China Adventures

After Japan, China is the second largest market for my brand, Johnson’s Body Care.  But beyond being currently important, China is of course a huge growth engine for every consumer category- and body care is a big one.  For this market visit, I was lucky to be able to mix work with pleasure and to spend the weekend with my Aunt Mary Elaine, Uncle Bob, and cousins Margot and Beau.  It’s completely wild that I actually have 4 family members living in Shanghai while Rob and I are in Singapore- we feel like such an international family! 

My Uncle Bob was my official tour guide for the weekend and I was very impressed at how much he knows about Shanghai after less than a year!  I hope no one has as high expectations of what I will know about Singapore if they come to visit us!  For lots of amazing info about Shanghai, check out Bob’s blog at http://shanghaiedbob.blogspot.com.   Bob met me at the airport and we boarded the amazing bullet train from the aiport to Shanghai- it’s called the “Maglev” for magnetic levitation… this thing is straight out of sci-fi- it travels at about 300km per hour (it has a speedometer in every car so you can check out the speed) and is powered by magnetic force… it literally levitates off the track and doesn’t use wheels of any sort… what!?  Very cool… and of course China was aiming to impress and awe when they installed this $1.2B marvel….  The odd thing is that it really only travels from the airport to the city- so it’s truly just meant to impress visitors.  Admittedly, I was indeed impressed although of course wondering if that $1.2B could have been better spent.

That night we celebrated my cousin Margot’s birthday at a non-Asian tapas dinner and I had a chance to see the beautiful Shanghai skyline from The Bund (waterfront walkway along the Huangpu River which was across the street from the restaurant.  Shanghai truly has a vibe much like New York to me: lots of tall building, many different neighborhoods, dining and shopping everywhere.  It is highly cosmopolitan.

 On Saturday, it was fairly rainy and cold, but we didn’t let us stop our adventures.  We headed out in Old Town Shanghai and visited the sights and smells of the traditional markets in Shanghai.  Here, we saw people selling all kinds of things- from dried animals and animal parts of every variety you can imagine, to herbs, to beans, to fresh fruits and vegetables, to live fish, to spare mechanical parts and used TVs.  Of course there was also plenty of street meat to be eaten… however, with the H7N9 going around… and admittedly a less than adventurous digestive tract, I didn’t experiment.  Maybe next time- because strangely squid on a stick didn’t look half bad J. It was fascinating to pop into each tiny stall to see what was being sold- almost like we were 50 years back in time.  Compared to the modern vibe of the rest of Shanghai, it was really a strange juxtaposition. 

My other big amazement after spending time with my family is how well my cousins have assimilated into China.  My cousin Beau is fluent in Mandarin and works and lives his life pretty much speaking Chinese… and my cousin Margot was not fluent (having only lived in China 6 months), but she was absolutely  fearless with her language skills as well as her ability to meet new friends and try new things.  I was so impressed and perhaps the better word… inspired!

After fun with the family, I headed off for my work endeavors.  Over the course of the next 5 days, I visited 15 stores in 3 cities in China- Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.  Unlike Tokyo which felt very different than any retail environment I’ve ever encountered, the Chinese retail situation is much closer to the US shopping experience.  There are giant “hypermarts” like Carrefour and Walmart, as well as similar local retailers that sell anything and everything under one roof for great prices.  There are also smaller, more specialty cosmetics and drug stores like Watsons, which sell mainly beauty items and make the shopping experience fun.   In China, there is much more room in the stores than in Tokyo- where there was as much inventory as possible squished into a very tiny store.  It was interesting to see that, similar to Japan, many of the locally manufactured brands have plenty of English on the front of the package to try to seem like an imported brand.  Additionally, many of the local baby care brands had pictures of blond hair, blue eyed babies on the front of the packs, while Johnson’s has pictures of Asian babies and mothers on the front of the package.  Go figure.  

In terms of other observations about China…

Everyone smokes… cigarettes are cheap, and are everywhere.  People smoke indoors… having lived in the States and in Singapore where smoking is pretty taboo (and costly!) nowadays- this was a rude awakening!

Yep, there are really are a helluva lot of people living in China.  Everywhere is pretty crowded, even at 10am on  Thursday, the stores were crowded.  We took a train from Shenzhen to Guangzhou.  The train leaves every 10 minutes and it’s about an hour ride… and it was crowded.  Crazy crowded.

