On our fourth day, we started the day a little differently. Instead of going straight to class, we went to the Jade Emperor Pagoda, a Taoist pagoda in the city. I've been to more Catholic churches than I can count, but I've never been anywhere quite like this. The entrance was a courtyard with a few different statues and shrines, and a big pool with a bunch of little turtles swimming around inside. Off to the side, there was another pool with a gigantic turtle and some fish. The entrance to the pagoda was all intricate carved wood with a ton of different figures and symbols. The inside smelled almost overpoweringly like incense because all the worshipers light it in front of the different shrines. The shrines consisted of carved panels, pictures and paintings, and these huge carved figures. I don't even know what they were depicting, but they were incredible. It all looks very old, and it was really cool to be able to see it. We got to walk around the whole inside. There were a lot of different alcoves and smaller shrines. It was a really surreal experience.
After the pagoda, we went to UEF for a class on Vietnamese History and Culture. Our teacher gave us a lot of extremely detailed information, and went on forever about everything he brought up. We're all pretty tired and some of us had a hard time staying awake, but the lecture was actually really interesting. He went through the history of Vietnam and talked about the different ethnic groups that live in the country. It was cool actually learning about the history of the country, since we've spent some time here already.
After lunch, we went to Glass Egg Digital Media. We were all pretty excited for this visit because the company does programming and design for video games. Historically, they've specialized in cars. They've done a majority of the cars for the Need for Speed and FORZA games. Lately, they've branched out into other genres. The tour was really cool. We got to walk all around their studio and see what everyone was working on. We could see all the artists and programmers making and designing cars, environments, characters, and other video game elements. The work spaces were all really cool, and it was awesome to see real game designers at work. Afterwards, we had a briefing in their conference room. We got an overview of the history of the company. They basically hire themselves out to larger game companies and do a lot of the artwork and element design for those companies without actually creating the full game itself. They're apparently pretty well known in the video game world. They work regularly with big companies like Microsoft and Sony, and they have clients all over the world. We also got to talk to some of the leaders of the company. One of the heads of the company was actually a Vietnam War refugee who fled to America when he was a child and who came back to Vietnam in the 90's and ended up helping found the company. It was interesting to hear his story because one of the Vietnamese teachers who's coordinating the trip and helping us out was from south Vietnam and her family didn't escape after the war. Hearing their two sides to the conflict was really interesting, and gave a different perspective on the war and its effects.
After Glass Egg, we spent some time relaxing in the hotel before going out for the night. We had dinner at this Korean BBQ place, which was really good. We all ordered individual kebabs; I had a coconut chicken and a lemongrass chicken kebab. After dinner, we all went out to a club that's actually co-owned by some of the higher-ups at Glass Egg. We spent a couple hours there dancing and hanging out before heading home for bed.
Today in particular was really cool. Glass Egg was definitely the best site visit yet. We had some great food, and are becoming even better friends with the Vietnamese students. Tomorrow is the last day of the week before the weekend, when we'll be able to take it a little easier and go on some interesting trips out of the city.
P.S.
Forgot to say that I actually got sick today. I guess I'm not as invincible as I thought. Pretty much everyone has been sick in some way since we've gotten here. Mine was just an upset stomach which turned into fever and some achey feelings, and luckily I was over it in the early afternoon after taking some meds. Over people having been getting it a lot worse. I didn't miss anything, though, which I'm very grateful for. Hopefully these are the last problems I'll have on this trip.
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