"The Dukes" - Part 2

Day 2 (June 20, 2015)

We were scheduled to meet at CET office at 6.45pm to go bowling thereafter but I hadn't had lunch and I was so hungry so I left early to grab some Burger King before heading to the office. Then it started to rain when I was heading out. The rain kept pouring harder and harder the closer I get to the office. It was a struggle to stay dry in that weather even with a raincoat on. It's basically an art, especially if you want to keep your shoes dry, assuming that you don't have a car, which is almost always the case in Vietnam. That sentence was confusing, wasn't it?


The rain wouldn't stop so we all had to take taxi to go to Diamond Plaza. Our group (The Dukes + PH) occupied 4 alleys at SuperBowl, all expenses paid, I never expected to feel that privilege in my days.
Alley 2 included Michael, Julianne, Thuy (our coordinator), me and later joined by Trang, whom I know before the program. I didn't have a lot of experience with bowling prior to this, I knew I would suck at it. But turned out, none of us were a pro either. Julianne was the most consistent. Michael and I had ups and downs but I ended up having two strikes. Thuy and Trang scored zero for the most part but then Thuy figured out the science of bowling and consistently scored over 7pts each time and actually had a strike, what kind of sorcery was that!
Mid game, a couple of the Dukes ordered cocktails and apparently the cocktails were quite strong for them. So another interesting thing I learned is that cocktails can get pretty watered down in America. In Florida you can't purchase alcohol until you're 21 but I'm not a big alcohol drinker anyway, I can wait, and so can those frat parties.
Through out the hour, I got to talk to more of them than I could during the scavenger hunt. Everyone was open and friendly, we had so much fun!

Introducing the Dukes and a couple of Vietnamese buddies (from left to right): D. Trang, me, Andrew (the hero posing guy behind us), Mike, Julianne, Jake, Young (back row), Preet (sitting), Hooman, Lenny (back row), Stephanie, P. Trang and Mario
(Photo by Thao Vy - a CET roommate)

After bowling, we went to have dinner together. Hang, one of my close friends, also a CET roommate, suggested that we have Pho 24 nearby (they all had tried it by then, Pho 24 is a restaurant chain in Vietnam that specializes in pho) or so I thought she did. Since it was raining, we had no other choice than taking a cab. I was on one with the PH girls and it was extremely awkward for me because the ride was too short. Cab drivers in Vietnam absolutely hate it when we travel short distance. When we hopped off, he glared at me like he was about to devour me in one piece.
After recovering from the glare of death, I went inside the Pho 24 Hang told us to go to. After waiting for a while, Hang called me asking where I was. I found it strange because there was only one Pho 24 in the neighborhood, where else could we be? She dropped a bomb on me saying she only told me to go to Pho 24, NOT inside it. The rest were waiting for us at another restaurant. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be inside, seated with waiters ready to take orders and you just have to walk away from their expectation? (Or is it just me?) EMBARRASSING! I basically ran away, avoided eye contact with the waiters and just kept saying sorry over and over again.
So our group went to this not-so-fancy restaurant that served bun bo hue - a former royal food originated from Hue. Preet, who was a vegetarian, could not have the dish so he bought banh mi (it's basically like a French baguette with fillings) with fried eggs (Yes, I am subtly introducing Vietnamese dishes to my readers)

We then proceeded to go to a karaoke place that I suggested. Karaoke was relatively new to them. It's not like they had never done karaoke-style singing before, the experience in Vietnam was just different and I thought it would be nice for them to see this part of our culture. We went to King Karaoke, a rather luxurious-looking karaoke place that is popular among Vietnamese youngsters for its multilingual catalogue of songs. We were kind of lucky because there was a 50% discount promotion when we came. We were sent to a Japanese-themed standard room. That night, Mike slayed us all by shaking the haters off with Taylor Swift and bringing sexy back with that Justin Timberlake song. Meanwhile, I basically made a fool out of myself with those falsetto runs in Ariana Grande's Problem. In my defense, I had iced coke before singing. Anyway, here's a little preview of the karaoke night.

Turn up!!

When the bill came, Ceci and Lenny teamed up to help me with everybody's paying. I was so grateful for their help, otherwise I would have made a total mess out of it. We left at around 10.45pm and when we returned to the guest house, the Dukes were locked out of their room, the locker that previously kept their keys at the reception desk was locked and the receptionists were nowhere to be seen. As the one who suggested the idea of going to karaoke, I was secretly shaking and my mind was all over the place but I got myself together and asked this security guard to help us. Fortunately, their keys were kept in another room and the Dukes quickly retrieved their keys and got back to their rooms. Whoosh phew~

The night was a stepping stone for me to get to know each of the Dukes closer and better. If there's one thing that I learned from that night, it's that Mike is a big Taylor Swift fan.

P.S.: No brand mentioned in this post paid me for endorsement.