Day 7: Surfin' Vietnam - 10.5.15

The day started a lot earlier than usual. The bus left at 7:00 instead of the usual 8:45. Of course, I didn't get out of bed until 6:40. And of course, this bus ride was longer than yesterday's. Three hours. Twice. So of course, I napped. We drove out to what we call the South China Sea, otherwise known as the East Sea, but before we went to the beach, we made a pitstop.

Me and Danielle plus Jesus

What Jesus sees all day

We had to climb up I think a little over 800 steps to get to where we were going. This was definitely made a lot more bearable by the awesome rice hat that I had just bought. I didn't realize where we were at first, since I was asleep on the bus, but we wound up going to visit Jesus. We went to Christ the King, of Vũng Tàu, a statue of Jesus that was completed by the Vietnam Catholic Association in 1993. Once we made it up the steps, we got to go inside of the statue and climb all the way up to the top to stand on his shoulders to get a view of the city and the water.

Gazing out over yonder with Jesus

Afterwards, we climbed down the stairs to head to the beach. We spent the rest of the day here swimming, playing games, and relaxing. We also had some awesome food in a fancy restaurant in the resort that we were by. There was a bunch of amazing Vietnamese food, a lot of which we've seen before.

Later in the day, for dinner, some of us were craving some good ol' burgers. Instead of going to McDonalds, we went to a place called Soul Burger at the recommendation of Bryan, one of the faculty members on the trip. It definitely seems like a Bryan type of place. We had to go upstairs in an alley to get there. And above the burger place was a tattoo parlor. This place was in an amazing location. One we walked in, we were welcomed by some amazing soul music. And the burgers we ate really healed the soul. They were beyond amazing. Before leaving, the owner came out and talked to us about his time being an expat living in Vietnam, working at a burger joint. This was definitely a great way to end an amazing day.

I know you got soul