Day 1: About ruthless airplane neighbors, an amazing welcome to Ho-Chi-Minh City and a different visit at the hairdresser

Day 1:
About ruthless airplane neighbors, an amazing welcome to Ho-Chi-Minh City and a different visit at the hairdresser

This blog is for everybody who is interested in my experience during my stay in Vietnam and will not solely focus on business aspects but will inform you about my experiences during my time here. I try to not make it too boring for those who read it. 

I left Zurich yesterday (October 27, 2016) around lunchtime and was facing an 11 hour flight to Hong Kong from where I would go on to Ho-Chi-Minh City. I was hoping to get some sleep during the flight as I had a terrible cold when I left Zurich. This plan, however, turned out to be impossible if you have 3 guys in the back who are travelling on holiday and ordered the first beers before the plane even took off. So I was forced to listen to their  conversations which were pretty much intellectually undemanding but it was nevertheless impossible to not listen what these guys thought to know about Asian culture from their previous holidays in Koh Pangan, Bangkok, and some other rather touristy places in Asia. After half an hour of listening to their stereotype views about the Asian culture ("Asians are like..." "In Asia you always have to..." "The beer in Asia is..." and so on...)  I decided to watch some movies. In the end I watched 4 movies and did not get any sleep at all. This is why I am pretty tired right now but entirely up to date about the current cinema program. 

My second flight from Hong Kong to Ho-Chi-Minh City was much better and I could at least close my eyes for some time. At the Airport I was picked up by Christoph who is actually not my shadowing host but is also a manager of a development team at Axon Active Vietnam. It was incredibly nice to leave the airport and breath the hot and different air of Ho-Chi-Minh City. Christoph walked me to my hotel and invited me to have lunch with him, his co-manager and the whole team. It was an amazingly warm welcome from the whole team and we had a very good soup! After lunch they headed back to the office after we had some delicious iced coffee. I will go deeper into the organization of Axon Active and the different people at a later point when my shadowing experience actually starts (which is on Monday). 

My first order of business was clear even before my trip started. Get a haircut! So this is exactly what I did. I searched for a hairdresser and found the "Hairsalon JENNY PHAM". I entered and immediately got placed next to the front door. To actually get to work, however, took the friendly guy quite some time as he first finished his food which didn't bother me at all as I was not in a hurry. I also thought a well fed hairdresser is probably better than a hungry one. While I sat there and browsed throught the latest Vietnamese fashion magazines (which are basically the same as in Switzerland just with more Asian people in it) I observed the housecat of the salon and the fish bowls which were placed at every place.

My hair before the haircut (and please consider, after 15 hours of travelling) and the charming fishbowl:)

It turned out that the waiting time was worth it as I got a pretty neat haircut. I have to admit that I was quite confused when he started off with the electric shaver as this is in Switzerland usually the last step during my haircut visits. But then he took the scissors and in the end I even got my hair washed and I am highly satisfied with the result and would recommend the hairdresser at any time. 

Right now I am sitting in a nice rooftop café, having my third iced coffee today and writing this blog. My top priority for today is not to fall asleep before the evening in order to not give the jetlag any chance!

Another nice experience of today was to cross the street. Sounds like easy as pie but this might just be the case in Switzerland where crosswalks actually mean something to the traffic participants. In Vietnam you'd just start to walk onto the street at a constant pace and never get the idea to stop or start to walk faster as the traffic is navigating around you which would be quite difficult for the people if you suddenly stop or move much faster. In my opinion, the safest way to cross a street or to participate in the traffic respectively, would be to drive a motorbike yourself and just go with the flow.  But for today walking works just fine for me.

So that would be it for now. To conclude my first day I can say that I love this place right from the start. It's busy, it's hot, the people are incredibly friendly and helpful and the streets are filled with motorbikes. What could you want more!?
Hope you enjoyed reading my first experiences right out of Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam!