Today was a great refresher from the company and business talks. To start the day we dived deep into Buddhism. To become Buddhist one most, give up most aspects of their lives in order to reach nirvana, the final form of Buddhism. To me this religion is too much. I prefer a life where people are free to have their own experiences and try new things. Buddhism sets a limit on how you can live your life and its philosophy is not for me. What I find fascinating about it is the architecture in the buildings. The old Chinese buildings that are pagodas are a beautiful blend of color and culture. In today’s pagoda I enjoyed the Chinese statues and lettering that filled the wall. The attention to detail really brings the building together making it one of my favorite styles of architecture.

The afternoon shifted directions to visits to historical sites. First at the Reunification palace we could see the focal building for the South Vietnamese government during their wars. Many beautiful rooms lined the palace, and the preservation was amazing. We were able to see rooms left in the same state from the mid 70’s. Seeing an iconic Saigon palace was great into understanding its presence in the Vietnam war. After this visit we went to the war remnants museum. This may have been the most impactful visit of the trip as we could see the Vietnamese perspective of the war. This definitely opened my eyes seeing what they think. The most impactful sections to me where the ones on the destruction caused by agent orange and the war prisoners’ section. Being able to see these inglorious sides of war made me step back and question if the fighting is worth it. The war remnants museum is one that challenged a lot of my previous knowledge and I’m glad we went there.