Friday, May 18, 2012

Today was our last day in Vietnam. In the morning we listened to a lecture by Giang Nguyen, who is a Pennsylvania Trade Representative in Vietnam. The Pennsylvania office was established in 2007 and is primarily responsible for providing market intelligence to companies interested in Vietnam and also to match up Vietnamese and American businesses together that wish to have partners abroad. She told us that Pennsylvania exports $42,635,810 USD to Vietnam in products. I thought this was very surprising. I did not realize that we had sent so much in exports to Vietnam. Afterwards, we had language class. We had about a half hour to practice our conversation pieces and then were tested in front of the class. I was partnered with Ricky, and we both received 10/10! I had to pretend to be a customer and order coffee and soup from him and then pay for it. Then, we each had to recite a short piece about who we are, where we’re from, and what we did this week. For lunch, we ate at the Canteen in UEF.

This afternoon, we had a soccer match against the UEF soccer team and some of our UEF friends. Amazingly, our team won! Afterwards, we had a potato sack race as well as a dance competition. It was a fun afternoon, but it was tough to be outside that long because it was so hot. We went back to the hotel afterwards and relaxed a little bit before we went shopping at the Co-Op to buy our favorite brown sugar rolls. Then, we went to KFC (which is strangely one of the biggest fast food restaurants in HCMC) and got a snack before dinner. That evening, we found out that our flights have been changed, so we spent a half hour or so trying to figure out what to do. I’m now flying from Saigon to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong to San Francisco and then from San Francisco to Chicago and then from Chicago to Pittsburgh. It’s going to be a really long couple of days.

Tonight we had dinner on a cruise ship on the Saigon River. Everything was so classy-looking and beautiful. There was a live band composed of a flute player and an acoustic guitarist. They played a variety of songs, including one that I think we played in Wind Ensemble (Variations on a Korean Folk Song). There were also two girls that gave a short dance performance wearing traditional dresses. They looked like they were having a really fun time. My camera is out of batteries, so I couldn’t take any pictures though. For dinner, we had an assortment of food, including soup, shrimp, noodles, and spring rolls. At night, our UEF friends came to spend time with us for our last night at the hotel. We all hung out in our room and played cards and talked for a long time. Tuan read our palms, and he told me that I was supposed to have a long healthy life. He also said that I would have 1 boyfriend/husband, and he told me that my career line is broken. I thought that was kind of amusing. We took a ton of pictures, and our UEF friends all gave us going away presents. They all made something to remember them by for all of us. Their presents are so sweet, and I will keep them forever. We had to leave at 3 AM for the Saigon airport to catch a plane to Hong Kong. It was so hard to say goodbye to all of our UEF friends at the airport. Right now we are waiting in Hong Kong to catch a flight to San Francisco.