Final Summary Journal Entry

Ethical Issues in My Profession
In the companies that we visited and were given an opportunity to observe, I did not see much differences in their ways of dealing with safety, environmental, or employee issues. I am sure the Vietnamese government has some way of regulating these things, as well. Most of the professionals we talked with have ties to America, and so they seem to have dealt with diversity issues the same in Vietnam as they would here in the United States. Since many of the Vietnamese own their own businesses, they are able to run them and treat their employees in a way that they feel is fair. The female students I met while studying at the University of Economics and Finance were all very determined to make it in the working world, so I believe that gender roles or expectations in Vietnam may be fading with the younger generations, specifically. I believe we are also finding this in the United States.

Educational Breadth as Professional Development
A broad education is definitely necessary and important in understanding the need of engineering and business solutions in a global and societal context. I think there were plenty of differences between the Vietnamese culture and that of which we have in the United States. In fact, there are enough that would make me encourage other students to study these differences. Personally, I knew some cultural differences before we traveled to Vietnam, but only those I thought we would encounter in a business setting. It has definitely made me realize that I should do more research about the culture of a place before I go there, and I would encourage other students studying abroad to do the same, no matter how long or short their trip is. I also wish I had known more about the economy of Vietnam and their position in the global market before going on our trip. Yes, it was beneficial to learn about it at UEF or during a site visit, but I think that I would have looked at the country in a different light had I known more before arriving in Ho Chi Minh City. I think courses like international economics or introduction to developmental economics would help prepare me for a global economy, even after experiencing it firsthand.

Lifelong Learning, Continuous Education as Professional Development
It is clear that all the professionals we met have benefited in some way from life-long learning. Specifically, those who were not Vietnamese have had to adjust many different aspects of their lives in order to find success as a foreigner in Vietnam. They were all educated in a field relating to their current profession; however they have all learned to adapt what they learned to the way things are done in Vietnam. One even went so far as to say that all he had learned in business school was done the opposite way in Vietnam. As for technology, it played an important role in all the businesses we visited throughout the trip. It is used not only for the basic purposes of the companies, but even for communicating with employees and clients. Clearly, everyone is affected by technology, and so everyone must be open to learning and using it as an important part of the companies they work for or have started. Technology is just one thing that people have to continue to learn in order to be successful in the business world. I think that the professionals we met while in Vietnam have all had to adjust to and learn about their surroundings in order to achieve the success they have found.

The Social Environment of Professional Life
I definitely saw a connection between peoples’ social and professional lives. Much of this I believe had to do with the fact that many of the companies had younger employees. For example, at Glass Egg Digital Media or Ascenx, most of the staff in the offices were fresh out of college or art school. I did not really discuss any of America’s social or political issues, and did not feel comfortable or educated enough to ask much about Vietnam’s social and political issues. However, I think that each company did a thorough job at explaining the politics involved in their businesses. For example, Phu My Hung Corporation is funded by the government, yet their engineers and architects seem to have been given free reign over the design of South Saigon, contrary to what I think would have been the case. Because I did not really know many of the current events or issues going on in Vietnam while I was there, I have achieved the understanding of why it is important to have knowledge of contemporary issues related to the global economy before traveling in a business capacity. Upon learning about some issues in Vietnam from those we met on site visits, some of the things I noticed around the country and in Ho Chi Minh City began to make sense. For example, I wondered for about the first week of our trip why there were so many stores selling safes. Then when I learned that most Vietnamese do not have bank accounts and therefore keep their money in US Dollars or gold, this made sense.

Functioning on Multi-Disciplinary Teams
Before and during our trip, I think that I handled being a member of a multi-disciplinary team fairly well. Working with engineering students made me realize how different the educational experiences are between the College of Business Administration and the School of Engineering. In CBA, a lot of focus is put on working with teams, and some of our most important and challenging classes have group projects as a big component of the final grade. For this reason, especially being a year ahead of my fellow Plus 3 students, I felt prepared to work effectively as a team on our pre-departure report and throughout the trip. Despite the fact that our first meeting was not very productive and we were unprepared to produce our project, the next time we met everyone had done their part and had also done a very thorough job. I was impressed by the slides the engineering students put together, and even more impressed at how well they understood and were able to explain engineering concepts in our presentation. It goes to show how much they are learning, and I think that our industry analysis was also very thorough and showed the knowledge we are beginning to accumulate in CBA. Sometimes, communication was an issue, but we eventually overcame it by appointing a ‘team leader’ of sorts, who made sure we were always on the same page.

