Day 3

The third day consisted of two site visits. The one to the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park was definitely very interesting because we were able to go see II-VI. Two-six is a company that specializing in optics for lasers and a chip that will cool down electronic devices. We were able to go into there factory and have a tour in the actually places where the materials are created. It was really cool to learn about the optic side of the operation because we learned how the glass works in Physics 2 just last semester. Even though I didn't learn anything from Physics, it was nice to see how Physics can be applied outside of the classroom. As for the cooling chip, it is currently the chip used in the Xbox's Project Natal to cool down all the electronics used in the system. Visiting two-six really gave me the opportunity to see how foreign businesses are run. One thing that caught a lot of our eyes, no pun intended, is that none of the workers who are working with glass material were wearing safety glasses. That would not fly in the U.S. at all. After the first site visit we went to a buffet style lunch at Monaco buffet. I would call the lunch interesting. I didn't fall in love with anything there so I ate very little but tasted a whole lot of things. I had my first rice pancake and solidified my love for the watermelon here in Viet Nam. The watermelon is not seedless but the work done to get the seeds out is more than worth it.

After Monaco we went to Glass Egg Digital Media. All I can say about that company is that they really disappointed us as a group. After talking to Dr. Berman about how the tour and info session went last year, we were really mistreated. Apparently the two people who wanted and invited us there had a surprise meeting and were unable to join us. We asked really good and in-depth questions and only got a couple word response. The scary thing was, I had to be the one to give the gift of our appreciation to the presenters. I was shaking and definitely mispronounced towel. Oh good old me and my lack of vocabulary and word pronouncing skills. I got the job done and in the end I made them laugh at my ridiculous pronunciation.

The site visit not going so well disappointed us but after we headed back to the hotel and probably all fell asleep. Not for an hour but for 4 hours. It was crazy how tired and jet-lagged we still were. But the nap seemed to do the trick. We all have been sleeping mostly through the night! After waking up around 8 p.m... we needed to eat. We didn't know if any places would be open and we need a burger so we went to the Hard Rock. It was totally worth the high price tag. The fries were delicious and even if our stomachs could only handle less than half the burger, it still tasted so good. But probably what made the night was that it was just the girls from the trip so we were able to get to know each other a little better. Hard Rock ended our night and we then proceeded to fall right asleep all over again.