Today our Happy Family leaves for 10 days in Vietnam, as we have some time off school for Chinese New Year. We get back on February 1st. Although we have NO idea what to expect, we are excited to have the opportunity to go for so long and I am expecting my first true culture shock. So far we've been pretty sheltered, and have had no real problems with communication. Apparently there is very little English in Vietnam, which will be challenging for sure.
We fly into Ho Chi Minh City tonight, and will spend the next 10 days making our way north, to Hanoi, where we will fly back to Singapore from.
Packing 10 days into our travel backpacks was a challenge, but I think we all did pretty well, considering we packed pretty much the same amount for 4 days in Thailand...so I think we're getting better :)
I finally got my classes sorted out, and we now all have classes Monday-Wednesday, leaving us the rest of the week to travel, which is nice. I fully expect our Financial Risk and Insurance class to be the end of me....it's extremely difficult, and I resent it already.....
Yesterday was 39 degrees with the humidity....and apparently it's only going to get hotter, since we are in the latter part of the "cooler" season.....oi
Last night we went to our Hall 16 Chinese New Year dinner at Raffles Country Club. It was a lot of fun, and definitely an experience, which included a mandarin orange-eating-contest....can't say I've done that before. Since the dress code was "red", we all wore red and white......and were the Cheesy Canadians all dressed the same in our country colours. We learned a lot about the Chinese culture last night and got to do some fun things, like toss some food around for good luck.
I'm finding I have a ridiculously big appetite here lately. Our first week here, I didn't have much of one at all, and now I'm hungry all the time. Example: yesterday I had breakfast (2 bowls of cereal), a snack at 10am (plate of fruit, and tea), and lunch (an ENTIRE footlong sub which I devoured in about 14 minutes), and by 3:45pm I was starving......yeesh. It must be all the stairs I have to climb here everyday to get to and from class making me hungry. I just can't get enough...:)
I don't know if I'll have internet access anywhere in Vietnam like I had in Thailand through internet cafes, so it might be 11 days until my next post. I'm sure I'll have a lot to write about.
Look out Vietnam, Happy Family is on it's way.
xoxo
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Bin Tan, Indonesia
A few hours ago, I got back to Singapore from a weekend in Bintan, Indonesia. It was a last minute decision that Janene and I made on Friday, to go to Bintan with a group of about 35 fellow exchange students who are studying at our school here in Singapore. It was a really good decision to go, because we had a lot of fun, and got to meet a lot of great people.
Our journey there started with a ferry ride, which was a little over two hours long, and pretty rough. Thankfully I had gravol with me, so it was okay.
After arriving in Indonesia, we stepped off the ferry and into a blackout. Apparently the power just goes out for certain chunks of certain days, to save energy. After a few minutes, it came back on, which was pretty good timing. We stood in line for customs, and to get our temporary Visas, for about half an hour. After getting what we thought was our whole group through customs, we found out that one of the guys travelling with us had been taken to the interrogation room, and was having trouble getting into the country, because he had to have obtained a different type of Visa before going to Indonesia, and wasn't aware of this. We ended up waiting for an hour, trying to negotiate with the customs officers to let him in, which didn't do much. Then all of a sudden, all of the officers grabbed their belongings, shut off their office lights, and left the terminal, leaving us unable to get G into Indonesia. Because our ferry was the last sailing of the night, they made him (and a few other guys who decided to stay with him) SLEEP on the DOCK until the 7am sailing the next day, at which time he had to sail back to Singapore. Pretty brutal.
When we left the ferry terminal, we had to pile a huge crowd of us into an 8 person van, because the place we were staying didn't send a big enough vehicle. This would have been not so bad if we were staying nearby. We weren't . An hour later, we arrived at our resort.
Janene and I had booked our room that morning, and didn't really have any idea what it would be like. We were pleasantly surprise to be assigned to a Garden Villa, which was much cleaner and larger that the beach bungalow we thought we were going to be put in.
After checking in, everyone headed to the beach where we spent the rest of the evening, and then some, hanging out and getting to know each other. Everyone was really nice, and really easy going, and we met some great people.
The next day, we slept in a bit, had some breakfast, and then we all headed to the sister resort, where we layed on the beach, which some went banana-boating, played volleyball, played soccer, and went kayaking. We had a late lunch at the restaurant on-site, and then headed back to our resort. That night was pretty much a repeat of the night before, and it was lots of fun again. It was a pretty low-key weekend, and exactly what we needed.