At last...

I have made it home safely. The flights home were much better than the ones there, mostly because I was actually able to sleep. I am very glad to be home, but I will miss Vietnam. I would love to go back to see more of Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi as well. It was an amazing place and experience.

I guess this is the end of my blogging. Thanks for reading :)

Home tomorrow!!

For our last day, we had one last business and language class. We also had a really great lunch at UEF that included french fries and these delicious fried spring rolls (possibly my new favorite food). We have a farewell dinner at the Indochine Restaurant tonight with a bunch of people we've had the opportunity to spend time with, like our Vietnamese teacher and one of the CEO's we met on a site visit. I think it's going to be a really nice time. Afterwards, I don't plan on going to sleep. Our bus leaves at 3:30 AM (!!!) for the airport to come home, anyway. In the meantime, I really need to pack. It's going to be tough since I'm coming home with more than I arrived here with. Hopefully it all fits!

Here is my itinerary:
- depart Saigon Airport @ 6:05AM, arrive Hong Kong Int'l @ 9:40AM
- depart Hong Kong Int'l @ 12:45PM, arrive Chicago O'Hare @ 2:16PM
- depart Chicago O'Hare @ 4:16PM, arrive Philadelphia Int'l @ 9:19PM

So the trip is coming to a close, and although I'm not looking forward to my 38-hour-long Saturday (yes, somehow that's what it will be with all the time changes), I will be happy to get home. I think the trip has been the perfect length of time, and that I have really gotten a lot out of it, possibly even more than I had initially hoped.

Day 11

Today has been a great day. This morning, we didn't have classes, but instead went to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange. It was in an old French government building, and it now has this statue of a bull and a bear in front of it which for some reason I thought was really awesome.
The stock exchange itself was a little different from what I expected it to be like. The trading floor was small and all automated by computer, no crazy people running around and shouting.
After the Stock Exchange, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which is only a block away from our hotel. To give you an idea of the kind of things in this museum, it actually used to be called the 'War Crimes' museum, and before that, it was the 'American War Crimes' museum. Outside were a lot of pieces of military equipment left behind by the Army (a fighter plane, helicopter, tanks, etc.), which were all really cool to get up close to and look at. The inside, however, is where it got really interesting. Around the city, there are lots of signs of propaganda, which is all really interesting to look at (pictures of Vietnamese soldiers helping farmers, pictures of Ho Chi Minh with a HUGE smile on his face...stuff like that). The War Remnants museum, however, was filled with pictures and objects whose captions blew my mind. I can't remember anything specific, but I got a few pictures of the posters that were up there. Some of it was also really disturbing and kind of upsetting, but it was history, and it is completely representative of what Vietnamese students are taught in schools.
This afternoon, we spent the day shopping in the markets. We first went to the Binh Tay Market, which is what the Vietnamese call their 'Chinatown.' It was more like a warehouse, and there was hardly anything touristy. We found a few things, and then got lunch at a Chinese restaurant, where we unknowingly ordered chicken feet. We didn't realize that we were eating chicken's feet until I had two, so that kind of ruined my appetite. No wonder there was hardly any meat on them and the bones were really brittle... But then we went to the Ben Thanh Market, which is more oriented towards Americans. I finished all my shopping there, which is great since our time is almost up here in Vietnam!

Day 10!

Today was more relaxed, which is nice since we've been so busy lately. We had a history/culture class and then our language class. Today there were a lot of news cameras and reporters at the school to do their stories on us. I was in a few pictures for the newspaper, so hopefully I will get my hands on a copy of that somehow. After classes and lunch, we stuck around UEF and hung out with the English Club for a few hours. They had us playing games and talking to each other about the differences between our schools. It was a lot of fun. The students are probably one of my favorite parts about this trip. They are all so interested in talking to us and are very friendly. The games were a little embarassing, but my partner and I won one, so that was fun. Later, we played a soccer game against the UEF team. I haven't played soccer for a long time, but it was still a lot of fun. Their team was really good, but I think it was a pretty even matchup.

