Day 8

Today we woke up to same routine like a typical Monday. For breakfast I recovered ten fold by drinking Vietnamese Gatorade, ‘Revive’, and eating their saltine crackers to try and regain some stability in my digestive track. Slowly but surely I think I’ll eat my way back into recovery. After breakfast I put in a notice with the hotel about the money I lost and then we packed into our trusty bus and headed off to UEF for class.

Upon entry at the University Tony approached me and set up playing basketball at night at the local stadium with his friends we had ice cream and ‘caphe’ with. I then headed to Vietnamese Culture class where we learned about the ancient history of Vietnam. The highlights of the lecture that stick out in my mind were that Vietnam had fended off Genghis Khan, one of the most powerful Chinese emperors, three separate occasions, through their tactical knowledge of the North Vietnam land. Eventually Vietnam attempted to completely remove Chinese ideals from its culture. To do this they first had to remove Confucianism and decided to replace it with Buddhism. However the Vietnamese government decided since Buddhism doesn’t have any order within its fundamentals they instituted that the capital is surrounded by a Confucian temple and practice. This lecture was very informative and so interesting.

Inbetween Culture and Language class I stopped by the Can Tin, their cafeteria, and stocked back up on Revive to keep feeling better. I also tried the bread looking croissant that was half butter half bread and somewhat tasty.

Language class was half a review day and half learning counting. I have personally had difficulty with listening and performing Vietnamese since I am a visual learner, but the numbers were a lot easier to recite. We found out also Friday there will be an exam covering the expressions and numbers covered throughout the week.

At lunch at the can tin I ate rice and had some grumbling going on inside me but definitely feeling a lot better than Sunday. The chiefs also figured out what we like and served only rice, French fries, bread, shrimp, and a type of beef. Next we headed over to University of Agriculture and Forestry. We were given 3 presentations on the University’s History, Vietnam USA Catfish History and the University's involvement in Catfish. Though very through it had been a long day and the presentations were a little tiring. It is pretty remarkable their significant growth since starting the program in the late 1990s. After the presentations they drove us to our last stop, an on campus research facility where they focus on producing better environmentally friendly food for the mass produced catfish. We took some perfectly staged photo ops and began the trek back home.

Upon arrival we went immediately to the COOP or the local Vietnamese Grocery store and stocked up on much needed goods. Then us guys, Justin, Matt, David, and myself, headed to play basketball with Tony and his friends. It took forever to get there but it was so worth it. The rim had to have been shorter because I could almost dunk and somehow our rag tag American team was very successful. We ended up playing the Vietnamese Los Angeles Lakers, all matching uniforms and awesome fake LA jerseys. Tony and his friends were very excited to see us play and we all had a blast, but sweat sooo much. After an hour or so we called it quits and returned to our hotel only to hear of an amazing Irish Pub, ‘‘O’Brien’s”. Immediately Justin, Matt and I left. There we consumed the most American hamburger I had eaten in weeks. Life was good and as we ate we were giggling with joy. It was hysterical. We came back and the girls hung out with us for a bit before we all headed for bed.