Some of our friends at home call me "Soccer Mom" due to my usual preparedness, and it was a pretty appropriate name this weekend. I was literally like the school nurse this weekend, as I think I'm the only one out of all 35 people who brought any kind of first-aid kit. I bandadged, tensor-wrapped, bactrobanned, and aloe-d more people that I could keep track of. Great way to meet people, I guess. :)
Today we got the 12pm ferry back to Singapore. I can't even put into words how rough the ride was. It was really windy, just like on the way over, but the sea was very, very, very rough. So much so that the crew passed out barf bags halfway through the trip, because there were SO many people getting sick. I, again, had taken gravol, thankfully, and was able to lie down most the trip, which really helped. Janene managed to make it through okay as well, but we both didn't feel great. A few of the girls that we were with on the trip back were violently ill. Instead of the typical rocking back and forth motion you would normally expect to experience in a boat, the front of the boat (where we were) was literally lifting off the water every few seconds, and smacking back down REALLY hard. It was next to impossible to walk on the boat, without getting thrown into someone, and there were times that I thought we'd never make it to shore. It was probably the longest 2.5 hours any of us had experienced in a looooong while.
When we got out of the ferry terminal, we felt like we had gotten home, just like when we returned from Thailand. It's amazing how different Indonesia is from Singapore, even though it's only a few hours away. Indonesia is pretty third world, and Singapore is so developed, they are literally worlds apart.
Before we left for Bintan, we booked our 10-day Chinese New Year trip to Vietnam, which we leave for on Thursday afternoon. We fly into Ho Chi Minh city, then we'll make our way up north, and end at Hanoi, where we fly back to Singapore. I'm really looking forward to seeing Vietnam, and this is a great chunk of time to be able to really see it.
I finally somewhat figured out my class schedule. It's not my ideal schedule, since it now involves class on Thursday mornings (and I was going for a Mon-Wed sched), but it'll have to do. The classes I'm taking are: Services Marketing, Malay, Corporate Lending, Financial Risk and Insurance, and Strategic Management. I was hoping for some more "fluff" courses than what I got, but there's not much I can do about it.
So, that's about it, it was a really fun weekend that I'm glad I took part in. Janene and I got to be-friend people from all over the world, which was awesome. I'm sure we'll travel as a big group like that again.
xoxox Terra
Monday, January 12, 2009
Welcome to Paradise
I'm not quite sure where to begin. We just got back late last night from our first "weekend" trip out of Singapore, to Thailand, and it was pretty incredible.
We left Singapore Wednesday night, on a 6:30pm flight, which was only an hour and a half, and we gained an hour with the time change. We checked into our hostel, the Little Buddha Guesthouse, in Patong, and then went on the prowl for some dinner. We ended up at a really nice Thai restaurant, and a delicious 3 course meal only cost us around $11.....and that included a beer. I was liking Thailand already. After dinner, we went walking down the main strip in Patong, which is littered with bars, clubs, restaurants and vendors selling everything under the sun. After checking a few places out, we ended up at Tiger, which is a bar downstairs, and a club upstairs just PACKED with people. We went upstairs and danced until the wee hours of the morning. Tons of fun.
The next day we went to a little restaurant across the street for a huge "American Continental" breakfast. It included cereal, orange juice, coffee/tea, water, sausage, bacon, eggs, and toast, and it cost 150Baht, which is about $5. Pretty cool. After breakfast we walked around the vendors on our street, to see what was there, and then headed to the beach.
This was our first day on the beach and it couldn't have felt any better. The water was beautiful, warm, and turquoise; the sand was white and soft, and it was super hot out. Janene and I got 1-hour full body massages on the beach for $10. Later, we did some shopping (obviously), and got some great knock-offs for good deals. Shopping in Thailand is no relaxing experience, you have to have your game face on, and be ready to battle for a bargain. However, it's definitely entertaining, and there are some great finds.
The next day we went on a day trip to James Bond Island, which included a few other stops. We drove about an hour and a half, and then took a longboat out to James Bond Island, pretty much the most beautiful place I had ever seen. The boat ride to the island, and the surrounding islands were incredible. There are dozens, probably more, of these very tall islands that just appear out of the water. The islands themselves aren't that big, and they're gorgeous.
When we got to James Bond Island, we got half an hour to get out and walk around. There are a bunch of caves on the island, and the water is beautiful. I can't even really put into words how amazing the scenery was.
After our short visit on the island, we got back on the long boat which took us to a bigger boat that we were able board sea canoes from. There were 3 people to each sea canoe: two travellers and a tour guide, who did all the paddling. Loved it. It was amazing to sit in this blow-up boat, with our feet in the water over the side, sun on our faces, and the most amazing scenery I had ever seen. We went through a cave, and got off on another island for a few minutes, where some of the girls crawled through a super tight, dark cave with a few of the guides.
Next, we got back on the longboat and headed for a small Muslim fishing village on a tiny island, where the houses are literally built on the water, on big posts. We had an amazing lunch there, and got to walk around looking at a few of the little shop stands. This is where we got to hold some pet monkeys, which was really fun. There was a Lady Boy (lots of them in Thailand) standing with his/her (?) pet monkey, waiting for tourists to ask for a picture. Before I knew it the monkey was in my arms, my picture was being taken, and then I was asked for 100Baht. I kind of expected this would be the case (but thought it would be less than 100 Baht), but it was well worth it. Not often do you get to hold something of that level of cuteness.
Next, we took the longboat back to where we started from, got in mini-buses, and drove about 15 minutes to Golden Cave Monkey Temple. Here there was dozens of monkeys just walking around the outside of the temple, where we could feed them and take pictures. They were wild, and kind of freaked me out because every once in a while they would run at each other and show they're teeth, and that's when they're not so cute anymore. The inside of the temple was amazing. It is still in use, and there was a monk sitting in this shrine/bed-type thing, reading whatever it is that monks read in Thailand. There were some amazing statues, and some really cool caves that we could climb up into.
After this part of the trip,we got back in the mini-bus and headed to a field of row upon row of skinny little trees. Looked kind of like an orchard....but Thailand style. They were rubber trees, and we were brought there (for some reason) to see a demonstration of how rubber is made from these trees. They tap the trees just like they would for maple syrup in Canada. Pretty interesting, but not quite sure why it was part of our day trip. The best part about this visit was the two little puppies running around and playing with us and each other. They were domestic, so we could pick them up. It was nice to finally pet a dog, because up until this point all we had been seeing were mangy wild dogs, who would not be a good idea to pet. That's something I had a really hard time with, seeing all these wild dogs who have no home, no one to love them, and were often covered in disease. Many of them had patches of fur gone, and it looked like they had skin diseases. They were always hanging around where there were people, hoping to get something to eat. Sean and I volunteer for the SPCA walking dogs, at home, and these are the kinds of things we see when abused and neglected dogs are first brought into the shelter, and need medical attention. It was really sad to see so many dogs like this.
The next day, after three nights in Patong, we checked out of our hostel at 7am, and caught a 2-hour ferry to Phi Phi Don Island....a.k.a. 'Paradise'. I finally understood what all the Thailand fuss was all about. I now understand why people who have been there long to go back, and can't wait until they get to go again.
We stayed at Paradise Resort, right on the beach, and since we got to the island at around 10:30am, we had the whole day ahead of us to play on the beach. It was heaven. The sand was beautiful, and the water even more so. We had a great day weather wise, and none of us burnt to a crisp, so everything was great. That night we took a boat to another side of the island, where all the restaurants are, and went for dinner at Carpe Diem, where we sat on cushions on the floor, at a table, and could watch the water as it got dark outside. Amazing. The owner of the restaurant was a guy who looked to be no older than 30, and was originally from Holland. He had gone to Thailand 4 years before on a vacation, during which the Tsunami hit. He decided at that point to give up his life in Holland, and career as a lawyer (!) to stay on Phi Phi Don Island and help the people rebuild in the midst of devastation. As a result, he had a man give him a chunk of land right on the beach for very cheap rent, where he built and started up the restaurant we ate at. He seems to have done quite well for himself, because his restaurant is featured in Lonely Planet as reccommended place to eat.
The next day we checked out of our resort at around 2pm, and took the 2-hour ferry ride back to Phuket, where we went out for dinner in a small town near the airport. It was here that we saw an elephant (probably about 6 months old) chained to a tree as someone's pet. He looked incredibly unhappy, and had nowhere to move. We got to pet him, and he was incredibly sweet, but it made us sad to see such a huge, amazing animal confined to a 5-foot radius.
