Sightseeing tour

Today we went sightseeing with the local volunteers. Overall, it was a great, fun and not to mention exhausting day! We started off the tour at the war remnants museum, a musuem based on the horrible war crimes of american imperialism. The pictures were really quite intense and disturbing. It was so sad and depressing seeing the pictures of the after math of the war, especially where children were involved.
After the war museum, we made our way to the reunification palace. The home and workplace of the former president of South Vietnam during the Vietnam war. On the way there, we encountered a group of people holding up signs of "free hugs". They literally swooped around us and showered us with hugs and love. It was such a cool and amazing experience, and to be able to experience it in a different country made it just that more special.  It is true when they say that a simple gesture such as a hug, even from a complete stranger, can really boost your mood. We all walked away from them with massive goofy smiles on our faces.
The reunification palace was simply amazing and not to mention massive! We had a tour guide who walked us around the palace and even took us underground to the bomb shelter (or warroom as it was called) which could apparently withstand 2 tonnes of explosives!
After visiting the palace, we had lunch at this really fancy Vietnamese restaurant where we had 1 million dong to spend!  I had fried rice, a ngon ngon (delicious) cocktail (although my cocktail wasn't very ngon ngon) and a taro icecream for dessert.
Once we finished with lunch, we headed to the massive post office where I got a very cute comical hat. By this time we were all so tired and hot so we decided to have a rest at the park first. There park is so beautiful and lively teaming up with so many people playing games. We even participated in this stick dancing game, similar to tinikling. We finished off the tour by going through the backpackers district. We were meant to head to district 1 for some dinner and drinks that night but were so exhausted we ended up just going to the co op to grab dinner. I had a zinger burger from KFC which tasted quite different but delicious nonetheless.  I should also mention that KFC was the only western fast-food chain that I saw thanks to the heavy regulation.