Workin in HCM City (Vietnam) !

Working in Ho Chi Min(HCM) City ,Vietnam has been a cool experience for me. For some of your info, HCM City is also known as Saigon.

I am constantly amazed at the scary number of motorbikes (1/2 the population has bikes!) that dominate the roads. Cars drive at a super snail speed at gear 2 as they try not to knock the gutsy bikers down.

For a lousy "road-crosser" like me, it is a super pai-seh (embarrassing) ordeal as I stand at the side of the road staring at the hordes of bikes speeding across! What is cool is that the bikes will avoid u as u daringly just walk across..just dont ever ever dash across! (PS: excuse the bad pic taking)

A rare opportunity has led me here to work on a short project. My office is situated in Saigon Trade Centre in District 1 (biz district). I see loads of foreigners here which pretty much says it all - Vietnam is the next booming country.

The pic below is of my office which houses 7 persons (including the boss's cubicle) + a long meeting table. Itz definitely crampy but we manage to move ard without mishaps! heh..This is the corporate office and it is the coordinating arm for a sales distribution office, 3 spa/salons and a hair salon.

And for all the woman power in the office, we definitely need our fuel - see the stash of goodies (lays, ritz, oreos, cadbury..) below..hyuk hyuk...NOT good for the waistline at all! Worse still, this mini mountain of snacks is just behind me! temptation temptation...sigh..

Part of my project was settg up a spa/salon in Chinatown (District 3). What u see is the ground level of the spa/salon in a 6-storey building that is wholly occupied by us. As this pic was taken in Dec 06, you see Xmas decorations and all. Oh, and the 3 blue pots of flowing water smack in the middle of the salon..that's a fengshui requirement..hehe...

Here is a pic of the salon skin therapists taking a short break while the caterer prepares the food before the launch party for the salon... there r like 8 of them squashed in the small space behind the counter!

I m so tickled by this picture of the pineapple decoration! So creative and cute rite? Just in case u are wondering why there is a pile of fruits surrounding it....we actualli ordered "fruits" as an item for the buffet. We definitely did NOT expect fruits in their original form to appear instead of cut fruits....sigh...expectations totally not aligned...heh..luckily the pineapple was so cute..

Last thots on wrking in HCM City:
It was definitely an eye-opening experience working with ppl of a different culture altog...I must say it wasnt as scary as I thought it would be...my knowledge of the Vietnamese language is also improving a little more each mth! Yeah! :)