After standing in line after line at the airport, we got on our flight, and said so-long to Thailand. I'm sure we'll be there again before this experience is over. I feel like I could spend forever there and never get sick of it.
We landed around 10:45pm Singapore time, and got back to our dorms around 12:30am....late night, early morning with classes this morning, but all well worth it. All in all it was a great trip, and something we'll never forget.
Surprisingly, coming back to Singapore felt a lot like home....or something very familiar that we were happy to come home to. It's amazing how fast we have adjusted, and settled in, and that "home" feeling was a good one.
We left Singapore Wednesday night, on a 6:30pm flight, which was only an hour and a half, and we gained an hour with the time change. We checked into our hostel, the Little Buddha Guesthouse, in Patong, and then went on the prowl for some dinner. We ended up at a really nice Thai restaurant, and a delicious 3 course meal only cost us around $11.....and that included a beer. I was liking Thailand already. After dinner, we went walking down the main strip in Patong, which is littered with bars, clubs, restaurants and vendors selling everything under the sun. After checking a few places out, we ended up at Tiger, which is a bar downstairs, and a club upstairs just PACKED with people. We went upstairs and danced until the wee hours of the morning. Tons of fun.
The next day we went to a little restaurant across the street for a huge "American Continental" breakfast. It included cereal, orange juice, coffee/tea, water, sausage, bacon, eggs, and toast, and it cost 150Baht, which is about $5. Pretty cool. After breakfast we walked around the vendors on our street, to see what was there, and then headed to the beach.
This was our first day on the beach and it couldn't have felt any better. The water was beautiful, warm, and turquoise; the sand was white and soft, and it was super hot out. Janene and I got 1-hour full body massages on the beach for $10. Later, we did some shopping (obviously), and got some great knock-offs for good deals. Shopping in Thailand is no relaxing experience, you have to have your game face on, and be ready to battle for a bargain. However, it's definitely entertaining, and there are some great finds.
The next day we went on a day trip to James Bond Island, which included a few other stops. We drove about an hour and a half, and then took a longboat out to James Bond Island, pretty much the most beautiful place I had ever seen. The boat ride to the island, and the surrounding islands were incredible. There are dozens, probably more, of these very tall islands that just appear out of the water. The islands themselves aren't that big, and they're gorgeous.
When we got to James Bond Island, we got half an hour to get out and walk around. There are a bunch of caves on the island, and the water is beautiful. I can't even really put into words how amazing the scenery was.
After our short visit on the island, we got back on the long boat which took us to a bigger boat that we were able board sea canoes from. There were 3 people to each sea canoe: two travellers and a tour guide, who did all the paddling. Loved it. It was amazing to sit in this blow-up boat, with our feet in the water over the side, sun on our faces, and the most amazing scenery I had ever seen. We went through a cave, and got off on another island for a few minutes, where some of the girls crawled through a super tight, dark cave with a few of the guides.
Next, we got back on the longboat and headed for a small Muslim fishing village on a tiny island, where the houses are literally built on the water, on big posts. We had an amazing lunch there, and got to walk around looking at a few of the little shop stands. This is where we got to hold some pet monkeys, which was really fun. There was a Lady Boy (lots of them in Thailand) standing with his/her (?) pet monkey, waiting for tourists to ask for a picture. Before I knew it the monkey was in my arms, my picture was being taken, and then I was asked for 100Baht. I kind of expected this would be the case (but thought it would be less than 100 Baht), but it was well worth it. Not often do you get to hold something of that level of cuteness.
Next, we took the longboat back to where we started from, got in mini-buses, and drove about 15 minutes to Golden Cave Monkey Temple. Here there was dozens of monkeys just walking around the outside of the temple, where we could feed them and take pictures. They were wild, and kind of freaked me out because every once in a while they would run at each other and show they're teeth, and that's when they're not so cute anymore. The inside of the temple was amazing. It is still in use, and there was a monk sitting in this shrine/bed-type thing, reading whatever it is that monks read in Thailand. There were some amazing statues, and some really cool caves that we could climb up into.
After this part of the trip,we got back in the mini-bus and headed to a field of row upon row of skinny little trees. Looked kind of like an orchard....but Thailand style. They were rubber trees, and we were brought there (for some reason) to see a demonstration of how rubber is made from these trees. They tap the trees just like they would for maple syrup in Canada. Pretty interesting, but not quite sure why it was part of our day trip. The best part about this visit was the two little puppies running around and playing with us and each other. They were domestic, so we could pick them up. It was nice to finally pet a dog, because up until this point all we had been seeing were mangy wild dogs, who would not be a good idea to pet. That's something I had a really hard time with, seeing all these wild dogs who have no home, no one to love them, and were often covered in disease. Many of them had patches of fur gone, and it looked like they had skin diseases. They were always hanging around where there were people, hoping to get something to eat. Sean and I volunteer for the SPCA walking dogs, at home, and these are the kinds of things we see when abused and neglected dogs are first brought into the shelter, and need medical attention. It was really sad to see so many dogs like this.
The next day, after three nights in Patong, we checked out of our hostel at 7am, and caught a 2-hour ferry to Phi Phi Don Island....a.k.a. 'Paradise'. I finally understood what all the Thailand fuss was all about. I now understand why people who have been there long to go back, and can't wait until they get to go again.
We stayed at Paradise Resort, right on the beach, and since we got to the island at around 10:30am, we had the whole day ahead of us to play on the beach. It was heaven. The sand was beautiful, and the water even more so. We had a great day weather wise, and none of us burnt to a crisp, so everything was great. That night we took a boat to another side of the island, where all the restaurants are, and went for dinner at Carpe Diem, where we sat on cushions on the floor, at a table, and could watch the water as it got dark outside. Amazing. The owner of the restaurant was a guy who looked to be no older than 30, and was originally from Holland. He had gone to Thailand 4 years before on a vacation, during which the Tsunami hit. He decided at that point to give up his life in Holland, and career as a lawyer (!) to stay on Phi Phi Don Island and help the people rebuild in the midst of devastation. As a result, he had a man give him a chunk of land right on the beach for very cheap rent, where he built and started up the restaurant we ate at. He seems to have done quite well for himself, because his restaurant is featured in Lonely Planet as reccommended place to eat.
The next day we checked out of our resort at around 2pm, and took the 2-hour ferry ride back to Phuket, where we went out for dinner in a small town near the airport. It was here that we saw an elephant (probably about 6 months old) chained to a tree as someone's pet. He looked incredibly unhappy, and had nowhere to move. We got to pet him, and he was incredibly sweet, but it made us sad to see such a huge, amazing animal confined to a 5-foot radius.
After standing in line after line at the airport, we got on our flight, and said so-long to Thailand. I'm sure we'll be there again before this experience is over. I feel like I could spend forever there and never get sick of it.
We landed around 10:45pm Singapore time, and got back to our dorms around 12:30am....late night, early morning with classes this morning, but all well worth it. All in all it was a great trip, and something we'll never forget.
Surprisingly, coming back to Singapore felt a lot like home....or something very familiar that we were happy to come home to. It's amazing how fast we have adjusted, and settled in, and that "home" feeling was a good one.
If you don't have facebook and want to see my photo albums of this trip, here are the links:
xoxoxo
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Look Out Thailand, Here We Come!!
So, today we are leaving for four days and four nights in Thailand! We fly out of Singapore tonight at 6:30pm, and three hours later touch down in Phuket, Thailand. We're staying in Phuket for three nights, and then taking a ferry over to Ko Phi Phi to spend a night there. The five of us, plus one of our friends from UVic who is going to the other University in Singapore, are going on this trip. It's definitely going to be an experience, because none of us have been to Thailand before, and we've all heard some pretty amazing things about it. I'm sure we'll take some amazing pictures too.
We are still trying to sort out our class schedules. A few of us went to a class this morning called Financial Modelling and Danielle and I left at the break half way through, because it was ridiculous. It's Finance, but all in excel, and somehow you need to know all these finance formulas IN EXCEL. I must have not brought that part of my brain with me to Singapore, because it was not coming to me.....at all. So, we're going to try to get into another course called Contemporary Issues In Marketing....sounds interesting...and do-able.....so here's hoping. The annoying thing is we have to submit course approval requests for courses we want to take, so that UVic and Nanyang can approve us for the courses before we can even try to get in them....and this takes time. Whatever, we'll deal with it when we get back from Thailand.
