Currently I am staying in Sai Gon for two months, participating in an intensive Vietnamese language learning program. We study in class Monday through Friday from 8am to 12pm (sometimes later), interview Vietnamese regularly about all kinds of things, have two hours of one-on-one language practice per week, and attend 5 family dinners throughout the summer. They definitely keep us busy!
My flight here was epic...in the sense that it took a whole 48 hours. After being delayed in Philly, I grabbed a train to Newark and flew to Hong Kong from there. Due to further delays and missed connecting flights, the airline put me up in a fancy airport hotel for the night! Luckily I was able to meet up with another VASI student so we could hang out in Hong Kong (awesome!) the following day until our flight to Sai Gon left around 4:30pm.
The program has 15 students, and we are all staying at the same hotel in district one of the city. We live just a few blocks from the Sai Gon zoo, which is free to the public before 7am. So, sometimes I head over there in the early morning the joggers and badmintoners.
Something that I never thought I would do, but has turned out to be amazing, is that I am taking Muay Thai martial arts at a gym here in Vietnam! Even though I can't really understand much of the instructions (which are of course in Vietnamese), our very expressive teacher, Thầy Nghiệp gives enough demonstrations that I catch on pretty well. I feel like I'm in a Rocky montage every time I go to a class. It's awesome.
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