Our first stop this morning was at the Central Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral.
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| Notre Dame Cathedral |
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| Central Post Office |
Only quick stops at both of these sites for some picture taking and some early souvenir buying in the Post Office. Although after quick trips to 2 of the markets I think I prefer the less aggressive tactics at the Post Office. We also saw the cutest group of Vietnames children on a class trip, they were all so friendly and excited to see Americans.
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| Class trip to the Central Post Office |
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| Our class trip to the Post Office |
Next stop was the Vietnam History Museum chronically more than 4000 years of Vietnamese History. Whenever I travel outside of the US I am always reminded of how young of a nation that we are. Even more interesting is that with all of their history both Vietnam and China are still in many ways emerging nations.
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| Outside the Vietnames History Museum, no photos allowed inside |
Our next stop was the Reunification Hall where Van, our guide and Chris Runckel, who has a long history of work with the US and Vietnam discussed the events from the time when the French first occupied Vietnam, the Vietman War, the reunification of North and South Vietnam, and the reentrance of the US into Vietnam. It was an interesting overview of events. I was really impressed with Van's knowledge. He is obviously quite proud of his country and upbringing in Vietnam yet he presented the information in a very unbiased way which we may not have gotten from someone else.
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| Reunification Hall |
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| Van, our guide |
After a very informative morning we moved on to another important place, lunch at Pho 2000. Since we only grabbed a quick bite last night this was going to be our first experience with the local food. Pho 2000 is famous for President Clinton's visit back in the early 2000s. It did not disappoint. I decided to go with the seafood Pho as opposed to the traditional beef noodle soup.
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| Seafood Pho |
We took a brief trip into one of the markets after lunch and it is nothing like I have ever seen. The vendors are extremely aggressive trying to get you to buy anything from t-shirts, knock-off sunglasses, and locally made products. Not really my favorite way to shop. Another visit to the larger market near our hotel later in the day was just as overwhelming. It will be interesting to see if this is the same when we get to China.
After our quick adventures in Vietnamese retail we headed to a traditional Vietnamese medicine museum where we learned about some of the differences with Chinese traditional medicine and saw the history of traditional medicine in Vietnam. This is one of the newer museums in Vietnam and had some interesting outside views and historical items.
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| Vietnamese Traditional Medicine Museum |
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| Vietnamese Traditional Medicine Museum |
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| Vietnamese Traditional Medicine Museum |
Our last stop of the afternoon was a private show of traditional Vietnamese music. I think everyone would agree that this was one of the highlights of the day. We saw some traditional Vietnamese dances as well as unique Vietnamese instruments. We were even able to join in the fun at the end of the show.
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| Traditional Vietnamese Music Show |
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| Traditional Vietnames Medicine Show |
Today we start our company visits so I am sure it will be another full day. Oh, and if you're wondering about the weather, it's hot and humid. First thing in the morning I thought of some of my favorite quotes from Good Morning Vietnam related to the weather here, but I'll reserve those.
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