Monday January 25, 2010

ST - Ingram Micro Vietnam Retreat 2010 Day 2

Day 2 was the conference proper, but before that my room-mate Chan Yue and I went about taking some photos out on the street in the block surrounding the hotel.

As could be expected, at present Vietnam is still very much motorcycle/scooter country. Like some of my peakoiler friends might say, just wait till they really start buying cars. The country is still very much in development, with contrasting styles of new ultra-modern buildings rising up right alongside the existing buildings, such as this example here :

The conference itself - there's myself and Chan Yue, with the IBM folks giving the initial round of presentations.

This was followed by a "Mini Amazing Race" team-building exercise, which also served as a good way to explore the city.

A couple of games the team played :

A couple more landmarks - the Notre Dame Cathedral and Independence Palace. In the nearby park and surrounding areas, workers were getting ready putting the finishing touches for the upcoming Vietnamese New Year 2010 celebrations.

Over at Ban Thay Market, we bought some souvenirs, and met members of other teams.

And just before dinner, Chan Yue and I went for some Vietnamese "pho", which is some kind of noodle-like strips in nice flavored soup - I tried the chicken pho.

Dinner itself was a river cruise on a restaurant-boat going up and down the Saigon River, an historic and important part of Ho Chi Minh City, serving as water supply, Saigon Port and tourist attraction all in one.

During the cruise, Vincent Lee of IBM Singapore entertained us with his keyboard renditions. And this one here is an interesting stone-based xylophone instrument thing :

See also :

1. ST - Ingram Micro Vietnam Retreat 2010
2. ST - Ingram Micro Vietnam Retreat 2010 Day 1
3. ST - Ingram Micro Retreat Vietnam 2010 Photo Album
4. Low Ee Mien's Channel

(2010-01-25 13:16:32 SGT) [Musings] Permalink

ST - Ingram Micro Vietnam Retreat 2010 Day 1

Day 1 of the trip was pretty much free and easy. For business continuity reasons, we were divided into 2 groups - I was with the morning group.

One of the very first impressions you get upon arrival at a country would be immigration, and it went through pretty smoothly. The officer who attended to me entered my particulars really quickly - he must have been clocking 80 wpm or better, banging away at the keyboard.

On the way to the hotel from the international airport, just snapped some street scenes.

Interesting architectural features include the pagodas dotting the cityscape.

The Opera House is one of the distinguished landmarks in Ho Chi Minh City.

After arriving at the Duxton Hotel Saigon, I just did my setup and proceeded to start blogging as described here. Next item was just to wait till the second group arrived in the evening, then it was time for something apparently rather unique to Vietnam, a "water puppet show" complete with dinner. Here are a couple of short video clips on that :

By the way, I've uploaded all the videos into my Youtube channel here, and all the photos into my Picasaweb photo album here.

See also :

1. ST - Ingram Micro Vietnam Retreat 2010
2. ST - Ingram Micro Retreat Vietnam 2010 Photo Album
3. Low Ee Mien's Channel

(2010-01-25 10:12:24 SGT) [Musings] Permalink

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