Today was a very full day. We started off by heading to UEF for a Buddhism lecture. The lecture was so interesting and I really enjoy the concepts of Buddhism. I even bought a little Buddha statue at the market to remind me of the lecture. The lecturer was really funny and engaging and I was at attention the whole time. After the lecture we visited the spot where a monk self-immolated in 1963. This was a heavy spot to go to but it was beautiful and it was a large piece of history. It was really cool to be able to see the actual place where something so monumental happened. 

After that we visited the Pagoda. Here we got to light intense and pray and also look around and take pictures. I really enjoyed the pagoda. It was beautiful and it had an amazing energy. You could tell everyone praying was so at peace and it was really nice to watch. I took lots of pictures there.

After that we went to a food court for lunch. If it had been an American food court I would have groaned because it would have been crowded, loud, and dirty. It would have been decorated with primary colors and the bathroom would have been disgusting. I also would have ended up eating taco bell or subway. But no, this was a Vietnamese food court. This meant it was decorated to the nines, the bathroom was not only clean, but beautiful and the food was amazing. I had sushi and a banana-peanut butter smoothie and they were both so good. It was nice to take this time to relax and talk with my friends. We all commented on how we didn’t believe we would get close when we were at the pre-departure meetings and we were so shocked to realize how close we all are now.

After lunch we went to VinaCapital for a site visit. This site visit was nothing like I expected it to be. We spoke to three people and they were all American. They did not hold back for us, they were engaging and they pushed the envelope to make sure we knew they weren’t faking a thing. Comparing this to the Phu My Hung site visit is interesting because that one felt like there were a lot of things they couldn’t tell us. This was not the case with VinaCaptial.

 The presentation started with Rad and he told us about the VinaCaptial Foundation. I loved hearing about this because good non-profits are few and far between. The foundation is all about developing Vietnam, it’s about helping families in poverty get back to work and not worry about medical bills and that builds the middle class. This develops the country as a whole.

Then we heard the economist speak, the most interesting thing he said was the greatest indicator of if an economy is going to grow is its population of 45-50 year olds. I thought this was really interesting, I had never heard it before and it was cool to hear how immigration is actually helping America stay above this level.

Overall the site visit was really engaging and I found it really interesting. After that we went to the market which was super fun and nothing like we have in America. Today was busy but thats the best type of day.