Day 5

Friday was an interesting day full of site visits. What made the day extra interesting was the site visit in the middle of the day to Intel Products. We started the day in the lobby of the hotel to meet some students from UEF who joined us on the trip out to the technology park. We started out with a tour of their factory. The factory was very empty. We weren't told at that time why it was empty expect that it was a new facility. We later found out through the presentation that the factory was empty because they were only going to add to it when the demand for the product demands it. After the tour of the factory, we headed to the office space. It was the coolest office I had been in yet. One thing that reminded me of Dupont was that all employees had to hold on to the hand rails when going up and down the stairs. After heading up the stairs we see a very large colorful room filled with cubicles. They were very spacious and lower to the ground as to rid the large room of closed in spaces. Walking down the hall we head to a room that is called RELAX. Yes this is s room build for the sole purpose of relaxing anytime during the work day. On or off of breaks. As we sit in the brightly colored couches and beanbag chairs our tour guide tell us we need to leave because she has to show us the "play room". We all run to the next room to see a large TV, pool table, darts and many more games. It was such a cool and different environment than any other office I had been in. We end the tour and are given a presentation on the company. We are told that this plant of Intel is one that is responsible for assembling the processors. Rick Howarth, the general manager, also goes into detail about the future of Intel. They want to put their product in smart phones and mini laptops. They are working on creating silicon that can be small enough and fast enough but run with little energy so the phone they do create will be able to have a long battery life. All these ideas are so that they can be viewed as a growing company and not a mature company in the eyes of stock holders. The presentation and office space were very cool and I will definitely be excited to see what they have in store for the future of their company and the future of their impact in Viet Nam.

After Intel, we came back to the hotel to eat lunch. Lunch was okay but I really enjoyed the ice cream. It was pink and seemed more like an icy than a cream. But it was a pretty neat texture. After lunch we walked like 9 blocks to hear a presentation from the ACDI/VOCA and Success Alliance on Cocoa bean producing. They talked about everything we would be seeing the next day in the Mekong Delta. They showed us how the cocoa plant in grown then harvested and fermented. There are all these steps that are taken before anything even remotely tastes like edible chocolate. Success Alliance went more into detail about how they teach farmers in the Delta to grow cocoa as a living. By teaching people this skill, they are able to make a living in the Delta. The presentation got us excited for what Saturday would bring.

We ended up taking a taxi back to the Hotel because we needed to get ready to meet our guide Miss Tu and our new friend Phung for a shopping/dinner/music night. We headed to a shopping plaza where clothes was the number one selling object. It was like a mall but with booths instead of stores and you could barter the price down. It was a neat experience and I was able to come away from the plaza with a shirt, necklace, and headband. We then headed to dinner which was typical Vietnamese cuisine. My roommate Rayna and I shared prawns and an egg. It was very delicious. Then after dinner, Miss Tu took us to a Rock Show at a local coffee shop. It was fantastic! They played live old rock songs like Hey Jude and we sipped on drinks for about an hour and a half. When the concert ended, we returned to the hotel, some on motorbikes, and met up with all the boys to go out for the night. We headed to a place that looked and was named the Factory. That was the end to our friday. Tomorrow we go to the Delta!