Day 3

Hello and welcome to Day 3 !

Today we started off the day with a 6:30 AM wakeup call. At 7:30 we headed to breakfast at our hotel. There we found a mix of different fruits, breads, cereals, meats and even noodles.  The juice was sweet and made from mango and oranges.

After that we met our pen pals and exchanged gifts with them.  They were very happy to have received gifts from America.  Some of them received their first ever hats and candles. The gifts we got from them were interesting such as a painting, sketch book, and a handmade flower crown.

With our pen pals, we headed off to Hà Nội University. This is the college that our pen pals attend and they were happy to give us a private tour of the different buildings at the University.  On the top floor,  we found a wall that was filled with signatures from different countries and most of us signed it to make our mark on the University.

We also walked around the "college town" of Ha Noi where we met some little kids at a day care.  (We acted like we had never seen children and had to film their every movement.)  They were very happy and excited to meet us and they waved, danced and laughed.

After the University tour, we went to one of our pen pals house where we ate fresh lychee, drank lotus mushroom tea, and sang Justin Beiber songs. #despacito

After we headed to lunch with our pen pals where they introduced us to more traditional Vietnamese dishes.  We had a sticky rice and shrimp dish, assembled our own spring rolls, and we had a choice of two main dishes, pork noodle soup (Bun Bo Hue) or dry pork noodles with fish sauce.  For dessert, we ate Che, a rice dessert with an assortment of jellies.

After lunch, we walked across the street to a local coffee shop where we had lemonade and traditional Vietnamese coffee.  Vietnamese coffee is slow dripped coffee with condensed milk and ice which made it very sweet and not bitter unlike American coffee.  We hung out there for a little while and played some games with our pen pals while sipping on our sweet drinks.

After the coffee shop, we walked back towards our hotel and along the way we stopped at shops (Macy bought some pants), and a boba restaurant. Our pen pals were excited to give us a tour and adventure around the city with us. We had some free time at the hotel where some of us stayed and talked to our pen pals about the city, while others interviewed them or shot B-Roll for our documentaries.

Sadly, we said goodbye to our pen pals for the day and headed off to our rooms to freshen up. Some of us chose to stay to talk to our tour guide, Quan, about life in Hanoi.

Finally, we went to dinner at Noon Villa.  There we ate a variety of traditional Vietnamese dishes including seafood soup, spring rolls and chicken wings.  Most of us ordered juices which were fruits such as mango, passion fruit, coconut and watermelon.  Juice and fruit are very popular dishes here in Vietnam.