Saigon is a great city. I explored a bit on foot today and am falling in love with this place. The city is vibrant and full of character. The streets are full of motorbikes that seem to engage in a grand dance with pedestrians and cars, with near misses everywhere but few collisions. I've learned to brave the traffic by doing just as they say in the guidebook - walk slowly and deliberately across the street and the bikes will just swerve around you. It's pretty neat.
This evening as I walked back to Pham Ngu Lao, the backpackers' area where I am staying, I passed through the park and was delighted to see so many people out and about. There were teenagers everywhere playing hackysack and badminton and tennis. There were tons of folks just walking around, hanging out, exercising and doing all sorts of things.
But by far, the coolest thing was the jazzercise in the park! There was a group of 20-30 people, men and women of all ages (toddlers to seniors), dancing and doing aerobics to this great upbeat dance music in a little chalet on the park. I ended up staying and watching for over an hour - some people left and others joined the group but the dancing kept going! I spoke with a local briefly and he informed me that they do this every day. As I was leaving the park, I noticed that there were little jazzercise groupings everywhere!
It was really cool. See video (sorry, lighting is terrible):
You weren't kidding about that jazzercise in the park - fantastic video! Glad I caught you today, sounds like you're having an amazing time =D
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