There is censorship… you can’t access Facebook or YouTube without a VPN, and certain Google searches were blocked.  I could access Facebook on my phone, but every time I tried to post something, it wouldn’t let me.  Very big brother.  I also read the English language Chinese newspaper when I was there to see what the news slant would be.  It was a bit one-sided, especially over the Japan/China disputed islands, but my larger impression was that there just wasn’t much news. 

Lines are not orderly.  I waited in many lines while in China, but the mantra seems to be “every man for yourself!”   While waiting in a 100+ person taxi line in Shenzhen (not exaggerating a bit), people were blatantly charging past me as if I was not waiting in line- including 80 year old men.  But strangely, people just seem to accept it without getting pissed.  In the US, there would have been a fight for sure, but in China, people just seem to accept that if you are in such a hurry and feel like fighting past everyone else, you somehow deserve to go first.  I’m not gonna lie, this really annoyed the hell out of me!! But I can certainly understand why this is the case given the cultural and historical dynamics in China where it really is survival of the fittest and there is scarcity.  (BTW- in Singapore, this is the opposite- I have never seen a more orderly, line-centric place than Singapore). 

Food was not for me.  I had some good Chinese food, yes, especially soup dumplings (soup inside the dumpling!), noodles, tofu and rice…but overall it was a bit of a struggle.  Between the odd smell of certain Chinese food, the tendency to literally eat every part of the animal (bones, fat, tendons and all), the fact that my go-to meat, chicken, was off limits due to bird flu, and the oddly unidentifiable meats that were on my plate…I really didn’t truly enjoy the cuisine very much.  In fact, I found myself ordering more western food than I would normally even eat in Singapore. 

  

China is really a very modern place.  I think there are perceptions that all of China is stuck in the 50 year time warp- but that is just not the case.  The cities are thriving with industry, pop culture, and global brands.  While there is still a  strong heritage that shows up in pockets like Old Town Shanghai and certain parts of every city, it really is a modern and in the case of Shanghai in particular, cosmopolitan place. 

My experience was very focused on the Chinese shopping environment (imagine going to the US and only visiting Walmarts and CVS stores…) that I really didn’t have an opportunity to experience some of the most amazing parts of China and Chinese culture- but I did learn about Chinese shoppers (on the plus side!).  I will return to China again, and when I do, I hope to see more of it, and to experience more of the cultural sights.  

Cousins united in Asia!  Margot, Beau and me at Margot's birthday dinner

A pic on The Bund- Aunt Mary Elaine, Beau, me, Margot and two friends of  Mary Elaine & Bob's who were visiting.  

View from The Bund- Shanghai

Amazing view of Huangpu river from ME and Bob's apartment!

Old Town shopping- beans

Miscellaneous chicken parts...  

Eggs!  And more Eggs!

Urban Development Museum- very cool reconstruction of Shanghai- I'm now super excited to visit a similar exhibit in Sinagpore!

Example of hilarious English translation- there are plenty in China... this is at the Urban Dev Museum depicting a future Shanghai... the dog is apparently saying "Besides, there should be many trees here.  As a result, I will hide all delicious food under the tree."

The J&J Shanghai Office... and my business partners.  

lunch- with unidentifiable meat product in upper right.

yum, delicious candy!  Nope... it's dried beef disguised as yummy candy... this is plentiful in China!  I was duped once... think very dry beef jerky

Pork hock stew... we cooked it at our table.  I didn't enjoy the pork part, but the rest of the stew was actually quite good.  I just can't stomach eating pure animal fat!

Shopping in China... Very much like Walmart in the US

My brand!  Johnson's Body Care

Spent a lot of time looking at shelves like this one... a lot of time. Oh my.

Sight for sore eyes!  So happy to be home after 7 days away.

Authentic Chinese Panda Bears :)

Tokyo

In complete contrast to Vietnam, I had the opportunity to visit Tokyo in March.  Japan is my most important market from a work standpoint as about 60% of the Johnson’s Body Care business is in Japan.  I have been talking to my counterparts in Japan for 5 months and learning about Japan from reading research reports, but actually being there and experiencing this amazing country was completely different. 

The first thing I did in Japan was to observe focus groups on body care habits of Japanese women.  The content was interesting.  I learned that there is so much pride in looking put together and like you “tried hard” (ganbaru) to maintain your appearance in Japan.   The logistics were also interesting though- we had a translator who translated everything the participants said into a microphone, which we (the non-Japanese speakers) listened to via headset. 

After the focus groups, I had my first experience with the Japanese retail environment.  Nothing could have prepared me for the absolute chaos!  About 80% of Japanese health and beauty sales are done in small drugstores that are jam packed with merchandise.  The merchandise is mind boggling- Japan is one of the most developed health and beauty markets in the world and you would believe it just from one store visit.  Categories that don’t exist in the US are huge in Japan- example:  bath additives (i.e. little pouches of goodies for your bath are a $1 Billion business in Japan!), facial massage devices to tighten up your facial muscles, leg firming/slimming tights, and decorative wash cloths (which people carry instead of handkerchiefs to either blot away perspiration or use to cover their mouths- and of course they are also a fashion statement) just to name a few.

From a work standpoint, I had two main goals for the week- 1) to learn as much as I could about the business from the Japanese team, and 2) To conduct an ideation session among the Japanese team for new product ideas.  I’ve conducted numerous ideation sessions in the States and I didn’t think it would be a big deal… stupid American assumption of the week!  When will I learn??   In fact, the last words my Japanese cultural coach said to me before my trip to Japan was “a brainstorm session is a Japanese person’s worst nightmare.”  Well, it was indeed a different challenge in Japan. 

Things I learned the hard way:  Once the most senior person has spoken, the other team members will not contribute…. Because the “answer” has been given.  It’s a sign of respect to keep quiet and not contradict.  Additionally, collaboration is at an utmost in Japan, so people don’t readily contribute independently, and if you force them to (common practice in the US) they can get quite uncomfortable.  Lastly, in the US, it’s easy to facilitate group work by listening to what a group is talking about and asking questions or probing to keep the team moving… well, not quite as easy when the team is speaking in Japanese.  So, it was definitely baptism by fire on my end… and there were several awkward moments when I thought that everyone in the room must have been thinking I was fully insane.  Eventually my fellow-American colleague and I were able to loosen up the Japanese team and we ended up getting over 50 ideas for future products…. So it was a success, but more than the ideas, I was proud of myself for sticking with it and learning a ton in the process.

 

A few other thoughts on Japan:

Hospitality was amazing!  My Japan team went out of their way to ensure that I was taken care of from the minute I arrived to the minute I left.  They took me to great food, they helped me get a special souvenir for Avery (fake sushi of course!), they helped me procure diet coke when I started getting the shakes J, you name it, they went out of their way for me.  I can assure you that next time I have foreign colleagues visiting me in the States (or Singapore), I will go out of my way for them as well- because truly, it’s amazing to feel well taken care of in a far away place.

Concern for Allergies:  I noticed that many, many people were wearing surgical masks.  When I asked my colleagues whether the people who wore the masks were sick or were they afraid of getting sick, they explained that the reason for the masks is actually hay fever/allergies.  Put another way, people are very concerned about external pollutants and the masks prevent them.    

Cleanliness is key:  One of the reasons the body care category is so developed in Japan is because Japanese really like to be clean.  But I was most amazed by the toilets in Japan.  Truly, they are a modern marvel- they do just about everything you can imagine- even the public restrooms!  From providing heat, to “flushing sounds” so you can do your business discretely, to of course the multiple washing functions.  Quite impressive.

Yummy Yummy Food:  I was actually a bit nervous about food in Japan, but it was delicious!  Truly, every meal was delish- from conveyor belt sushi to our 7 course Ninja dinner (dressed up Ninjas served us!) to ramen that I ordered by making my selections from a vending machine, to Japanese pancakes, to our bento box lunches of bizarre, but yummy veggies. 

So, overall thoughts- I really enjoyed Tokyo!  I’d like to return again to experience more of the country beyond the food and the office so hopefully I’ll be able to head back before I leave.

Hello completely insane and overwhelming retail environment

These are all bath additives.. and there were more on the other side.  Wild. 

Get your mind out of the gutter.  These are facial massage devices.. so strange.

decorative wash cloth anyone?

Conveyor belt sushi- they count the plates when you are done to see how much you owe.

lunch- have no idea what I ate but it was beautiful, like all the food in Japan, and actaully pretty good.

can you see the ninja in the back?

ninja!

My colleague (fellow american) Fara posing at the fake sushi store- they look so real!

Cookie monster enjoying fake sushi... Sushi Monster?

Vietnam Part II: Saigon

After a few days in relatively peaceful beach mode, we headed to Ho Chi Minh City- otherwise known as Saigon.  Saigon was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City after the fall of Saigon in 1975- and while it’s called Ho Chi Minh City officially, all of the locals call it Saigon.  We were busy bees in Saigon.  We hired a tour guide recommended in Luxe Guide (Thanks Shanny!).  For anyone planning to do a bunch of travel, definitely pick up one of these handy guides for whatever city you are headed to.  They are truly fantastic.  Kevin (obviously that wasn’t his real name) became our guide for the next 3 days. 

On day one, we started with the War Remnants Museum.   The museum is meant to be an expose of the war crimes committed by the US government in the “American War”.  The museum is done in a photojournalistic style- so all photos and captions.  The story told is that of the United States Government invading Vietnam to murder and poison the men, women and children of Vietnam.  There are some graphic photos of naked children running from US soldiers, horribly deformed victims of Agent Orange, dead babies in the streets clutching their mothers… who are also dead. Obviously it was disturbing, but it was also educational.  For one, I didn’t know much about Agent Orange before.  It’s clearly one of the darkest moments in US history and I couldn’t help but feel shame for my country after seeing some of the gruesome impacts of the “American War”.   In one photo there is a giant tanker filled with poison with a “Purple People Eater” spray-painted on the side of it- and young soldiers (like 18 years old) smiling and laughing.  It’s impossible to understand the insanity of war.  I also didn’t realize that so many generations of people were impacted by Agent Orange- I mean babies being born in the 1990s were still being impacted- perhaps they still are today. 

That said, I also re-learned a few important facts- 1) History is in the eyes of the history teller.  The history told in this museum was so completely one-sided that it felt more like propaganda than truths in parts.  That said, I’m not used to seeing history told through non-American eyes and voices- and it really made me think about the museums I’ve been to in the US that tell the stories of wars.  Are we so one-sided?  I don’t think so, but I know we’re quite patriotic.  Where does the line get drawn?  I think I’ll have a different lens next time I visit a historical place in the US.  2) War is just incomprehensibly brutal and wrong for everyone involved in it.  The US did terrible things, but so did the North Vietnamese.  I do feel a new interest in learning more about the Vietnam War though.

A few days later, we visited the Cu Chi tunnels and got another side of the “American War” story in Vietnam.  Cu Chi is a small village about 90 minutes from Vietnam which is famous for creating a vast tunnel network and booby traps that successfully defeated US troops.  The tunnels were largely manned by young women- like 10-13 year old girls.  The story told here (via black and white 1970s videos) is again, the evil Americans (literally the word “evil”) invading Cu Chi village and the brave villagers fighting back with ingenuity.  The Cu Chi attraction is set up as just that an “attraction”.  There are places where you can crawl through the tunnels yourself (which we did) and test out the booby traps.  At first we were as interested as the other tourists, but as we progressed through the various stations, we became more and more disturbed.  Eventually we got an old half-blown up US tank where half a dozen US soldiers were killed.  Dozens of people were posing for pictures around the tank and it just made us all sick.  There was no reverence being given anywhere or by anyone it seemed.  Hundreds of young boys were mutilated or died here, and the tour groups seemed to be all laughing about it.  In juxtaposition to the War Remnants Museum, it started to tell more of a complete story.  I mean it’s never fathomable to see children killed in war, but it’s hard to know how to handle a situation when children are pulling the triggers of guns… what were the US soldiers suppose to do?  It’s just horrifying…the whole situation.

On a lighter note… we also got to experience a lot of the beautiful cultural elements of Saigon and the Mekong River Delta including gorgeous Chinese Temples, people making lacquerware by hand, a bee farm selling honey and bee nectar promised to cure all ills (of course my mom bought some), amazing, amazing food, coconut candy making (by hand), rice paper making by hand as well as the famed water puppets.  Avery loved the water puppet show best of all- a funky stage where a group of people sing and voice puppets in Vietnamese while the puppet operators skillfully make beautiful puppets swim, and glide through the a big pool of cloudy water (see pictures).  Really cool.

 Shopping is a haggling game (which I hate!) but we did our best in some of the crazy markets in Vietnam and picked up some cool souvenirs.  We also successfully learned to cross the street by the end of our trip.  I know that I mentioned motorbikes already in the Mui Ne post, but I have to talk about crossing the road…. There really are no cross-walks and very few traffic signals (at least signals that people adhere to!) so to cross the street, the strategy is focus your sights on your destination on the other side of the road, and slowly walk there without changing pace nor looking to the right or left.  If you change pace or turn your head to see the masses of motorbikes coming your way, you’ll probably get hit, but if you calmly stay the course, the motorbikers will ride around you.  Totally frightening but also kind of exhilarating.

Final thoughts on Saigon:  really loved my time here.  We all did.  We all learned so much about Vietnam and also about our own history and perceptions of Americans.  For my mom most of all, who lived through the Vietnam War, it was really an emotional journey as well.  I’m grateful we had this experience and yet was also quite grateful to land back in Singapore and feel for the first time that I was “home” even though it’s 9000+ miles away from Philadelphia.  

Wendy lighting incense at the Thien Hau Pagoda- The Pagoda of the Lady

Thien Hau Pagoda

Lion Dance- the women performing this were all 80+ years old!

Did I mention it was hot and tiring to do so much sight seeing?  She was a trooper!

Parliament building

Yummy fancy dinner- Avery's came with a giant carrot carved into a beautiful bird.  She played with it all through dinner and insisted in taking it with her when we left.  Suddenly in the taxi we heard a crunch, and she was eating her carrot bird friend!

Since it was Tet while we were there (week long holiday for Lunar New Year) the streets had an amazing festive look and vibe- Avery chose a dinosaur balloon to celebrate Lunar New Year. 

On our Mekong River Delta cruise we visited a bee farm

We drank bee nectar and ate lots of yummy honey treats. 

We took several boats island hopping in the Mekong River Delta- this one was human propelled using long oars.

We actually ate this fish for lunch.  It's called an Elephant Ear Fish and has scales all over it- actually tasted good but was hideous!

Cu Chi Tunnels- Rob testing it out

Crawling through the Cu Chi tunnels... yes, with Avery.  Amazing that people actually lived in these claustrophobic tunnels.

War Remnants Museum.  Seemed like a crazy juxtaposition. Couldn't resist. 

Old Presidential Palace (during the Vietnam War).  Was gorgeous and lavish inside.  

Water Puppet Show

Mekong River... A bit murky

Getting into the spirit with the classic cone hat.  People really do still wear them- they double as sun shade and rain protection.  

Vietnam Part I... Mui Ne

 
Time has flown by and we are woefully behind in blog posts! So much is happening... all too fast! Our first extended stay guest, my mom, Wendy, arrived in mid January. While Singapore is a great destination in itself, we wanted to take my mom somewhere special as well, and thus we decided to plan a family trip to Vietnam for a full week over the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) holiday in mid February.

This was the first trip that I can honestly say I was nervous about. All of the others have just made me feel excited leading up to them- but something about being gone for a week, in a third world country that was once at war with the United States, with my 2 year old and my mom... all just made me really anxious- I wonder why! We used all of the knowledge we gained from our other trips to plan this trip as best we could to ensure we had a great time, and I am so happy to report that we had a truly amazing time in Vietnam- and my anxiety was rewarded with a great trip!

Vietnam was truly a learning experience- even in the planning phase. I had no idea that Vietnam was so huge! It has 2000+ miles of coast line, a really diverse climate since it's a long skinny country, and is packed full of 89 million people! We decided to head for southern Vietnam (where it's still warm in the winter unlike Hanoi) and spend half of our trip relaxing at a beach area called Mui Ne and the other half in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Upon first arrival into Vietnam, we were seriously shocked by how nice the airport was- very clean and modern (NOTHING like Bali- ugh), and how enormously expensive our visas were! I have to wonder if there is a special American tax to enter Vietnam. I would not be surprised. Our driver picked us up and we began our 5 hour journey to Mui Ne.  After a few tries at figuring out the wacky conversion rate of Vietnamese Dong vs. American Dollars (20,000VD to $1), we were on our way.  

While there were many things to see on the way to Mui Ne looking out the window, no descriptions can do justice to our awe of the motorbike situation in Vietnam.  Oh My God.  I thought Phuket, Bangkok and Bali had a lot of motorbikes.  No.  They don’t.  Everyone in Vietnam rides a motorbike.  Through the course of our time, we played an ongoing game of “find the most ridiculous thing you can on a motorbike”… some of the best contenders were:  A baby riding in a high chair, a man with 50 helium balloons, a woman breastfeeding her infant, a person with a giant, round metal table, huge billowing bags of recyclables, 7 foot long logs for fire wood… the list could really go on and on. 

Adults on motorbikes all wear helmets- usually the “cool” kind of motorcycle helmet you would see in the states that probably offers zero protection in an actual crash… kids for some reason don’t wear helmets.  Wild. 

Helmets may be optional, but everyone wears a mask over their face to protect themselves from the pollution.  Masks are a big business  with kiosks selling them everywhere you go and people use it as a fashion accessory- choosing cartoon character versions for their kids, and cute designs for themselves.  All of the women on motorbikes wear sweatshirts, long pants, hats, masks, gloves and special Vietnamese toe socks with their flip flops or sandals.  It was 90-100F in Vietnam.  The reason these women endure all of these clothes while it’s sweltering outside?  Fear of the sun and getting sun damage, or darker skin.  Additionally, it’s just plain dirty riding through the streets of Vietnam, and women want to keep themselves covered up and clean.  It has nothing to do with religion, it’s about their bodycare rituals.  For me, since I work on Johnson’s Body Care in Asia, this was a really interesting experience.

On the roads, the main road rules are “honk” to tell people you are coming and the bigger vehicle gets the right of way.  We beeped our way past many a motorbike, narrowly missing throngs of bikers, and then would nearly be mowed down ourselves as huge buses passed by our car honking loudly so we’d move out of the way.  Believe it or not, we got used to it pretty quickly.  The roads themselves were pretty decent- no major potholes or anything and we even traveled on expressways at some points. 

We finally arrived in Mui Ne and were thrilled with our resort- Pandamus Resort & Spa.  It was a bit out of the way from the main drag of Mui Ne, but the grounds were immaculate, the beach was beautiful, there was a huge pool, koi ponds, playground, great food and hilarious cover bands.  What more could you ask for?  Our rooms had a view of the pool and the ocean.  Not bad.  Kite surfing is a huge recreation in Mui Ne because the afternoons are quite windy.  Kite surfing is what it sounds like- basically a mix of surfing and flying a kite- so the person literally flies up in the air over waves.  It looked like SO much fun.  Apparently this sport is very popular in Australia and some parts of Asia, but I had never even heard of it.    

I said our beach was beautiful, and it was, but one of the disturbing things about Mui Ne was in fact the beaches. Rob and I ran on the beach a few times and found that once you left our immediate hotel grounds, the trash on the beaches was horrifying.  It literally looked like a dump in some points where the tides hit the beach particularly hard.  From food wrappers to clothes to tires to bottles and just “rubble”… it was a mess.  We later learned that our beach at the hotel is cleaned 3-5x per day because of how much trash washes up there!  I am not really a very green person, but seeing how devastating the trash build-up in Vietnam is, I have to say I’m suddenly a bit of a reformed person. 

The clientele at the resort was a bit surprising to us, even though we had read about this dynamic… nearly every other guest was Russian, with the exception of a few Chinese families.  Even some of the restaurants and stores have things written in Vietnamese and Russian, vs. English.  I guess our surprise at this dynamic belies has little we really knew about Vietnam before going there!  Besides being somewhat close geographically (basically nothing is close to Russia so Vietnam isn’t too far all things considered), Russia and China have had close bonds with Vietnam for many years because the of the communist government and philosophies the government shared.   Russia supported a lot of the reconstruction of Vietnam after the “American War” (more on that later.  We didn’t end up making any friends at the resort- language was a pretty significant barrier… but loved hanging out with Avery in the pool where she swam without her swim vest for the very first time!  Not bad for 28 months old!

The town of Mui Ne was reminiscent of some of the more chaotic beach towns I’ve visited in my life- the main drag is filled with hotels, restaurants and shops selling all kinds of stuff you probably don’t need.  One odd thing we saw was tons and tons of crocodile skin items- from belts and wallets to rugs and stuffed beasts big and small.  We learned that there are many crocodile farms in Vietnam (i.e. they are not being poached in the wild and they are not running rampant around Vietnam- phew!).    
Our time in Mui Ne flew by quickly, and before we knew it, we were headed back to Ho Chi Minh City for the next leg of our journey.  Overall thoughts on Mui Ne- great spot beach getaway.  We might have stayed a bit closer to the town if we hadn’t had Avery with us, but couldn’t have wished for more with a kiddo with us.  Stay tuned for Part II of Vietnam trip…

 

 Avery and Miss Kitty made themselves at home immediately.  Avery LOVED the canopy/mosquito netting!

 

 

 kite surfers in the background

 

 

 

 

 Crocodile dance

 Avery getting her picture taken... as usual.  Strangers take her picture wherever we go!

impetus for my new found environmentalism- truly, trash as far as the eye could see outside the resort area.

 recycling by motor bike

 baby on a high chair riding on a motor bike

man riding motor bike with millions of balloons