Soaked

Yesterday we went to buy a bed because we need more sleep space since Tat's mom is here. We go around Ian's place because there are a lot of bed sellers. But haggling in VN is difficult. In most Asian countries, you give them your price and you work it out to get a discount on the product you want. Not in VN. They simply do not care if you do not buy. Well one, we are in suits trying to haggle, they're probably thinking wow people in suits coming to buy merchandise, they have money lets raise the price. And 2, they will not chase you for the sale. But we got a bed and we haggled down about 60,000 VND. The bed ended up costing us like 380,000 VND. We were happy to get the discount, but halfway going home we realized we were just haggling for a few bucks. Like USD 4. Haha. USD 1 = ~17,000 VND. It's just pennies lol but its the principle and we won on margins and we have another bed to sleep on.

So today I woke up early or just earlier than I usually do. Like 6:45 compare to 7am to get to work earlier. I was on a good pace, ready to leave the house just a little past 7am. But then the bad happened. Rain. I'm the type of person that does NOT enjoy the rain, and living in a tropical environment kind of pisses me off. It will be sunny, hot, humid (which I do not really enjoy either) then it turns thunderstorm on me and its not sunny, hot, humid and wet. So this morning was one of those days...I'm all suited up, like suit and tie, and I get ready to walk outside. It's raining pretty hard but we have an umbrella. But the worst is that the drainage system doesn't exist here (kind of like so-cal freeways, they weren't designed to handle rain lol, so add water to the already bad drivers in America...better not drive with them, but anyways back to the story). So its raining so hard that if I walk out for 1 second, I'm 50% soaked. There isn't any puddles, just a lake of water. I start walking and the rain is not only attacking me from the top and on the sides, but the water on the ground has already creeped up my leg, or at least my feet. By then I'm just waiting to get to a dry area. But by then my suit is soaked, bag soaked, shoes and my once dry socks don't exist anymore, tie is almost like a wet towel I can use to slap someone with, just all bad. I'm afraid I have some water parasites eating my feet because I am in a third world country. So finally make it to the taxi and this just reinstates the point, Vietnam has major infrasture problems.

But I got some laughes out of it this morning, because Vietnam is like motorbyke heaven. So all the people were wearing poncho rain capes while riding. Because of the rain, I'm at work stuck wearing my wet socks or taking off my shoes and socks while working...sorry co-workers I decided dry. Haha full suit and no shoes or socks.

Tomorrow I have conference to listen to my boss, the former chief equities strategist from Merrill Lynch give a presentation on Vietnam. I'm excited to learn from the best. And on Friday I'm going to some tourist stuff for the first time while being here for 2 weeks. I'm going to the tunnels to see what it is like to be a VietCong. Haha. Anyways that should be cool if it doesn't rain, plus I hear I can shoot off some rounds on an AK.

But besides that, just busy at work with multiple projects going on at one time, but cannot discuss, confidentiality agreement that I just signed today.