So, being that I'll be in Thailand until late Sunday night my time, early Sunday morning your time, and not bringing my laptop, I will not be posting any blog entries for several days...probably 4 or 5. Please don't panic and think we've been stolen, or sold into slavery, I will update on Monday after my classes, and tell you all about our trip.
xoxox
We are still trying to sort out our class schedules. A few of us went to a class this morning called Financial Modelling and Danielle and I left at the break half way through, because it was ridiculous. It's Finance, but all in excel, and somehow you need to know all these finance formulas IN EXCEL. I must have not brought that part of my brain with me to Singapore, because it was not coming to me.....at all. So, we're going to try to get into another course called Contemporary Issues In Marketing....sounds interesting...and do-able.....so here's hoping. The annoying thing is we have to submit course approval requests for courses we want to take, so that UVic and Nanyang can approve us for the courses before we can even try to get in them....and this takes time. Whatever, we'll deal with it when we get back from Thailand.
So, being that I'll be in Thailand until late Sunday night my time, early Sunday morning your time, and not bringing my laptop, I will not be posting any blog entries for several days...probably 4 or 5. Please don't panic and think we've been stolen, or sold into slavery, I will update on Monday after my classes, and tell you all about our trip.
xoxox
Monday, January 5, 2009
Back to the Books
So, we never made it to the zoo yesterday as planned. By the time we got ready in the morning, had breakfast, sorted out some stuff for our classes, and then had lunch, it was 1:30pm. It takes 1.5 hours, 3 MRTs, and a bus to get to the zoo, which closes daily at 6pm. And the zoo's not cheap. So, we decided to go to the night safari instead, and go to the zoo/bird park part another day, when we can spend the whole day there, and get our money's worth......and so Janene can sit and stare at the penguins for as long as she desires.
Since the night safari doesn't open until 7:30pm (it gets dark here really quickly around 6:30/7pm), we all of a sudden had several hours to kill. Guess what we decided to do? Yup. We went to Orchard Road, and shopped all afternoon. We didn't buy much, because we were more window shopping, since Orchard Road is so expensive. We went into Dolce & Gabbana, and a keychain that I wouldn't spend more than $3 on was $300. Thanks, but no thanks.
After walking around Orchard Road for a few hours we had dinner at Food Republic, which is essentially an upscale foodcourt found in various malls around Singapore. We had the most amazing Thai food for dinner. Pad Thai here is fantastic. I can only imagine what the Thai food will be like in Thailand when we're there later this week. Mmmmmmmm......
We then took a few MRTs and a half hour bus ride to the Night Safari, which is where the zoo and bird park are too. It cost $32 for admission which included a tram tour throughout, which gives you access to see more animals than if you walked through the whole park. When we first got there, before going into the park, there was a Tribal Fire Dance going on, where all these half-naked Thai men were dancing around with big torches, and eating fire. It was really entertaining, and a fun way to start off the evening.
Then we got on the Tram to start our tour. All the animals we saw were nocturnal, and in the areas where they are kept there was low lighting just light enough that we could see them well, and low enough that it didn't bother them. We saw some amazing and exotic animals. From Asian deer, to these pig/elephant crossed things (not sure how that one started out originally.....), to elephants, lions, tigers, hyenas, and giraffes. It was actually really exciting, and I wish that I could have taken pictures, but we weren't allowed to take pictures with a flash, since it would startle the animals. Fair enough, I didn't really want to tick off the giant lions on the other side of that tiny little fencing.
By the time we got out of the tour, it was after 10pm, and we were exHAUSted, since we had been walking around shopping since early that afternoon. We had class early this morning, so we decided to just give in and take a cab ride home, rather than taking the long bus-MRT-bus ride home. 15 minutes and $12 later, we are at our dorm building's door. Wow. Seriously? Had we known we were so ridiuculously close to the zoo, we would have just gone in the afternoon. Instead I think we went as far as we could the opposite direction, and travelled the perimeter of the country back up to the zoo. Next time we'll just cab to the zoo from campus, and save ourselves the hassle.....at $4 each, it'd be silly not to. These are things I wish someone would tell us. Oh well, now we know.
