Hello everyone! In this blog I will tell about my three-months student exchange in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I am a Finnish student of Computer Science in University of Helsinki, and I have also worked in our department as a teaching assistant and research assistant. Here in HCMC I am visiting in Nong Lam University. Actually my exchange will consist working as a teaching assistant in a Linux course and having an internship in a programming company, and I will get credits from these.
It is Tuesday evening when I am writing this. I arrived on Monday morning. I took a flight from Helsinki to Paris and from Paris further to HCMC. I was worried about the flight change in the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, because I had heard that the airport is not so clear and there has been problems with delivering baggages to the connection flights. However, all went very well though I had to check in to my connection flight and do the security check again. The flight from Paris to HCMC took about twelve hours. I tried to sleep but I couldn't. There was a screen where you could watch movies, listen to music etc. but it went black for a moment about every five seconds, so it was a bit irritating to use. Otherwise the flight went well and I arrived at HCMC 6.30 am. A Vietnamese former student of the Nong Lam University came to pick me up from the airport and then we went to the hotel were I met my contact person, Mr. P who has arranged all and been very helpful all the time. The hotel is a good basic hotel with very good location. I have had some problems with my bathroom door (I managed to lock it from outside and could not open it without key) and having water come down from the air conditioner. The hotel staff do not speak much English, so the communication is a bit challenging. The hotel is nice and clean, however, and the staff is very friendly. It was a nice surprise that you don't need any adapter when using my own electronical devices.
As a first sight I like HCMC very much. There is good atmosphere, both old and new buildings, palm trees and lots of people driving scooter or moped. It is really unbelievable, the number of scooters and mopeds, and there can be a whole family sitting on an one moped! Today I also saw that a moped drove in to a restaurant to bring some boxes of beer. (The restaurant was not actually inside a building, it was halfly open without a front wall, but still it was very funny to see the moped to drive in.)
The food is very good. I have eaten pho noodle soup, a banh mi sandwich, rice with salted fish and beef with onions. I would like to find more places to eat and try different dishes. Vietnamese coffee is also very good and very different that Western coffee. It is served with condensed milk which looks more like pudding than milk and is very sweet.
Today I visited first time at the Nong Lam University with Mr. P. It takes about an hour by bus to get there from my hotel. You can take a normal route bus or an University bus. The latter leaves very early, at 6.30 am, so I think that maybe I will mostly take the normal bus. The NLU area was very large and beautiful, there are lots of nature around the buildings. I saw the Faculty of Information Technology building and met the dean and some teachers. It was a very nice visit, though the weather was very hot. I am looking forward to go to the university again and to see how is the studying life there. Tomorrow I will visit first time the company where I will have the internship. Very exciting. :)
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