Tuesday, October 25, 2005



DAY 1


Met up with my VT01 classmates at Changi Airport Terminal 2 Burger King to practice our item for the Vietnam University item visit at 11am on our departure date 11th Nov 2005.




Laughing and just imagining how silly we would appear if we had act it out in Singapore instead of Vietnam, suddenly thought to myself why Singaporean nowadays are getting more and more image conscious of themselves till the extend that they feel very embarrassed doing act or performance that portray the unique Singapore culture that has set us apart from so many other countries.






Why we only sing traditional song like Geylang si paku geylang, Rasa sayang eh and other traditional Singaporean song on national day?


Why we were so afraid of expressing our Singaporean roots?


Being one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, shouldn’t we be proud of our diverse culture that so many tourist are so interested in?Perhaps this is one question that Singaporeans must ask themselves.


After grabbing something to eat at MAC and Sake Sushi, went to check in at our departure gate.


Of course, our of us including yours truly HAD to buy some hard liquor(4 Bottle of Volka + 1 Gin + 1 Marleboo in total)


Taking a window seat, time just seems to stop as I looked through the windows at the padi fields, mountainous region to the urban and rural areas of Vietnam. It was truly a spectacular sight and it just made me realize how true it was to describe Singapore as a red dot on the world map. But I guess it was also due to the immerse size of the country that made Vietnam so hard to develop as compared to Singapore.



The customs at Vietnam all wore green uniform with a matching green cap and yellow rank under their collar which I found quite intermediating. However, this was so as communism is very evident in Vietnam which was a communist country. The language they were communicating in was Vietnamese which I found quite hard to understand. But as a global citizen, language was a barrier that we have to overcome everywhere else in the world so I had to adapt to that


On the bus towards Metropole hotel, our tour guide, Hien gave us a brief insight and some background knowledge of Vietnam. Similar to Singapore saying of “No money No Honey”, it was “No Motorcycle No Girlfriend” in Vietnam.


Looking out of the bus, I saw almost 2/3 of a whole lane filled with motorcycle and the leftmost inner lane was occupied by bigger vehicle like car, bus and coaches etc. I was really taken back by that sight as the traffic was moving very fast and my heart was feeling the anxiety of an accident happening. The traffic condition there was very bad with very little traffic light and proper traffic control. However, what really worries me was the fact that the large amount of smoke from the exhaust pipe of the motorcycles causing uneasiness and discomfort to my eyes as I open and looked out of the bus window.


The smoke pollution not only made the driving condition unhealthy to drive in but overall contributed significantly to serious health hazard conditioning of the country due to the pollutant released. I felt that better measure could be taken to improve the traffic condition as well as reduce the pollution in Vietnam.

Perhaps filter could be installed to help reduced the amount of smoke emitted. Stricter measure could also be taken as I felt that people had to be of a more mature age to handle motorcycle as it concern their life and student as young as 16 years old could ride in the busy traffic conditions in Vietnam.


After checking into our respective hotel room, we met at the hotel lobby before heading off to Saigon River for a dinner cruise. Cruising along the Saigon River and tasting the local food, I enjoyed the cool breeze as well as the performance of the singer and performer on the cruise.

Although I got a first hand experience of Vietnam’s night life but I guess this cruise was just part of tourism development in Ho Chi Ming City and not really something that locals Vietnamese could afford easily. A short tutorial of sharing after the cruise ended the day officially and it was time for Light out.

BUT
Guess what?
The Night is still young
We had our very first party =)

It was a very nice time spent in room 516(Johnny and Dennis room)
Got to know my classmates better and we played lots of funny games
We were just like a family
The girls are quite violent lo!!!!!!
My roommates, Tieh Min spent the night without me

HAHA... morning.. after the party was over slept over at Clarissa and Hui Shan room with Peili and Melissa
Become their Jie Meis just after 1 night... L O L
Caught as much shut eye as i could... then woke up headed back to my room and showered before heading down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast