This week was spent in Ho Chi Minh City 🇻🇳 for both a business trip, and my first trip outside of Tokyo since the big move.

This week in data:

• 🌞 Average temperature: 31°C
• 🌫️ Average humidity 67.36%
• 🤢 Cockroaches spotted: 34

Monday begins mega early in Narita and possibly the slowest airport check in I’ve ever done. Nearly an hour. Thankfully the rest of the journey to the gate was speedy, but, reader, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that this felt mega dicey.

Immediately on landing I’m struck by the heat. It’s hot. It’s so hot that every minute feels like five. By the time we get to a taxi my brain has nearly adjusted.

Our first meal is Phở at a local place, and it ends up being one of the tastiest meals of the week as well as due to my choice of toppings probably the least healthy. We get oodles of free vegetables which - coming from Tokyo - is amazing.

Bikes. Bikes everywhere.

With many of us colocated in the same space for the first time in a while, we ran through lots of workshops ranging from talking about our backgrounds to experiencing what it’s like for users to use one of our products. Great energy all around and I enjoyed the time with people I don’t normally work with.

On Wednesday it was my turn to run a workshop, and since I’m focusing on Technical Architecture at the moment, we worked through mapping out how our systems work - including our upstream dependencies. Over the exercise I heard a few “Oh I didn’t know that!”s so all in all I left pretty happy.

With the weather and much more ... busy pavements ... it’s not so easy to walk around. Nonetheless I managed to walk back from dinner/etc to the hotel, and in doing so have learned roughly how to navigate of District 1 without being glued to a map. It’s liberating. And without these walks there’s no way I could have kept my step count target.

Crossing roads is an artform.

Friday we have dinner on a cruise through the Saigon River, and obviously that means waving at people on bridges and the other boats.

During the evening I go out for a walk, and to find an ATM, and end up bumping into some people at a bar. We catch a touring band from Hawaii(?) and end up parting ways a little after midnight. The city is just as busy as during the rest of the day, I love it.

Speakers everywhere are dialled up to 11. Just walking past some clubs makes my ears hurt.

Saturday is another early start and a day of sightseeing through the city, where I learn quite a bit about the history and why I grew up calling the city something else. Crikey.

The Tokyo Metro helped build the newly launched underground system here, and on using it, it feels like Tokyo. Same signage. Same ticket-barriers. Same train noises.

After a false start involving going to the wrong address in a distant neighbourhood, I go to a club to see two DJs doing a B2B set and encounter a lot of drunk brits. Uh-oh. The vibe is totally off. Noted for future.

Sunday is a trip to neighboring Vũng Tàu to see some beaches, stopping off at a temple and for some food in the most remote spot on the way. Unfortunately the big beach is covered in construction works. We end up splintering in separate groups: I’m on team biryani.

Closed by my one and only run of the week. It’s _sooooooooo_ hot. 😭