Day 2

We woke up earlier today and had more eggs for breakfast. They havent; gotten old yet though! We drove to UEF where we hung out for a little and then heard a presentation on Urban Planning and Development in Ho Chi Minh. Some of the facts were really surprising and interesting to learn. For example, the infrastructure development in HCM in the last 13 year. The number of air conditioning units have not really grown even though HCM is so incredibly hot and only has 2 seasons - no winter. Yet, tv's and motorbikes and phones have become pretty standard household items which isn't that surprising when you look around the streets of Vietnam (92% of households have motorbikes!) . Overall I thought it was an interesting but wordy presentation that covered a lot of information on just how far Vietnam has come in the last 10 years or so. Its incredible that once city has managed to develop so much in such a little amount of time. The other thing his presentation highlighted in my mind was the growing disparity between the upper and lower classes. This idea was brought to life on our long and disheartening drive to our next site visit of Phu My Hung. As we drove and drove, the housing and general atmosphere and condition of the land got worse and worse until eventually, we were driving by what I guess you could call shanty's on the side of the road along the water. In America, housing on the water would be high valued property but here, shacks that looked as though a strong gust of wind could blow them over were leaning on each other for support. Not to mention the fact that the water has turned into a stream of floating trash and dirt. The more we drove, I just had to wonder, what do you do with a land like this? How do you repair this? The slight evidence of hope and modernization were the homes stacked on top of the store fronts, each one a different shade of green, blue, pink, yellow and orange. They added a sense of beauty and culture to the land, different from any homes I've ever seen in America - tall and skinny with flowers and spiral staircases. And then we drove into Phu My Hung's new residential and commercial area..

We drove into a world that looked nothing like the rest of Vietnam complete with tall buildings, expensive shopping and a BMW and Porsche store. We watched a really impressive presentation on the development of the new city center - from a swamp only a few years ago to super expensive and modernized housing for thousands of foreigners and Vietnamese. What's ironic is that Phu My Hung started building new housing to reduce the population in Districts 1-5 but now their housing is so expensive and deluxe that more and more foreigners are just moving in to their apartments and villas. Their next project is "the Crescent" a really pretty housing and shopping plan along the water. It was just amazing to see that something that was all swamps just a few years ago now looks like something straight out of a very high class area of Florida.

Upon getting back to the hotel we ordered pizza which was really weird but still more familiar than what we've been eating for lunch at the school. Then the whole group got ready to go out to Apocalypse Now, a nightclub but as soon as we started driving in the taxi we realized that no one had the address. So, we gave the driver a dollar for the ride and walked back to the hotel. The boys picked up a broom on the walk. We got the address and started out once again in a taxi and we made it! Good thing we had to turn around because even with the whole diversion we were still the first people there. As the night went on though, more people showed up (we made friends with 3 German boys who were traveling the country) and they played good music. Overall, it was a fun day. I was exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel and went to sleep.