It's only been two days?

The past two days have been PACKED and wonderful. I arrived a little before midnight on Monday to a sleeping Michaela, a little too overwhelmed and homesick. We haven't had too much time to go on the internet - this is the first night the internet worked [we were using an unsecure line that turned off at night], but we finally got the password for the hotel/guest house internet [I should eventually take a picture of the place I'm staying]. I'm a little behind on all the wondrous events of all your lives! Hopefully the paces settles down a little bit and I can take a little breather from the exciting adventure of Vietnam and see a little bit about all the other things going on.

Tuesday morning after I woke up, a few of us decided to trek out for some coffee and water. We ended up not getting the coffee, and went to the post office. When I say post office, you might think a quaint little building to send your mail, but the post office in District 1 of HCMC is intense and gigantic, very "presidential", so to speak. Later that day a few students took us on a motorbike tour of the city and I ended up back at the post office [first to eat some ice cream in front, then inside to take pictures - they really love their picture taking here]. Here are some photos of both.













All the restaurants we've been to have been pretty swanky. For breakfast on Tuesday we went to Quan Ang Ngon where they make food from all three of the regions and you can walks through the "kitchen" and pick what you want, or just watch them make it. I didn't take any pictures when we were passing through but others did, I just haven't taken their pictures yet. I did a little describing of some of the foods to some of the other students. Food is the thing I think I know the most about over the others.





We went to dinner at Nhà Tôi and had morning glory stems, tofu, and grilled whole shrimp. Word to the wise - you can (and should) eat the shrimp shell, especially if that's the part that was marinated. Everyone was pretty tired by dinnertime though. I didn't take pictures... But someone did of the fascinating shrimp.

When we were getting back, across the street was a some dragons playing and a child's fashion show and we decided to watch. The fashion show turned into a little singing show, people were excited.



Okay, I guess today's excitement will have to wait for another time. It has amazed me how much we are cramming into the first few orientation days. Everyone is great and amazing!

I'm uploading all my pictures to Picasa Web Album, and going to pick some favorites for Flickr and Facebook later.