After a flight from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, we started the day by traveling to the Phu My Hung New Urban Development, located in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City, which is the Koreatown area. This began being developed 20 years ago, starting from nothing, with the goal of becoming one of the best places to live in Ho Chi Minh City. To meet this goal, all the buildings have balconies for each apartment, and none of the buildings are skyscrapers, keeping an open feel to the area. Similar to what we saw in Hanoi, most of the buildings have shops on the first floor, with apartments above. However, most of the shops have the typical “wide” storefront, unlike Hanoi, where all the storefronts are very narrow on the street.

We were dropped off outside the Lawrence S. Ting Middle School, which is a famous school in Vietnam. The school had its inaugural school year starting on September 5th, 2008, currently teaching 6th through 8th grades to approximately 700 students. Just two years after opening, the school was the first school in Vietnam to be recognized as an “Innovative School” by Microsoft. The school has 57 classrooms, each one with an area of 81 square meters, and fully equipped computers, projectors, sound systems, air conditioners, and Wi-Fi. 

We were given several hours to explore the area. During this time, we walked through a park, which provides a green space for local residents to spend time. While we were at the park we saw several people with cameras, most likely to photograph the many birds we heard singing throughout the park. There were also small ponds with lots of lily pads throughout the park. 

One of the ongoing projects in this area is the gradual draining of the Rach Dia river of the course of many years to create additional park space. Once the river has been completely removed, mangrove trees will be planted in the former riverbed for locals and visitors to enjoy.

We also saw the construction of a new road going through the area while we were visiting. Most of the curbs and sidewalks have already been constructed, along with the aggregate base layer. It was interesting that there were still people riding their motorbikes through these unfinished streets, although there was far less traffic than downtown Ho Chi Minh City. Most of the construction workers were performing labor by hand, with very little machinery being used. The only machinery present was several rollers to compact the base layer, and excavator for moving soil. Even then, there were still workers using shovels and wheelbarrows to move soil. One part of this project is the construction of a small stream running through the median of this new road.

After exploring the area for a little while, we went to Artisan Bakery for an early lunch, where we had various sandwiches and smoothies. Several people got the Italian Croquette sandwich and mango smoothies, which both tasted really good.

Blog written by Dan Zhuravel