Yes, I know it’s only 2:50 am on Tuesday local time, but I can’t go back to bed. I had thought if I could just lie down, I would sleep until the morning and possibly skip breakfast. Well, it didn’t happen.

What else can one do at three in the morning?  I could go get food.  There are vendors out there who cater to the late night owls after a night of clubbing.

Well, instead I opt to check emails and blog as it is overdue.   The long day of traveling started out early. As the students who presented at PVNF blogged about their experiences, I’ll blog about my observation.

I thought the presentation went well as the students pulled their magic and wowed the PVNF board members. I think PVNF realized that there are things they could use from the report, and there are things that just will not materialize no mater how hard they try. They are at a pivotal point in their organization and will need to decide how big they want to grow the foundation. There is potential for growth.

We did an excursion around Orange County, specifically Santa Monica Pier, with what time we had left before heading back to LAX.

The flights to TPE and SGN were uneventful. We landed in Vietnam around 10 am, went through Customs, got our luggage, and exited Tan Son Nhat Airport.

It doesn’t matter how many times I come back, I am always never prepared to brave the heat.  At this time, we all were exhausted.  We just couldn’t wait to get a shower.

Hotel check-in was a breeze, but because we got there before our check-in time of 2:00 pm, some of the rooms weren’t ready yet. It was nice of the Front Desk Manager to let us have access to the rooms. Thumbs up for him.

After lunch, the majority of the male participants went with me to get measured for their customs suits.  We bargained hard to get 5% off, which was equivalent to the shipping fee.  After double checking the charged prices, everyone paid in full. They are expected to come back for their fittings on Thursday.

Well, dinner time was disappointing as I wanted to treat the winners of the spaghetti tower challenge to dimsum. It was fun to hear everyone  wanted to come for the experience (some are new to this city so they probably didn’t know where to go either).

We were split into three taxis, with two made it to the final destination.  The third, after 84,000 VND later, finally arrived.  The restaurant was one big disappointment after another, and I feel really bad that we couldn’t experience dimsum as a group; that is the result of dining spur-of-the-moment as a group in Vietnam.  Another notable thing that restaurants like this in Vietnam could improve if they want to bring more customers and increase market shares, albeit they already had plenty of customers.

Why were we disappointed?  First. They ran out of dimsum, and only had a few dishes left with limited quantity. Some people in our group chose to leave to go somewhere else, and I don’t blame them.  I couldn’t leave because the third taxi hadn’t arrived yet. I was worried the others couldn’t find us when they do come.   As mentioned above, they did arrive but only one chose to stay.

Second, my “ha cao” (another type of dumpling) were beginning to go bad so I didn’t finish it (they didn’t charge me for it).  Anyhow, service wasn’t great, and food was okay if they had enough. This really spoiled our evening as a group.  All of us were really tired but everyone was a real trooper though.  They all behaved amicably anyway.

Overall, first day was not completely a disaster, but it is definitely not the best first day.

 

3:39 am