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Published: June 11th 2011
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Today we went to Vinpearl Island. On one side there is a hotel resort. The other side is turned in to a huge amusement park. For $15 each you can enjoy waterslides, carnival rides, an arcade, a shopping mall, Underwater aquarium and so on. From the main land you can take the 3320 meters sea crossing cable car, the longest in the world to the island. When Tris and I arrived the lineup for the cable car was probably about 3 hours long, so we opted to take the ferry over instead. We assumed it was going to be a zoo on the otherside with long lineups for everything, but to our surprise everything is really spread out so people weren't concentrated into one area.
We first hit up the waterslides. We climbed up the first tower to find out that we needed a mat to slide down on. I have to mention the ground and the tower stairs. The ground is scotching hot on your bare feet so you have to run everywhere. The towers are designed like plastic milk crates but metal = very uncomfortable to walk on. The best slide was the Tsunami. Its basically a huge
half pipe and you go shooting down the one side on a tube, then up the other. We took our double tube up to the family slide. We didn't know that we were sopossed to use the larger tube but the guy let us go anyway. OMG, I screamed the whole way. I thought we were going to do a 180 and come falling off the tube on to the hard plastic slide. No kidding we weren't sopossed to use the double tube, if we were any heavier we would've went right over the edge! When we got to the end the other guy was like 'oh no no, wrong tube.' Ya, No Kidding! The wave pool was pretty cool too. There was a tunnel like thing you could go through and you really get thrown around. Tris ended up falling right off his tube, and I came close to smashing into the wall. The last one we went on, called the Kamakazee had a huge drop where both of us (me first, then Tris) smoked our heads really hard. The bottom shot you out through a big drop. We had a blast at the waterslides then went and had
some lunch. Of course the 2 things I ordered ( a chicken burger and 7up) they didn't have, so we opted for the crispy chicken leg and fries. Tris thought it tasted like shake and bake, I thought it tasted like plastic.
After lunch we headed to the carnival rides. We waited in line for the swings and watched some kid ralph the whole way, then puked a couple more times on his way off. The attendants don't even stop to clean it up, they just leave it there, chunks and all. We did our turn on the swings and then went to the indoor arcade. Pretty much every game was inuse by an Asian kid. They even had a mechanical bull, though they don't understand the concept of one hand only.
When we walked out of the arcade there was a huge rain cloud coming our way. Tris and I decided we had enough of Vinpearl Island and got in line to take the cable car back to the mainland. We rode with a family visiting from Hanoi (Northern Vietnam).
We decided to go for sushi for dinner. We weren't sure how we were going to
like sushi in another country because we are used to Westernized sushi, but we ended up LOVING it! Everything we ordered was so yummy. Especially the bbq'd eel roll with sesame coating the outside. The service was excellent, the food was excellent, the bill was not so excellent. Pretty expensive for Vietnam but we both agree that it was worth it.
We finished dinner around 6:00 and headed down to the main street. The plan was to go to the grocery store to pick up some snacks to take with us to Jungle Beach and then head to the Opening Ceramony for the festival. When we saw that people were already filling the bleachers two hours early we decided to find a seat. A Vietnamese family from Georgia, USA had a spot open next to them and told us we could sit there. THANK GOODNESS! They had been holding their spot since 3:30pm and the show started at 8:00pm. An hour before the show old ladies were fighting over seats yelling at each other. I thought the fists were going to come out. People kept wanting to climb to the top of the bleachers but people got sick of
moving. This also caused a lot of arguments between people. Luckily we were more in the middle of the bleachers and were able to just laugh from afar. I don't think I've ever seen so many people in one area at a time. We learned that this festival only happens every 3 years so its a pretty big deal. The show ended up being the same show we saw yesterday. Apparently yesterday was just the dress rehersal. Today there were fireworks and the singers were on stage. It was a pretty good performance! After there was a huge fireworks display that went off for a good 20 minutes. The roads are just insane to walk down. People turned their stores and homes into parking spaces. Motorbikes are parked everywhere. Imagine approx 80,000 people trying to leave at the same time on feet, in cars, on bikes and on cyclos. We are sitting in our room which is 2 blocks away and down an alley tucked away and we can still hear the hussle and bustle. Normally its really quiet!
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