Day 1 in Vietnam, 

For our first day in Country myself and the group experienced a lot of culture shock and this started at breakfast. Rather than pastries and cereal which is normal for a hotel breakfast we were served noodles and braised chicken. This theme continued at our lunch, which was served family style and consisted of many traditional Vietnamese dishes. We had our ups and downs during this lunch including the time where we ate chilis not realizing we were supposed to put in the soy sauce. After lunch we embarked on a city tour which had a lot of us shocked with the many open displays of public communist promotional devices. Coming from the states this was quite the culture shock. We wrapped out our very hot day with a nice dinner in the AC at UEF. This dinner varied vastly from our other 2 meals. At the university we were served a unique deconstructed gastronomy tasting experience. Our appetizers, main course and dessert came in the form of small finger foods almost reminiscent of tapas you would find in spain. Each small experience was a unique interpretation of a classic dish, for example we were served ceviche but encased in a small edible foam layer and a traditional tuna tartar but replaced the croquettes with a slice of cucumber. Overall I think the group enjoyed our first day, I know I did.