Final Presentation at our client

I guess 4 weeks ago nobody could have imagined how it is to have our final client presentation. And here it is – and now already over….so unreal. I have followed CSC Alumni’s beforehand on their blogs talking about their experiences, however to go through it yourself is just completely inspiring.
We met our client at the high school yesterday for the final presentation in the afternoon.
One thing what I have learned for sure is: Flexibility. This just applies to Vietnamese every day’s life and I am actually getting pretty used to it and it does not stress, upset or annoy me. I think that means adapting to Vietnamese culture ;)
So everything started that the driver from our company rang us and told us that they will pick us up 30min later. No surprise anymore after almost 4 weeks in Vietnam….
When we got out of the car all the High school students had a break and where waving at us and cheering. What a feeling that was! And after we waved back they were all giggling and clapping.
We met the director, the headmaster of the high school and some employees. The director told us straight away that he has only 1h and then he had to leave. So we changed spontaneously our whole agenda (so typical Vietnamese) and I really just had to smile about it. Adaptability is everything and I didn’t mind whatsoever. John started with our presentation of the Commercial Tower and the findings & recommendations to keep the tower, to sell it after completion or in 2020. You could see that their faces were lightning up. That was the first sign that they liked what we presented. The director stated clearly after the presentation that we helped him to get a better understanding of the financial outlook as well as the risk they have to keep in mind.
So the decision is made: Our client will keep the commercial tower until 2020 J!!!
Mr. Trinh, the director is very proud of his commercial tower and it is also a prestige project for Halong City in that location.
Then I took them through the High school presentation which was a lot of fun. We made a video for the High school which they just loved to watch. They were also very touched when they saw that we put some pictures which we took from the High school previously and included them in the presentation. You could feel how proud they were.
They were very happy with our best practises from Europe and US which they will try to implement in their High school. I really had the feeling after the presentation that they took the ideas on board. I handed a present to the Headmaster of the school Mr. Quôc’ Anh: A Guinness T-Shirt & pen which I brought from Ireland. He definitely appreciated this. Then we finished off with the Corporate Finance Presentation and the Director invited us for a last dinner with the Headmaster and the CFO. We had a lovely time and it was very sad & hard to say goodbye.
These 4 weeks is an experience I will never forget!

Today I went with John to Subbu’s & Jan’s client to go through our Corporate Finance Presentation and to give them some education in Sales. It was great to present even in front of another client, actually in the Directors private house in the living room. The client is operating a Boat Cruise in Halong Bay and a restaurant. We had a lovely lunch again today and I am so looking forward to our final “good-bye” Halong Bay Cruise with our translators tomorrow! It will be very sad to say goodbye to everybody including the translators. We are having a fabulous time here which will be never forgotten.

More pictures from the Halong Bay Cruise

Picture from the top of the small Island on Sunday morning.
Beachvolleyball: Thu Trang, Juliana, Jan, Subbu, Kerstin

Leaving the lovely small Island.

Trying to keep us awake Sunday morning with the song "I survive"

John & myself kajaking on Saturday afternoon.

A fabulous weekend on the Halong Bay Cruise

Our last weekend here in Halong and we finished it with a fantastic Cruise!
I have done a cruise through Halong Bay already twice before, but it is always an experience and overwhelming. The Limestone’s are so impressive and what more can you wish for as to sit on a nice cruise on the sundeck and enjoy the wind which is blowing into your face! Just priceless!
We had brilliant food for lunch & dinner and in the afternoon we visited the cave. Magic view up from the top!
Then we went kayaking in a small little cave – it was just amazing. I had John with me in the Kayak, and after 2 minutes paddling John told me he had his camera with him…….ohoh, so the pressure was on not to fall into the water! But we managed to be a great team and it was a pleasure to kayak with John. Back at our boat we were asking the crew if we could jump from the boat for a swim before it gets dark.
And a few minutes later we were standing at the front of the boat, scared to jump from that height. Thank god I had Juliana on my side, so we managed to jump together……it was at least 4m high…….anyway, we really enjoyed our swim in the middle of the sea!
After a lovely hot shower in our great equipped cabins we had a very tasty dinner. I managed the first time in my life to eat 4 different kinds of fish and that all in one evening! But I know now for sure that I don’t fancy mussels! But everything else was delicious.
Later on that evening we started Karaoke and we didn’t finish before 2am. Then we had a nice chat on the Sundeck before we went finally to bed! What a brilliant day – who can ask for more?!
Next morning the crew woke us up to watch the sunrise at 6am. I just quickly opened my curtains – no sun was visible through the clouds – so I went back to sleep.
Breakfast was early anyway as we already sailed to a small Ireland at 8.30am to have a hike to the top and a lovely swim. We even managed to play Water Volleyball for a bit J
We had such a great time and were so lucky that the sun finally came out and we had a great time on the sundeck until we came back into the Bay of Halong City.

