Sorry I haven’t been able to write in a few days! I have combined the last three days in this post.

During the daytime, we have been having very productive work days (feeling redundant saying this every day, but I guess it’s good that we are able to get a lot of work done quickly). We completed our first draft of management training materials, translated them into Vietnamese,  and reviewed the presentations with our client. Turns out, they want to hold each topic as a separate three-hour session after work hours, so for next week and the week after, we will be hosting the sessions from 6 PM – 9 PM on Tues/Thurs. In parallel, we have received an overview of their software solution (basically, Microsoft Excel with some ties to a SQL db) and understood their main issues with attempting to manage data through this system – only one user can access the docs at a time, nothing truly relates or is connected, it is hard to have real-time data available, storage, analytics. etc. etc. They would like us to recommend some solutions (freeware mainly) to better manage their production process and customer relations. A typical IT problem for most companies…but with the lack of resources, expertise within the company, and budget…it becomes a slightly more difficult challenge.

Outside of work we have done and seen some interesting things. I had somewhat of a cold, so Day 12 was an early night for me – after we came back from the client’s office, I slept early and didn’t anything too interesting.

Day 13 – our awesome “Longhorn translator” invited the entire IBM CSC team to her house for a traditional, home-cooked Vietnamese dinner.

Delicious vegetarian food – tofu, spring rolls, fried peanuts, morning glory (water spinach), spicy soy sauce, and rice

Dessert – Coffee and neutral flavored jelly

More Dessert – A full jackfruit

Hanging out at Nguyen’s house

Singing and Dancing performance after dinner

Cleaning up after dinner

Day 14 – Buddha’s Birthday! For the less-religious, what that basically means is eating vegetarian food (no onions and garlic), maybe visiting a temple / pagoda at night, and gathering to watch the parade in the evening. Minus the pagoda visit, we did accomplish the other two items (of course, the vegetarian part came pretty easy to me =) )

A few pics from dinner, it is always incredibly hot outside:

Fried jackfruit with sesame seeds – delicious!

The parade on the streets:

Lotus flower lamps

Ridiculous traffic outside due to the celebrations and the floats – note how this random double decker bus tries to make it through the crowd…

Drinks and Dessert before going home

Tomorrow, after work, we will be going to an institute for disabled children to give them some gifts and spend some quality time with the kids =)

-R