Day 9

Today was a lot like yesterday. We had a business class this morning and language class again. Then, we had a site visit to the US Commercial Service. We met with the Principal Commercial Officer (he's kind of a big deal). The US Commercial Service is a part of the International Trade Association, which is a division of the Department of Commerce. The main goal is to promote the export of US goods or services to Vietnam. He is one of about 270 Principal Commercial Officers in the world, so it was great that we were given the opportunity to hear him speak. He, like many of our other site visits, gave us his opinion on the state of the economy in Vietnam in light of the global downturn, which of course is very interesting. We just went to dinner at a place called the Hollywood Film Cafe, which is a restaurant that was opened by a Chinese American. His story is really interesting. He was born in Kansas, grew up in North Carolina, just graduated in 2006, moved to Vietnam, opened a franchise, had a few mishaps with the government (real easy to do in Vietnam), and then started this new restaurant. The restaurant was really neat, it was like a movie theatre and I got a bacon cheeseburger that was AMAZING. I didn't realize how much I miss American food. It makes me really excited to come home in a few days! :)

Day 8

Today was one of our less exciting days. We had a Vietnamese history class this morning which I had a hard time staying awake in, and then we had our language class, in which we learned numbers.
Our site visit for the day was with CB Richard Ellis. The woman who spoke with us was from Wisconsin originally, and first came to Vietnam during her undergrad. After graduating she decided to come here to work full time. I thought her story was really interesting. She talked a lot about the 'palefaces' and 'expats' in Vietnam who are working here and how most of them are kind of forced to come here by their company so they are paid ridiculous amounts of money and get to stay in these incredible apartments in the nicest parts of town. I thought it was awesome that she chose to come to work in Vietnam, and she was really excited to tell us some secrets of the city, like a restaurant where you can eat scorpions. CBRE is a real estate firm, so she was also able to explain to us how the housing crisis in Vietnam was spurred by the credit crisis around the world, but not for the reasons we would expect. The Vietnamese actually mostly don't have bank accounts. Mostly, they keep their money in blocks of gold or straps of bills hid in their houses somewhere. So when they go to buy a house or an apartment, they walk into her shows with plastic bags full of cash. The reason housing prices skyrocketed in Vietnam is becasue the people saw what was going on around the world and were afraid that the properties they bought (or actually lease from the government) would depreciate in value like properties did in America, for example. It was an interesting perspective, and I think that she was able to explain what was going on economically in Vietnam really well.
For dinner we found this great place called Thai Express. I had honey chicken, which was so good! It was a cool restaurant, too, so I'm not sure why we were the only ones eating there, but we were. Regardless, it was one of the best dinners out I have had so far.

Day 7

Today was another exhausting day. First, we had a Vietnamese cooking class this morning. There is a restaurant here in HCMC that gives cooking classes, where they teach you the whole process: bartering at the market, preparing all the ingredients, and actually making the food. Our group was split into three smaller groups, and we were each given certain ingredients and amounts that we had to go to the market and find. The market was a very interesting place...lots of different smells going on there, many odd sights, too (see the pig's feet below). The most interesting thing, though, was the perspective we got on how much things cost. We bought seven ingredients total: shallot, noodles, two types of rice paper, carrots, potatoes, and bananas. Enough of each of these things for 13 people cost 36,000 dong total...that's just about $2. Once we got all the ingredients, we went to the restaurant and started preparing all our ingredients. For example, cleaning the bean sprouts and morning glory stems and getting all the feet and shells off the shrimp. We made three dishes: fried spring rolls, fresh spring rolls, and a three course dinner of pineapple fried rice, fish, and soup. The fried spring rolls were my favorite and will be easy to replicate at home :) I never thought shrimp and banana could taste so good together.
After the lunch we made, we spent a few hours at Dam Sen Waterpark with some children from an orphanage. It was so much fun! Although they spoke no English and we hardly speak any Vietnamese, we still managed to get along really well. They were very, very friendly. Not 30 seconds into meeting them was I holding hands with two Vietnamese girls. And for the next two hours that didn't change very much. We rode lots of rides and did a lot of laughing and playing around. It was really rewarding seeing them get to have such a good time with us and with each other. They also loved taking pictures with us. I didn't take my camera with, but the adults that were with the group of children did and will be sending us some of them soon, hopefully.
These are just some random pictures I took today and thought were interesting. Enjoy!

The best Buddha I have seen in Vietnam so far.

Our delicious fried spring rolls.

The pig's feet at the market. "Is it dead?"

Day 6: Mekong Delta

Today was definitely my favorite of the trip so far. We got up extra early to travel three hours into the Mekong Delta, which is south of Ho Chi Minh City. On our way there, we made a stop at a soldier's cemetary, where casualties of what the Vietnamese call the American War have been buried. There were around 4000 or 5000 Vietnamese soldiers buried there, in these beautiful white tombs around a monument that read "the fatherland never forgets." The next stop was at a temple, which I thought was the most beautiful thing I have seen so far on this trip. It's a temple that has been 'made for everyone', according to our tour guide, as many temples in Vietnam are said to be. Inside, there is an altar with four people on it: buddha, a taoist, Jesus, and a confucianist. I wish I could share all of the inside pictures, but there are so many!







Above is a picture of the floating market in the Mekong Delta, where people buy and sell food, supplies, and other necessities as they see fit. This is just one of the things we got to experience at the Delta. After getting on our boat, we first went to a small village and to a house to have fruit and tour their gardens, which was really cool. We then got ferried down to a larger village and to a house where they were making coconut candy (which was delicious, so I bought some for home). While we were at this house, however, it started downpouring. The rain here continues to fascinate me. We waited out the storm for a while and then took a half hour long boat ride through the floating market to another house for lunch, which was amazing. I didn't eat much yesterday, but I definitely made up for it at lunch today. They actually put cooked fish (the whole fish...including the fins, which someone at my table ate) on our tables and we had to make our own spring rolls. They also had these crunchy vegetable rolls and noodle soup that was delicious, along with the usual banana and pineapple for dessert.
My overall impression of the Delta and it's people is that it is much more laid back than in the city, and I very much enjoyed it for this reason. The people did not heckle us to buy things and were always waving and smiling at us. Also, it was really nice to get away from all the motorbikes and honking horns for a while.

Day 5

We started off today with our Vietnamese language class and a business class, in which we learned about monetary policy in Vietnam. After lunch at the school, we had some time to wander around District 12, where the school is located. Walking around there was much different from walking around here. The Vietnamese have the same kinds of shops set up as they do here in District 1, but they were all very much nicer about selling things. In the Ben Thanh Market, for example, the people come up to you and try very hard to get you to buy their things, but in District 12, they were just happy to say hello to us. Even people passing by on scooters waved and said hello, which I thought was really neat. I guess that in that section of Ho Chi Minh City they don't normally see a lot of tourists. The side streets were also much less busy there.
After our exploring, we went on a company visit to Ascenx Technologies, which is a new engineering firm. Although they focused a lot on the engineering terms and things, I still feel like I got a lot out of this site visit. There were maybe 25 people in the office, and every single one of them were really nice to us. After we learned about the company, we all just kind of hung around the office talking to the Vietnamese employees. The founder of the company, Thun, is one of the thousands of Vietnamese who fled Vietnam on a boat after the fall of Saigon. His story was incredible, I am very glad I got to hear an account such as his.
We just got back from a homestay dinner. Basically, we went to this Vietnamese home where they made a business out of cooking traditional Vietnamese meals for foreigners and welcome you in for a few hours. There were three generations living in this beautiful home on the Saigon River, and they fed us this wonderful food. We ate outside, and it was drizzling a little, which was really refreshing. The mango we had for dessert was delicious.
Tomorrow, we are leaving at 7am for a day trip to the Mekong Delta. It will take us three hours to get there, and then we will be there in the afternoon for a boat ride and for lunch. I am very excited to see the floating villages and markets. Hopefully I will get some good pictures.

Day 4

We started off today by going to Le Hong Phong, a high school for gifted students. It is a school that these students have to be accepted into, and once they are accepted, they get to choose a major like English, French, chemistry, biology, IT, etc. on which 10th, 11th and 12th grades are based. The students we got the opportunity to interact with were all English majors, and once again I was VERY impressed by how well they spoke our language. They were very interested in our lives in America. I asked the student I spoke with what she plans on doing after high school, and she seemed very excited and motivated to either come to America or England to go to a university, which I thought was really awesome. All of the students were very fun, they liked taking pictures with us, too, which I really enjoyed.For lunch, Krysta and I went to a place called Pho 24 (http://www.pho24.com.vn/index.php), which is a Vietnamese chain that serves a traditional soup. It was very good. We also got to see our first Vietnamese rain around lunchtime. It started off as a drizzle and then all of a sudden it was pouring. I can't imagine Ho Chi Minh City actually during the monsoon season. After 5 minutes of a heavy downpour, the streets were flooded. My umbrella wasn't helping much, we still ended up getting soaked. But it was a really awesome experience. There's no good way to describe the rains. I kind of like how Forrest Gump puts it, "Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath."

