Day 3

Today I woke up feeling a little sick but I managed to get it together and get up and go down to breakfast. Unfortunately I really couldn’t stomach anything so I was fairly hungry we left. Today we did not go to UEF because we had three site visits instead and the only time some of the companys could schedule us was in the morning.
First off we headed to VSIP or the Vietnamese—Sinapore Industrial Park. The ride there was a little lengthy and really bumpy, I remember it not really helping my already iffy stomach situation but I somehome managed to keep it together and make it to VSIP in one piece. Once we got to VSIP we headed to a conference room to be briefed on what exactly goes on inside the industrial park. Basically I leanred that it is a place for companies to come, mostly foreign, and do business in the vietnamese economy with the added benefit of not having to deal with land use rights here in vietnam and being able to utilize many of the other aspects that an industrial park includes.
The presentation was really good and we were spoken to by a guy who’s daughter is currently attending the university of Pittsburgh just like us. After listening to the marketing manager talk about the industrial park for a while the Director of Marlow Industries, Vietnam operations, spoke to us from the pittsburgh company II VI.
The presentation from II VI was really cool and the speaker was really helpful and insightful w hen answering our questions. After the presentation on II VI the people at the VSIP were very thoughtful and had prepared us a breakfast/lunch kind of deal with fresh fruit, pizza, flan, and all sorts of great desserts and foods. One thing I have noticed about buisinesses here in Vietnam is that they are very polite and do a lot for us when we come to visit. They answer all our questions and take time out of their very busy day to speak with us about what they do and help us to understand how engineers and business professionals impact their company.
After our refreshments we were lucky enough to get a tour of II VI’s facility at VSIP and it was a really cool experience. II VI makes cooling elements for electronics and we got to see how they make their medical grade cooling elements as well as their smaller micro counterparts used in computers. The process they go through to make these cooling devices is very interesting. The basically take the element, cut it down to size and put a bunch of chemical coatings on it and that allow it to heat up or cool down when a voltage is sent through it. II VI can control which side gets cool and which gets hot and even convert both sides to cool for optimum cooling potential. The other product II VI makes here at VSIP in Vietnam is an optical lense used with lasers in processes like eye surgery and industrial torches. This is what I thought to be the most interesting aspect of what II VI does in VSIP. I found it very interesting how much work goes into making just one tiny lense for a laser to pass through. II VI has done a lot of work to make the laser surgery much more efficient as well. Usually 8% of light from the laser is deflected, II VI however has come up with special coatings to minimize the light deflected to about 1.4% if I do recall correctly. I really found the II VI visit enjoyable and fascinating. It was also cool to learn more about a company right in our backyard in Pittsburgh.
After visiting II VI we drove back into District 1 of Saigon and had lunch. Sarah and Doctor Berman were nice enough to buy us all a lunch buffett. The food was pretty diverse and a lot of us werent feeling to adventerous but we did find some chicken kabobs that were really good. I also really liked the pasta type deal with clams and the rice concauction they had with vegetables.
After lunch we all walked across the street to Glass Egg Digital Media which is one of the site visits I’ve been really excited to go to. When we got there we were informed that Phil Tran and Steve Reid were still in a very important meeting downtown but they would try to make it back in time to catch us and do a Q and A session. In the mean time we were given a tour of their office which I thought would be a lot bigger. I really didn’t realize how small their company is. I think they have less than 1000 workers. I also didn’t know that they were involved with the development of so many games like “The Club”, “Project Gothem Racing 4”, and “Battelfield 2: Modern Combat”. After the tour we sat in their conference room for a presentation on their company that was really informative but it felt like the presentors really weren’t into it. A highier executive joined us and was there for our Q and A session but he seemed almost annoyed that we were there taking time out of his schedule. I believe he was a technical officer and while he does have a very cool job which requires him to play video games at home as homework and market research he really seemed stuck up.
While the visit was a little dissapointing in ambiance, it was still very informative and interesting. I did learn that as an engineer I am not really what they are looking for in a graphic designer because “you can’t teach a coder how to be an artist”. After leaving glass egg we came back to the hotel and just hung out for a while. Many of us were really tired so we all took naps. By the time I woke up it was 7:30 and Tony had called Kyle with plans for the night. So Matt, Kyle, and I went down to meet Tony and one of his friends, Tua (spelling?). Tua, Matt and I got a taxi to the restaurant where we were going for dinner while kyle was lucky enough to be the first of all of us to ride on the back of a motorbike in the crazy streets of Saigon. Along the way we met up with two more of Tony’s friends and I feel like I am awful with names here which is true but I can only remember the girls name, Minh(Spelling?). Tony’s male friend was really cool as well and Tony told me while I was riding on the back of his bike that he used to race motorbikes and was a really good driver. Apparently he used to drive at speeds in excess of 180 Km/h in Saigon which is very hard to fathom as the streets are so crowded.
When we got the restaurant we were seated on the third floor and the place was really cool inside. I think we were in and out in less than 20 minutes and it a really cool experience just talking with our Vietnamese friends and utilizing them to help us order iced tea and our meals. I had pasta with veal and it came out looking questionable but when I tried it it was extremely good. The portions here are much smaller than at home though but it was a good meal. When talking with our new friends we found out that Minh is a dancer for some music star here in saigon and she really does look the part. [I also found out later that by dancer she meant lap dancer and she also has posed nude with some of her friends just for kicks and giggles. Her and tony’s male friend are also pretty hard partyers or so ive been told so hopefully we will get a chance to go out with them while we are here.]When we asked for the check we almost died because for the 7 of us it was 250,000 dong which is roughly $17. So we decided to pay for everyones dinner. I only had 500,000 dong bills so when I pulled it out they all looked at me like I was crazy. I also found out that in Vietnam the tip is already calculated so you don’t have to leave a tip like in the US, which means I got scammed last night haha.
After dinner we rock paper scissored for who got to ride on the back of Tony and his friend’s motorbikes and Matt and I won because we are just dominant. We went to this street where they just put out tables and chairs for you to site on in the middle of the sidewalk and they serve you coffee or whatever you want out there. It was a really cool experience. When we got there we met up with some more of Tony’s friends from UEF and they were all very nice. Unfortunately Tua had to leave but she ended up calling while we were all having coffee and Kyle talked to her on the phone which was pretty hilarious, expecially when everyone was trying to tell him how to say things in Vietnamese to her. I think we were all a little loopy from the fumes we had all inhaled while riding on the motorbikes (Vietnam has no emissions laws) so we were all super talkative, especially Kyle. While we were there Tony asked us if we wanted to try dog and weirdly enough all of us said yes. I never thought I’d ever want to but Tony says its really good and when am I ever going to have another opportunity to try dog?
After talking for a while with everyone tony had to leave to go home and study for a math test so we took a taxi back to our hotel. I think today went really well and I had a lot of fun. It was really nice to hang out with all the Vietnamese kids and get to know them better. I just hope the rest of this trip is just as awesome as today was.