Day 4: Pagodas, Suits, and Eggs Oh My

     On today's schedule: an early visit to the Jade Emperor Temple, a Vietnamese culture class at UEF, company visit to Glass Egg Digital Media, and a group measuring session for some fancy suits. The group had to wake up slightly earlier today for the visit to the pagoda, but it was well worth the time. It is a Taoist temple nestled within the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh City. We took a short tour, and it was gorgeous. My favorite part of it was this turtle pond entirely filled with turtles of all sizes. There were many beautiful, hand carved statues and decorations that I could go on for a long time describing in detail. However, I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

   
In the afternoon, we took a visit to Glass Egg Digital Media Company. They specialize in making artwork for video games, especially cars. Most of the cars made in the Forza Motorsports series of games are designed and drawm by Glass Egg. When we got to the building, we were given a tour by the CEO, Phil Tran. Phil actually lived in the United States for a long time after his family evacuated from Saigon at the end of the war. He cam back to Vietnam and basically started this company from the ground up with his partners Steve Reid and Guillaume Monier. Glass Egg's office was very nice, with a Google style feel. We got a chance to watch the company artists design their projects firsthand, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately we did not get the chance to take any pictures, as intellectual property theft is a large issue in the video game industry. We did however get a nice pic of the view.

    Back at the hotel, the next task was to get measured for a suit. The price to get a tailored suit here is significantly cheaper than back at home, so over half of the kids on the trip are getting one. Bryan Shultz is even getting four; wow I'm kinda jealous of that. We'll get the finished suits on Thursday before we leave, and i can't wait to see how it looks.