another language class where we learned how to introduce ourselves and say hello and goodbye. After classes at UEF, we visited Phu My Hung Corporation’s new city center, which is the company that I studied back in the United States before coming to Vietnam. PMH pretty much is an urban development joint company between Taiwanese private investors and the Ho Chi Minh government that continually work on the “Dragon to the East Sea” project to expand South Saigon. Their urban areas are really high class, and are completely sustainable with different types of schools, shopping centers, and recreational areas. Almost 50% of the in the area is reserved solely for green space like parks and walkways. What’s really coincidental is that the giant rubber duck, which was in Pittsburgh earlier this year, was in Ho Chi Minh City at Phu My Hung, so I got to take a picture with the same thing halfway across the world.

After touring around the New City Center, we went back to the hotel and had time to relax. We shopped at the Co Op Market where I bought a few Vietnamese snacks,

and then we had dinner at a restaurant with a few Vietnamese students of UEF. They ordered us authentic spring rolls, phở, and fried rice. Afterwards, we spent some time going around the city and then I made my way back to the hotel to get ready for the next day.

Chào Ban Saigon: Ho Chi Minh City Day One

After 28 hours or so traveling from America, we finally made it to Vietnam. The plane ride was pretty boring but after arriving it was obvious that Ho Chi Minh City was a different kind of place. The weather was hot and sticky, even though it was almost midnight, and motor bikes crowded the street rather than automobiles. After getting a decent night’s sleep our first real day on the trip began. Starting with breakfast at the Victory Hotel, they served a meal full of authentic Vietnamese dishes like Chả lụa, phở, and salted eggs. All of these dishes I’ve had in America, but they were a little bit different from the ones in the US.

After arriving at the University of Economics and Finance, we mingled with the Vietnamese students and they welcomed us with a ceremony filled with Vietnamese dancing and singing of American pop songs.
 

 Even though the students were all from Vietnam, they speak fluent English with a somewhat strong accent. After we finished the welcome ceremony and had a language class, we visited the US consulate. This was the place where the Tet Offensive took place in 1968, and being on such a historic site was both interesting and humbling.

It was really interesting to see both sides of the picture by reading the memorial plaques from both the United States and Vietnam on opposite sides of the consulate wall.

After visiting the consulate, we had dinner at “Wrap and Roll” which was a restaurant that mainly served rice paper roll dishes. It was a fun time and afterwards I was so tired from adjusting to the different time zone and climate that I concluded my first day in Ho Chi Minh City and went to sleep.