Thursday - week 2

Woke up today, not feeling any better than yesterday and got dressed for the soccer game in my nike shorts and UP-UEF shirt that we're all wearing. Let me tell you, the material looks a lot cooler than it feels - no air passes through that stuff. Its really hot in there. Overall I felt really sporty though, so even if I got out of playing because of my stomach, I still looked the part. We got into the van after breakfast and surprisingly, wound up at the school. We walked up to the 7th floor where we were greeted by tons of the students with name tags and little pillow things that say UP-UEF, or Viet Nam, or cheer up on them (i ended up getting a few!). They're really cute. We then got split up into teams - I was with Justin and Matt, Phoung, my friend from the first day and a bunch of other students I didnt really know but who were all friendly. Phoung asked if she could sit next to me. Tony and Minh (or rockstar) were leading all of the activities and Tony sang a song! he was good too! None of us had any idea that he sang so it was impressive.

Our first activity was to discuss questions that we were given by Tony and Minh with Vietnamese kids in our group. My group had to talk about the exchange program and living conditions. After a while, two members from each team (one from UP, one from UEF) were chosen to go up and represent our team. Also, our team name was 95 because 75 was taken by group 1. Our slogan was mot hai ba yo! Matt and Lee went up for our group and told the room what the two of them had talked about. After that was all done with, two more people were selected to go play a game: the UP student was blindfolded and given yogurt to spoon feed into the UEF student's mouth. Whoever finished first, won. Julie and Sarah tied. We weren't doing too well. Then, Tony turned on a really moving video of how we need to make changes in the world now and how the time on the Millennium projects is running out. That then turned into a video on free hugs which was cut short when we were told to all hug one another. So, everyone walked around hugging which was both funny and cute. Ms. Too was crying which was really sad. Eventually, the hugging wound down and we all got into a big circle and sang another uplifting song. I guess this whole thing was put together by the English club. I never really thought about other countries having an English club, its cool.

Then onto the soccer match. I sat on the sidelines and cheered with Phoung because I was sweating just sitting there, I can't even imagine what playing would have been like. I did not want to exhaust myself or become dehydrated again though so I sat out. Everyone looked like they were having a lot of fun running around though, and we didnt even lost by that match. At one point, all of the girls played against the UEF girls. Three friendly games later, we took sweaty pictures and then went back to the hotel to change and rest. I talked online with some people because it was only midnight at home, until it was time to go down to the lobby for lunch. Nothing very exciting there but we were all too tired to go out exploring. I just had a few of the fried shrimp, white rice and bananas. It was then time to meet for the War Remnants Museum.

We learned a little about the museum for going:
1. After the war, it was originally called the American War Crimes Museum because of all the bitter feelings. Eventually, it became known as just the War Crimes Museum even though people still knew who it was directed at. Then, pretty recently, it was renamed again The War Remnants Museum now that tensions have eased. Yet, the first thing you see when you get there are all of our tanks and planes and helicopters that they took down and now have on display. It just doesn't seem right for our military objects to be in their possession after everything. Overall, the museum was pretty depressing, especially the first floor where all of the things American soldiers did during the war are presented without any contextual evidence. Professor Berman told us to take everything in the museum with a grain of salt because the whole thing is very propaganda oriented but just the way they portrayed American soldiers was awful. The worst was reading about the children who were killed as well as all of the people affected by Agent Orange. We were there for quite a long time and I ended up walking with Matt and Elizabeth through all 7 exhibits. One particularly interesting one was the one on the photographers of the war and their stories and photos. By the time we were done half of the group had already left without saying anything to us so we decided to go on to the Ben Thanh market alone. It was Andrew, Ashley, Elizabeth, Matt and I. We all stayed together in the market and had a pretty successful trip. I got a Tiger beer t-shirt for myself (now i can match the guys) and I love Pho t-shirts for Zac and Tyler. My tiger shirt was 37 dong but they didnt have I love Pho t-shirts so we had to go somewhere else. We went to this stall where the woman spoke really good english and i spoke the vietnamese I knew, to her. She loved us! She even offered to teach me vietnamese for free at her house and also told Elizabeth and Ashley to go steal a gun and rob a bank so we could pay more for her shirts. This is because the other woman wanted me to buy 2 shirts for 18 dollars when i'd just bought 1 for less than two. When i told her this, she said, "same same but different - mine are better". I immediately thought of Lee from China and his shirt. Its so funny that people actually say that here! Anyway, i told her I didn't have any american dollars so she then wanted 350 dong. Somehow, i got her down to 80 for the two. She was not happy. But to me, the shirts seemed "same same". No different. I also bought dvd's - Sex and the City and Lost! Andrew bought his mom a really pretty lady buddha. Soon, we had to be back at the hotel to meet everyone else for a dinner that Julie planned with another Tony so we left the market to try and be back by 5. And we would have, if it hadn't been rush hour and our driver hadnt taken the longest route possible. When we got to the hotel at 5 10, no one was there. And there was no note. Neither Matt nor I had keys to our room so we hung out in Ashley and Elizabeth's for a little before deciding that we may as well go to dinner on our own since none of us had a way of calling Kyle's phone. Andrew had gone to a really good place the night before by himself because he didn't want American food at the Black Cat so followed him to the restaurant that was "close". FYI: Andrew's definition of close - not the same as my own, or anyone else's for that matter. We were all exhausted and starving by the time we made it to the restaurant.

I wish I remembered the name of the restaurant, all I know is that it had the word "ngoc" in it which means delicious - which it was. I ordered 3 skewers: beef, chicken and shrimp. Matt got the same with rice. Andrew just got chicken. I can see why. It was absolutely amazing. I don't usually like chicken that much but this was amazing. The beef was delicious too, just a little spicy for me and I loved the shrimp. Nothing was even that expensive. Even Ashley loved her food and ordered more. The only downside to the night - my stomach. It was really nice being in a smaller group though, we all talked and got to know each other a lot better. We ate quickly though and got a taxi so we could be back at the hotel by 7 when Tin was supposed to get there to take us out to an American discotheque. But they still weren't back. A little annoyed at this point about being locked out of our rooms, Matt and I went to the front desk to ask if we could be let back in. The only problem is that once we were in our rooms, we had no power and so, could not turn on any lights. I was about to take a shower in the dark when Julie walked in from her dinner. Suposedly she tried to call us but never got through. While i feel bad about missing the dinner with the ICP students, their meal sounded a lot more foreign than ours. Some of the boys ate eggs that had almost complete chickens in them - like there was even some bone. The cool thing though - the food was served on a conveyor belt.It would have been nice to have dinner with all of them but I found my day with the 5 of us very relaxing and chill.

Eventually we got ready to go out with Tin and decided on club Gossip instead of the American Discotheque. Tony came too! There was a cover charge for boys and girls and Andrew and Kyle had to rent shoes for the night because they were wearing flip flops! Also, we had to check our cameras at the door. Once inside, we were the only people dancing originally and security was everywhere. There were definitely ladies in white on the dance floor by the end of the night though. By 12 we were all back at the hotel and hanging out in Andrew's room eating ritz because we were all so hungry and had no other food.