#ibmcsc

First things first…

Our translator surprised me this morning by wearing a UT Austin shirt! She’s amazing!

Today, we spent most of the morning continuing to gather data and asking our client detailed questions about their issues. We spent more time with our client managers and tried to understand a better view of worker responsibilities and their pain points. Our client suggested we put together our “wish list” of data requests and decided it would be best for them to prepare the reports for us. We agreed with their preference and decided to meet with them again on Thursday. At the same time, my partner and I will do some research on industry best practices and consolidate our recommendations, which means we will be working independently from our hotel conference room tomorrow.

Lunch was at yet another vegetarian restaurant – provided by the client! I am really loving the food here and was very happy with their selection of dishes. I actually tried something new today – a dish made of boiled jackfruit with spices and ground peanuts…it was interesting, but I think I will stick to my tofu =)

We returned to the hotel in the early afternoon, as did many of the other teams, and we spent the afternoon together in our conference room researching and discussing our ideas and experiences with each other.

Embarrassing action shot courtesy of my team members

We then made our way to the touristy part of Hue, or as our manager said in Vietnamese “the street of foreigners” for dinner. We ate a fancy French / Vietnamese / European restaurant, La Carambole. It is a very popular and more “high-end” restaurant, famous for its ambiance and delectable cuisine. The food was very good, and at this point, a fellow US team member and I had a craving for some western foods…

Some of the team trying to decide what to eat

Typical Reeya food – tofu and vegetables

And eating french fries with chopsticks

The food was delicious and satisfying. Before I’m off, here is the funny “lost in translation” story for the day:

Earlier today, two of our team members were eating lunch at the hotel and were served Vietnamese food with forks. All of the food here is typically served with chopsticks, so undersandably, they found this very strange. Wanting to be traditional and eat the Vietnamese food as it should be eaten, they tried to use hand motions and words to request a set of chopsticks. The waiters, confused, mistook their hand signals for this…

Apparently, we like to eat our food with scissors… =)

Goodnight!