After lunch, we heard a presentation by a lawyer who works for Duane Morris. He didn't talk much about the company itself, but rather how the economic crisis that is going on around the world will effect Vietnam later, but only in a secondary sense. He had a lot to say about the corruption in Vietnam, as well, and hearing about it made me realize just how corrupt the government is. He said that sometimes when he rides his motorbike, a general will stop him and ask for $10...and although the general can't technically do that, he has to give him the $10 or his bike will be taken away. It's actually kind of scary that these sorts of things go on.

We just got back from a trip to the Ben Thanh Market, where we just kind of looked around and got some dinner. The Ben Thanh Market was an interesting experience. You can get t-shirts for $3 there, which I will probably end up doing eventually. They also have a lot of really cool traditional trinkets that will fit perfectly in my suitcase.

This is a picture of all the motorbikes that were parked at the high school we went to this morning. And this was one side of the parking lot, to give you an idea. The students each have their own, which I think is really neat. They don't need a license to drive one, but have to be at least 16. I was a passenger on a motorbike ride twice today, and was impressed by how much skill it takes to ride one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr5Gssaxl6g&NR=1

Day 3

Today was a lot like yesterday. We had a Vietnamese culture and history class instead of a business class. The professor was pretty awesome, he got very excited to tell us about the history and culture, which made it really enjoyable for all of us, I think. In our language class, we learned how to say "Hi, how are you?" "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" and "Goodbye, hope to see you soon." We also started learning "Where are you from?" and "I'm an American". Our language professor is amazing. I am so glad we have her; I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be as much fun if it were with someone else.

Our site visit today was to Phu My Hung, which is an urban development company. It was located in the area that it is building up, Saigon South. Saigon South was about an hour from our hotel in south Ho Chi Minh City, and it is basically a new city they are building with businesses, and residential housing. Listening to the International Marketing Director was very interesting. I never really thought about how cities are started, and I realized today that a lot of thought and planning goes into EVERYTHING having to do with this. They had a huge model (see below) of Saigon South, and so far it looks to me like all is going as planned. There is a huge convention center, many many fancy high rises, car dealerships, recreational areas, etc. The point of building this city is, I think, to redistribute some of the population within Ho Chi Minh City, and to bring in foreign companies. I think I learned a lot from this site visit. I am really glad that we are getting an opportunity to visit companies like these, and it helps me look forward to our other site visits. Tomorrow we don't have classes in the morning, but are instead going to a high school for children that have a lot of potential/special talents. In the afternoon, we will be visiting Duane Morris LLC.

(Top picture is the model of the city, bottom picture is part of the progress on the city so far)

Day 2

Today was pretty calm. We discovered the egg lady at the breakfast buffet. She's the Vietnamese equivalent of the omelette guy at Market Central. I think I'll be getting fried eggs for breakfast every morning from here on out. We had a business class at UEF, which was interesting. He lectured on the tax reform taking place in Vietnam. It was a little hard to pay attention because 1) I was exhausted and 2) There was kind of a little language barrier....but after that class, we had our daily language class which is just hilarious. The professor is so nice and patient. Plus, the language is kind of funny when you're learning all the different tones, so it's just a good time. We laughed a lot today, everything seemed funny, which I am blaming on our exhaustion.

After classes, we had a little mishap in an elevator (kind of got stuck for a few minutes...we were a few people over the weight limit, but we got saved so it's ok), and then did our first site visit at Glass Egg Digital Media. I was really impressed by this company. They are a software developer. Basically, they make the picture you see in video games. So for example, today everyone was working on the cars for some sort of racing game. It was all very complex and the artists must all be so skilled in order to do that job. I liked going there a lot because it was so different from what I expected. The CEO and CFO also had a lot of interesting comments to make about the economy and Vietnam as a whole, as well. (http://www.glassegg.com/)

Our first day!

