Is VinWonders Grand Central Park Worth A Visit? | Saigon Sunday Sessions #10

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Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Vin Wonders and Imagine Dragons Concert Recap
• 1:56 Arriving at Vin Wonders Grand Park
• 3:24 Discovering the Attractions and Amenities
• 10:54 Challenges with Tickets and Games
• 15:49 Winning Prizes and Final Thoughts
• 16:12 Conclusion and Podcast Sign-off

Transcript

1:23

we're out here checking out Vin Wonders today. we came out to see Imagine Dragons last night, It was unbelievable. We are all still buzzing from how good a gig it was. I've never seen a collective group of people just swooning so much and I got it because I was swooning as well. The games are fun, even though it is a pain in the ass to get the tickets. Oh, what? Oh, come on. Capybara! Is that a capybara? An Should Is that Duolingo? we're here at Vin Wonders Grand Park, all the way out in District 9, which is my hotel here from Saigon. It took us about 45 minutes, an hour to get here. This is a crazy, crazy, uh, Vin development. This is massive. It's absolutely huge. And it's mostly all Vins. There's Vincon Mall, Vin Cars everywhere. There's the Vin Wonders. And last night we saw, what was it, the Vin Winter Wonder Imagine Dragons, which was amazing. It's so crazy. This is like a new area. Lots of people move out here because it's cheaper, but it is really far away. So if you live out here, you're not coming into District 1 or any of the fun things they do in Saigon very often. But we're out here checking out Vin Wonders today. We've never been here before. We've just been told that most of the rides, or two of the biggest rides are closed, and most of the games that you play are going to be closed as well. It is a Monday morning. So it's not much of a surprise, but we're going to go check it out. So this is another Saigon Sunday Sessions episode of a Vietnam podcast with me, your host, Niall Mackay. Make sure you follow, subscribe, turn on notifications, do all that good stuff. And come on, we'll go check out Vin Homes Grand Park and see if it's any good. Vin Wonders. What did I say? Vin Wonders. Let's go check out Vin Wonders Grand Park. So we asked how much it was going to cost to get in. And we thought it was going to be like 500, 000 dong, which is 20 bucks. 100, 000 dong to get in. And we were ready to pay, and then the woman was like, You don't need to pay, because just go walk around, it's free, and You only pay to get access to the rides, basically, and As you can probably see, nothing's really open And the main rides are closed, so So we didn't pay anything, we just grabbed a coffee Good old Vietnamese coffee to start the day as you do, and then we're gonna go check it out. So I'm always so conflicted because I've said before like development brings good things kind of like some of Vietnam You know, the waterways have been absolutely trashed They're just a mess and then you come to places like this and they're so nice and manicured, but I don't know if that's better Probably not. It's probably Environmentally worse, but it sure as hell looks better. It's way more maintained Is this a beach? They have a beach and everything. Oh, you can kayak in here. No, they have sun loungers and stuff as well. You literally can come to the beach. So it's so weird, but it's also pretty amazing. So if you step out of this Vinhomes, you're back in Saigon, you're back in Vietnam, like instantly. It's a big, dirty, dusty road. It's not like properly maintained. There's potholes everywhere. There's just dust and cars and trucks and like local shops and then you take a step into Vinhomes And it's perfectly manicured, beautiful roads, loads of shops, there's kids everywhere, there's playgrounds, there's tennis courts, volleyball I saw ping pong. It's all like self contained. If you can look up there, you can see I think these are all brand new You were saying right? They look empty. So they're not even built yet There's a Vincom mall, which has all the same stuff every Vincom mall has, a Muji, a Decathlon What else does it cost? Pizza, four peas, every mall has the same thing. Uniqlo. Yep, every single one's the same. But I mean, if you live here and you're like, let's go to the beach today. It might be fake, but it's still a beach, right? Does it feel nice? Got barbecues you could probably book as well. Same as like our building, right? Probably book a barbecue. no way. This is only just opened. Oh, I didn't know that. I just assumed it'd been here for a while. I think it literally opened on Friday. So the reason we're here, we came out to see Imagine Dragons last night, and I'm not an Imagine Dragons fan at all. I know their big hits. It was unbelievable. We are all still buzzing from how good a gig it was. so I have new respect for Imagine Dragons, but the funniest thing was, it's part of their Wonder Winter, and they did a big announcement about the Wonder Winter. I was like, it's not really winter when it's 35 degrees out, like we're all just sweating. It's so hot out, there's no snow, but I do like it. It pretends that it's winter. But it's not really. So Kim is referring to Dan, who we had to look up his name, the guy from, uh, Imagine Dragons. If you don't know, he is maybe the hunkiest man you've ever seen in your life. I am, I'm a very straight man, but I was turned on by him. He was so hot. It was ridiculous. All the women just had jaws hitting the floor. Couldn't stop talking about him. They were all, I've never seen a collective group of people just swooning so much and I got it because I was swooning as well. He came out with like a little shirt on and I thought it took half a song but you guys said it took a song and a half. It took a song and a half before, I think half to half a song he unbuttoned it and then within another song later he'd already taken the full shirt off. He's absolutely jacked and what was he, you said he's got