This morning Brooke and I changed it up a bit. Before we came here both of us watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain No Reservations in which he visited Vietnam. They never specified where in Vietnam he was but once we got here we know it was Ho Chi Minh City. In the episode he visits a woman called the Lunch Lady who makes a different kind of soup everyday with ingredients given to her by local people. We were on a mission to find her and lucky for us another student on the trip did all the research for us which was awesome! The cab ride there from the hotel was relatively quick followed by a short and slightly confusing walk (at least for us) but we got there and we're served a beautiful looking seafood soup of some sort. We think it had the fish sauce in it because unfortunately we found this nearly impossible to eat. I'm so glad we went though because I would have hated myself if I left Vietnam without visiting her.
This morning was our last bit of planned fun...a soccer and basketball match against some of the UEF students. We played sloppy but we've all become such good friends that these games were absolutely another trip highlight.
After the games we were free to do whatever we desired until our dinner cruise that night. Me, Corey, Sam, Brooke and Greg decided to spend our time at the zoo. The animals were super cute and it's always exciting to see lions and tigers and giraffes and hippos and everything else. But I found this zoo visit kinda sad because their cages were small and the animals were either alone or extremely overcrowded. Two things really stuck out at this zoo visit however. One was that we were getting as much attention as the animals! We were taking pictures of the animals and the other visitors were taking pictures of us! It felt like we were an exhibit at times. The second funny thing was also kinda sad but these people were throwing things at this gibbon and the gibbon would catch whatever they threw or relieve it and throw it right back at the obnoxious visitors that were terrorizing the poor thing. I could have lived without seeing the Saigon Zoo but I still had a great afternoon.
That night we had our farewell dinner. It was a great night with great food and great people but I'm so sad it's all over and so grateful for this experience.
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