That was a weekend to remember! We had so much fun and we are still enjoying our last week as much as we can.
Tomorrow is our final client presentation. Keep you fingers crossed.

3 weeks are already over – Can you believe it?

The time is flying here in Vietnam. We are going in our final phase of our Assignment.
We met with the director, his wife and the CFO today and discussed our open questions on the final presentation. It was a very productive meeting and I feel very comfortable & looking forward to next week - I have never created so many charts before ;) And you should see them translated in Vietnamese!
If I think about it - 3 weeks ago I was expecting to meet a completely different client. Now I am part of the team who is doing our final presentation on Corporate Finance and we have worked on the business case of a 15 story Commercial Tower, which is under construction already. We have worked on 3 different options: Option A - Selling the Tower now; Option B – Selling the Tower in 2011, Option C – Selling the Tower in 2020.
The director told us today he will make a decision after our presentation next week! So no pressure! We will have the final presentation in the High school. I am so looking forward to go there again. Have a look at the video below.

This weekend we are cruising in Halong Bay and then visit the Orphanage again on Sunday to bring some pictures, milk powder and trying to teach the kids a few things.

Our last weekend here in Halong Bay. I really cannot believe it and I think the whole team is sad about it! But now we’ll enjoy your last week here and go for a lovely Vietnamese Dinner.
And we still have next weekend in Hanoi left for a big "goodbye party".

Video from the Orphanage visit

Here is a link to the video on youtube as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33OiDeoGZUM

Video from the Highschool

Here is the video from the Highschool including "Oh Tannenbaum" and a link for youtube as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBfgfMIjeCI

More pictures from the Motorbike Trip

Motorbike Tour around Cat Ba Island

On Sunday morning we decided to get a ferry to the nearby Cat Ba Island to have a relaxing day at the beach. After a one hour ferry trip we arrived in Cat Ba and we had the idea to rent Motorbikes to get to know this Island.
You have imagine that our translator Lan just had a one minute conversation with a local Vietnamese at the Ferry Terminal and in seconds there were 10 motorbikes parked in front of us and we could go on our ride!
Best decision we had made for the day. I really forgot how nice it is to drive a Motorbike in 32 degrees on a beautiful Island. We drove for an hour through a really beautiful scenery including mountains and we passed the National Park as well.
Arriving at a gorgeous beach we had our first swim in the sea since we arrived in Vietnam! It was just brilliant; however the water was almost as hot as the air outside ;)
As we were all eager to get on the bikes again, we drove to another beach nearby and had another swim there after we had to get back to the Ferry. That was such a lovely relaxing day – it could not have been better!
On the ferry trip back to the Mainland we had a gorgeous sunset which just crowned the day. Overall we had such a great weekend, which you cannot top anymore. But lets wait until next ;) You never know.
Today we visited our CFO and gave our presentation about Corporate Financing. That was a good learning experience for all of us. The topic is already very complex and then to get it even translated into Vietnamese with the correct meaning was challenging, but the CFO was satisfied. We just will make some adjustments to make it a bit simpler and then the whole team can use it for their clients.
Tomorrow we will get a decision on if I can start to work with my original client or if he is pulling out. Flexibility is needed as we experienced from the first day onwards, but it is actually working well. Every day as small surprise as in real life J

Enjoy the pictures from the bike trip!

More pictures from the Moon Festival

Bustling Annual Moon Festival in Hai Phong

Our whole CSC Team decided to rent a bus to a city Hai Phong nearby to celebrate the Moonfestival with the Vietnamese. What an experience! I have never seen so many people on motorbikes in my life! Every Vietnamese was on the street celebrating, eating moon cakes & dancing with the dragons.
The city was packed and all Vietnamese people were out on the street that night – amazing! It did not matter what age – and the kids had nice costumes on and had a lot of fun including us. We felt so special that night as there are no tourists in Hai Phong or any non Asian people. So you can imagine that we were the centre of attention wherever we were walking: 3 India’s, 3 Europeans, 1 Brazilian, 1 Canadian, and 2 American. Lots of people waved at us, wanted to get a picture with us or just talk. It was fantastic!

By an coincidence we actually crashed somehow into a private neighbourhood moon festival. We just wanted to make a pictures of the kids and 1 second later we were all invited to the fest and sitting with the local Vietnamese around the tables to watch the dragon dance and ate Watermelons.
That experience showed again how welcoming the Vietnamese people are.

We were so lucky to be in Vietnam throughout that festival! Enjoy the pictures