Ok, so Ho Chi Minh City at night is MUCH different from Ho Chi Minh City during the day. I think this picture pretty much sums up the place. First of all, the traffic is insane. Most people drive motorbikes around because it's real easy to weave in and out of places, including around busses, through intersections, and on sidewalks to avoid traffic. If you take a close look at the picture, you'll notice that people are going every which way on those things. Another thing to notice is all the shops that line the streets. I'm not quite sure how many blocks comprise HCMC, but I'm fairly certain there are thousands of shops within the city. The last thing in this picture I find interesting are the power cords at the top. It's incredible how many there are, and we probably saw crews working on them in at least five different places in our travels today. At corners, especially, you can just see tons and tons of cords wrapped around each other.

We started today off by getting the breakfast buffet, where I had some noodle and beef concoction which although I wouldn't typically call it breakfast, it was still delicious. We then took a bus ride to The University of Economics and Finance, where there was a welcome reception for us. We each had to introduce ourselves and we talked a little bit about Pitt, and then they told us about UEF and we mingled with the students. Then, we had a Vietnamese language class. Ling, the student who I sat with, had incredibly good English skills. I was very impressed by her, even after she told me that English is much easier to learn than Vietnamese. Then it was lunchtime, where we were served all sorts of different Vietnamese meals, all of which were delicious.

After leaving UEF, we had a break and then had a quick tour of HCMC. We went to Reunification Hall, which was the presidential palace before the fall of Saigon. It was breathtaking. There was a movie theatre, a game room, a heli pad, and many conference rooms. We also went down to the bunker to see what it was like. At this point of the day it was very hot and humid outside, so it was hard to enjoy being in a building with no AC. This was also the point during the day when I really started to feel tired.

We then went to see Notre Dame Cathedral and the Post Office. At Notre Dame we were bombarded by street vendors who wanted to sell us post cards and flowers and fans. They would not leave us alone after we refused to buy from them. So much so I thought they were going to end up in our group picture. After the Cathedral, we got a pretty awesome chance to tour and speak with people at the US Consulate. Although I was really tired, I was interested to hear all about working for the government in the foreign service and all the opportunities they get through that.

For dinner we went to a restaurant called Song Ha. We were served a four or five course meal that was...interesting. Vietnamese food doesn't really look all that tasty, so when you bite in you get a real shock of flavor. I tried everything they put on the table, including something that looked a little like squid or calamari. I'm quickly learning that I will need to get much better at using chopsticks. I had pineapple juice to drink, and I am almost certain it was freshly squeezed. It was kind of pulpy like orange juice, and very delicious.

It's only 9:10 here, but I am exhausted and will probably go to sleep soon so I can fully recover from the jet lag. Tomorrow we will have our daily Vietnamese language class, a culture class, and then a site visit to Glass Egg Digital Media in the afternoon.

"Baby, you rocked me!"

I forgot...

I forgot to mention that we flew up through Canada, over the North Pole-ish, and then down through China to get to Hong Kong from Chicago. It was a lot whiter than I thought it would be, and I never expected to go over the North Pole of all places. I thought that it was pretty cool, especially since it was so unexpected. And China is beautiful from above.

We made it!

Somehow, we got to fly BUSINESS CLASS (!!!!!) to HCMC from Hong Kong. It was amazing. I finally got to sleep, even though I didn't want to miss out on all the cool perks of being in business class. Customs was fine. And then it took us about a half hour to get to our hotel due to traffic (and it's around midnight). Vietnam is interesting. And really really hot and humid. Especially for being so late at night. The hotel is nice, and I am exhausted. Tomorrow is our reception at The University of Economics and Finance.

I'm in China!!

We made it safely to Hong Kong! It was a 15 1/2 hour flight, which was really tough to handle, but they had good movies and (surprisingly) good food. Plus, I sat next to a really nice couple who are on their way to Cambodia. We were almost two hours late taking off, however we got here on time somehow. In about an hour we'll be on our way to Viet Nam!!

HCMC Weather

It's going to be H-O-T.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/tenday/VMXX0007?from=36hr_fcst10DayLink_business

5 days and counting....

My Itinerary:
5/2/09
- Depart Philadelphia Int'l @ 7:49am, arrive Chicago Int'l @ 9:10am
- Depart Chicago Int'l @ 12:22pm, arrive Hong Kong Int'l @ 4:45pm
5/3/09
- Depart Hong Kong Int'l @ 8:40pm, arrive Ho Chi Minh City @ 10:05pm