Hacks to Avoid Jetlag (USA to Vietnam)

Jetlag

Image by miss_rogue via Flickr

I’m back in Vietnam, and it’s time for my follow-up to my article, Hacks to Avoid Jetlag (Vietnam to the USA)

This was my sixth time doing this, and I’ve always felt that going from the US to Vietnam is much easier than coming back to the US.

I always take the Vietnam Airlines flight which lands in Vietnam between 9 and 11:30 AM (depends if you are landing in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City), so the key here is staying up all day until you can sleep at normal hours.

To stay up, you have to stay active. If you just sit around or watch a movie, you are toast. But if you can get to work (outside of home), talk to people, you can keep yourself up. It also helps to be outside because the sunlight can help your body rethink trying to sleep.

Day 1: I got into HCM this time around 10:30 AM, or 7:30 PST in California. If I could stay up to 9 PM, it would be 6AM in California. Tough. But got home, unpacked my stuff, went to office in the early afternoon, had dinner out, got back home, and it was 9:30/10 before I finally went to bed. Woke up at 5:30 AM. Not bad for my first day.

From here, it was just a question of maintaining:

Day 2: Slept around 8:30, woke up at 2:30 AM. This wasn’t so good, not because I woke up so early, but because I didn’t get 8 hrs of sleep. I tried to sleep again around 6 or so, but it didn’t happen, so I knew I was in for a tough day. Somehow, I ended up being ok the entire day, and slept at 8:30 again.

Day 3: After sleeping at 8:30, I woke up at 3:30. Took a nap from 9 to 12 AM, and was good for the rest of the day.

Day 4: Slept at 10 this time after coming home from basketball. Woke up at 6:30.

Day 5: Slept at 10 again, woke up at 4:30. Don’t think this is due to jet lag, I seem to have crazy dreams every night. Decided to stay up and do some stuff.

It doesn’t matter so much to me when I wake up, as long as I can stay up and sleep on time, stay in good patterns. In fact, I hope I can stick to sleeping at 10 AM each night.

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Vietnam Needs Stable Economy, Better Dong Sentiment, IMF Says – BusinessWeek

Growing pains of the “tiger”
.

Vietnam Needs Stable Economy, Better Dong Sentiment, IMF Says

January 11, 2010, 10:24 PM EST


By Jason Folkmanis

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) — Vietnam needs to improve its balance of payments and increase confidence in the dong to strengthen economic growth to at least 6 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund said.

The economy grew at a decade-low pace of 5.3 percent last year. The country recorded a trade deficit of $12.25 billion in 2009 after posting a surplus in the first quarter, and was forced to devalue the dong as Vietnamese increased buying of dollars and gold.

Growth this year will be partly determined by Vietnam’s balance of payments, Benedict Bingham, the IMF’s Hanoi-based senior resident representative in Vietnam, said in an interview today.

“If they re-establish stable macroeconomic conditions, and generate more positive sentiment towards the dong, then I think they can certainly achieve 6 percent growth,” he said.

A government stimulus package hurt Vietnam’s balance of payments last year, threatening the country’s economic stability, the Washington-based IMF said last month.

“What was causing pressure on the balance of payments was a combination of a widening trade deficit and weak sentiment towards the dong, especially by Vietnamese investors,” Bingham said.

The dong traded at 18,474 against the dollar as of 10 a.m. in Hanoi, compared with about 19,280 in the black market. The government only allows the dong to fluctuate 3 percent on either side of the official reference rate that it sets daily.

Dong, Exports

The central bank devalued the dong in November after the gap between official and black-market rates increased ten-fold to more than 11 percent.

Vietnam’s exports should strengthen this year, in part because of a more competitive exchange rate, Johanna Chua, head of Asia economic research at Citigroup Inc., said in a note to investors this month.

Overseas shipments rose 12 percent in December to $5.25 billion from $4.69 billion in November. Garment exports gained 12 percent to $820 million, while shipments of shoes jumped 22 percent to $420 million.

