There’s always something happening in 23/9 park, which is located a couple blocks away from where we are staying.  I’ve already posted video about Hai the Vietnamese busker and our friend Sven the fire-spinner, but on any given night of the week you are guaranteed to see some badminton playing, hacky sackying, or simply people just hanging out in the park.  We discovered that in addition to all that, there are free nightly aerobics classes at 6pm.  A combination of feeling chubby and the fact that I’m up for just about anything brought me to the park one evening, super excited to see how it would all go down.  Laurene and I strapped on our runners and I donned my black Adidas workout clothes that until this point had laid unused in my backpack.

Let me begin by saying that because of the heat and humidity, we were sweating on the walk TO the park.  There were maybe 100 people that showed, mostly women, who were all ready to gyrate to the beat of the Vietnamese dance music.  The steps were called out in Vietnamese, but there was an instructor on a podium in the centre demonstrating the moves.  It lasted 40 minutes, and was totally draining due in part to the heat and in part to the fact that I haven’t done any physical activity for over 2 months.  The only thing I can compare it to is a really intense hot yoga.  That being said, I’ll probably go back, once my body recovers from this session!