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)