Exports performed “reasonably well” in December, and imports were lower than anticipated, helping to improve the trade gap, the IMF’s Bingham said. December’s shortfall narrowed 38 percent from November to $1.3 billion, according to preliminary figures from the government statistics office.

Deficit Moderates

Last month’s export gains were “due in part to rice and coffee, but encouragingly non-commodity exports also seem to be recovering,” Bingham said. “We will have to see whether this moderation in the trade deficit will be sustained.”

Inflation in Vietnam accelerated to 6.52 percent in December, from 4.35 percent the prior month, as economic growth quickened to 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter, from 6.04 percent in the previous three months.

“The authorities need to keep a close eye on inflation, especially if commodity prices continue to firm this year,” Bingham said. “Although much of the recent increase in the consumer price index is due to rice and fuel prices, the seasonally adjusted three-month rate of inflation is currently running at an annual rate of over 10 percent, which is high.”

Vietnam Needs Stable Economy, Better Dong Sentiment, IMF Says – BusinessWeek

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My Most Popular Posts in 2009

Grace Niarou @ Athens Erotica 2009 (2)

Image by i-live.gr Greek News magazine via Flickr

Yeah, this info is basically boring to everyone but me: (I’m always surprised on how people find this blog, and what they read) I also have some (not much) pride in saying I finished the year in the top 800,000 in Alexa’s website traffic ranking.

The picture on the right has nothing to do with this post, but I found it with my Zemanta Windows Live Write plugin searching for “2009”.

ISpitHotFire.com’s Top Posts of 2009:

Post/Page Views:

  1. Sex Scandal Snares Young Vietnamese Star – New York Times
    3,113
  2. Metal Gear Solid (PC) with EPSXE 1.7
    2,061
  3. Wordpress Optimizations – YSlow, PHP Speedy, DB Cache, Hyper Cache, and CSS Sprites
    1,117
  4. Commenting on Comments (Maria Ozawa’s bikini goes off)
    784
  5. Hot Girls of Hanoi Strike Back!
    697
  6. Hoang Thuy Linh’s Career Is Back!
    537
  7. Johnny Tri Nguyen as Johnny [REVIEW]
    487
  8. Is that a Penis in Your Mouth, or are You
.
    439
  9. About Me
    366
  10. Stanford GSB Application, Essay A
    347
  11. (No Homo) Ryan Reynolds – The Nines [Review]
    274
  12. Customer Service FAIL, SRS Labs with SRS Audio Sandbox
    271
  13. How to be a Digital Pirate in Vietnam
    257
  14. The ME8 Martin Luther King Tribute (Monta Ellis’ New AND1 Shoe)
    228
  15. My LG Viewty [Review]
    226
  16. How to Avoid the Facebook Block/Ban in Vietnam
    208
  17. My Top Five Movies of 2008
    180
  18. Rush Hour 3
    178
  19. My Torrent Guide for You
    178
  20. Rollerblading SheMale: Baron Davis – One Shot
    174
  21. Attending The Star Trek Premiere at Megastar Hung Vuong
    169
  22. Ball Is Life The Project Volume 1 (DVD) [Review]
    163
  23. My Boyfriend, the Sex Tourist
    158
  24. Shorty’s Guitar Hero 2 Custom Disc – ALL SONGS ARE CUSTOM
    151
  25. X-Men Origins: Wolverine [REVIEW - Spoiler Free]
    150
  26. I Heart Biore Pore Pack
    145
  27. Final Fantasy VII/7 (PC) [Review]
    133
  28. Half-Life (PC) [Review] + Opposing Force + Blue Shift
    129
  29. Stanford GSB Application, Essay B
    125
  30. Lenovo Thinkpad T61p 14? [Review]
    124
  31. Habitat Hostel (Singapore) [Review]
    116
  32. The Top 8 Warriors of the Last 15 Terrible Years, 1994-2009 [Absolute FAIL]
    113
  33. Learning How to Play Basketball Better in Vietnam
    111
  34. My New Theme!
    101
  35. 8 Minute Abs [Review]
    101
  36. Tourist Guide: Nha Trang, the Rain, Fun, and Vinpearl
    100
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