like an x on his hand which means he doesn't drink a roll of coffee or something so. I mean you just look at him, I go to the gym, I work out, I don't look like that at all. He must have like 5 percent body fat, which to get 5 percent body fat is, like, that is your life. You have to work every single day to eat the right things at the right time. You can't drink any alcohol, you can't have any sugar, like, to look like that, respect, because he looked amazing, but I don't want to work that hard to look that good as you can see. That's pretty cool to see it. It's cool, like look at the big pile of sand. So they're gonna put sand, like, all around it. I'm trying my best not to talk in these videos about how quickly Vietnam develops because people hate it and Adri tells me not to do it. But it's pretty crazy how quickly Vietnam develops. In our countries we never see this stuff. I mean it's so fake but I kind of like it. What, you know, people don't like Banner Hills and things like this. People make fun of Banner Hills up in Da Nang. There's like a fake French village. What a lot of people have to remember is a lot of Vietnamese people aren't leaving Vietnam. I mean, economically, it's doing so much better. There's more and more Vietnamese people traveling overseas. But it's not as simple to get visas for overseas countries. I know this through Kim. It's not as simple to get a passport, things like that. So Vietnamese people just don't travel as much and yeah, a lot of them can't afford it either. So If you're Vietnamese and you got the opportunity to come out to here, you don't care if it's fake You don't care if it's a fake beach. You're like, this is cool And this is something that you might never get to experience. Otherwise, so I'm not gonna criticize it I think it's cool as well, even as a foreigner and as someone who lives in Vietnam Like things like this are pretty awesome So this is like Singapore, right? What's the gardens in Singapore called that look like this? Gardens by the Bay, yeah. Maybe they're going to grow plants on them eventually, like plants will grow up it. We do live in the future. I just wanted to buy some tickets for a game. It's not like the old days where you just pay some money and they give you some tickets and you throw some balls. It's taken us about 15 minutes now. You gotta put in your phone number, you gotta choose how many tickets you wanna buy, even though you don't really know how many you're gonna use. One of the stalls is just closed already, I've noticed. The one that we were gonna use is now closed. It took us ages. Then, you can only pay by debit card, credit card, or QR code, which is scanned for the bank. That's fine, I'm going to use my card to pay. The option didn't come up, so couldn't use my card. That's fine. Then we wanted to pay by QR code. Adri was going to scan it on her phone and then unfortunately this time of the day, the sun is right on the screen. And so, uh, the QR code was like in the sun and it wasn't recognized by the phone. So that took us about another five minutes to scan the QR code, to transfer the money, just to get 10 tickets. We've been here for 20 minutes now and we're finally going to start. And the one we were going to do is close now. Maybe it's closed for lunch. What time is it? If you don't get a pay, play the Magic Ferris Wheel. Lunch time, right. We're going to do this one then. Okay. Kim, can you show them the thing? just threw some balls. Now we gotta scan the code that we just took 20 minutes to get. I got it. I got it. Right. This is going to be over in about 10 seconds and it took however long to, to do. Right. So we're going to hit, hit this thing. Yeah. Yeah. Hit the teeth as hard as I can. Yeah. Right. Oh shit. Oh, you're garbage! Wait, one more play. My turn. Your turn now. Alright, A. J.'s gonna have a Oh, not three balls, three times. Ah, right, right. Okay, let me do my nine. Then we'll play again. Then we'll play again. All right. Look at this. I'm so strong, I bust the ball. Right. So if I do it three times, I win? Ah! Gonna throw an armor, that's what happens when you turn 42, you're gonna pull a muscle just throwing a ball. Oh, the tooth goes back? Oh my goodness. So what happens now? Nothing? I gotta hold two teeth. Oh, four teeth, right. You can Hey! Ah, fuck! What happened there? If you hit two at one time I so you have I started off well. think you should underhand it. I thought you had that. How many did you get? Oh, what? Calm these men. Oh, come on. We're gonna get three to win. Oh my god. Should I get more? Oh, there's no time. Oh, it's just a bag. Right, gotcha, I gotcha. it, I got it! So I win? Yeah, one prize. What do you want, Adri? The till two? So I get three buckets, right? so we're gonna try and win again. What about, Are you fucking apocalypse? capybara? Is that a capybara an avocado? Is that Duolingo? Is Ha ha ha ha! He's obsessed with capybaras. I'm obsessed because other people are obsessed. Ah! It's a capybara. Oh, the strawberry on its head! so I managed to win two prizes and the VIN won those park. As you can see, it's pretty quiet. We're here on a Monday morning. I would definitely recommend it if you've got kids for sure. Guys, would you come back? Yeah, I want to ride the rides. Yeah, I want to come back and ride the rides, but I won two prizes, which I don't normally win. The games are fun, even though it is a pain in the ass to get the tickets. It's actually probably not that big a deal, but it was a big deal for us. So we're going to go venture into VIN homes now, get some food, Hope you enjoyed this episode of A Vietnam Podcast with me, Niall Mackay. Don't forget, like, subscribe, turn on notifications, tell other people about this podcast as well. Go check out other episodes. Our main episodes, we interview people connected to Vietnam and then every Sunday we put out the Saigon Sunday Sessions. So thanks for tuning in and look out for the next episode soon. Cheers!