So we started classes today. This morning came early with an 8:30am Service Marketing class for FOUR HOURS. I think it's going to be one of our easier courses, so it's probably good to have it early on a Monday. It was, however, extremely difficult to stay awake in, and if it weren't for the half-hour break he gave us half way through, I don't think any of us would have made it. We were all pooped. I was tired because at 4:40am this morning there was a big group of people in our dorm hallway yelling, laughing, and running up and down the hall for what seemed like forever. Not sure what they were doing, but hoping it doesn't happen tonight. Janene didn't hear them at all, due to her fantastic idea of earplugs. I clearly need to invest in a pair.
After our four hour class we were home free, because our Malay class that we usually will have on Mondays doesn't start until next week. So, we went to the bookstore to get some school supplies. Bad idea, it was really small, and half of Asia was lined up to buy their school supplies too, and we decided to go elsewhere. So, off we go to the mall to go back to FairPrice Xtra. Two things struck us as odd on this trip: 1.) All binders are two-ringed, instead of the standard three-rings we have at home....it's just two rings, closer together. and 2.)We're pretty positive Singapore does not sell loose-leaf paper. The only lined paper they sell is in a book, or a pad, but no loose-leaf. That was unexpected and threw us all off. But, since we are extremely adaptable, we got around it. It was challenging though.
Tonight was a little stressful, because we were given access to our course adding/dropping system online at 7pm, and we weren't able to get into some of the classes we wanted to. We're hoping that we can just go to the class, play the exchange student card, and hope the prof lets us in. Our reasoning for wanting to get into these classes? So that we can travel Thurs-Sunday without missing classes....but we'll have to come up with a more convincing story than that I think.....fingers crossed that we don't have to resort to bursting into tears.....cuz I'm willing to do that.
Janene and I did laundry for the first time today, which was rather interesting. Thankfully the washing machines are free for us to use, and we just have to go downstairs to use them, which is nice. The thing that makes it interesting is that there are no dryers here. Outside our dorm room windows are two metal drying-rack thingys, which we have to hang everything up on. So, currently our bras and underwear are hanging outside for the world to see. Wonderful.
We've discovered that there is a firing range (military?) right behind our campus. We've heard a few gunshots over the past few days, but today we were walking to the bookstore, and there was a "BOOM" so loud that I swear the earth shook. I screamed and Janene grabbed onto Heather, and then we realized that it was a canon! After that there were several more. Not only do they shoot guns, they shoot cannons? Then tonight when Janene and I were hanging out our windows trying to hang up our laundry, it sounded like there was a fleet of fighter jets going by several times. If I didn't know any better (....and I guess I don't really), I would think that Sinapore was gearing up for war. It's just really weird to hear all these military-type noises. I'm sure we'll get used to it though. "Oh that? That's just a cannon...no big deal".....Hmmm I wonder.
It's only 9pm, but I'm utterly exhausted. First day of school, big day! Tomorrow and Wednesday are 8:30am starts too, so an early bedtime tonight couldn't hurt.
Goodnight
xoxoxo
Since the night safari doesn't open until 7:30pm (it gets dark here really quickly around 6:30/7pm), we all of a sudden had several hours to kill. Guess what we decided to do? Yup. We went to Orchard Road, and shopped all afternoon. We didn't buy much, because we were more window shopping, since Orchard Road is so expensive. We went into Dolce & Gabbana, and a keychain that I wouldn't spend more than $3 on was $300. Thanks, but no thanks.
After walking around Orchard Road for a few hours we had dinner at Food Republic, which is essentially an upscale foodcourt found in various malls around Singapore. We had the most amazing Thai food for dinner. Pad Thai here is fantastic. I can only imagine what the Thai food will be like in Thailand when we're there later this week. Mmmmmmmm......
We then took a few MRTs and a half hour bus ride to the Night Safari, which is where the zoo and bird park are too. It cost $32 for admission which included a tram tour throughout, which gives you access to see more animals than if you walked through the whole park. When we first got there, before going into the park, there was a Tribal Fire Dance going on, where all these half-naked Thai men were dancing around with big torches, and eating fire. It was really entertaining, and a fun way to start off the evening.
Then we got on the Tram to start our tour. All the animals we saw were nocturnal, and in the areas where they are kept there was low lighting just light enough that we could see them well, and low enough that it didn't bother them. We saw some amazing and exotic animals. From Asian deer, to these pig/elephant crossed things (not sure how that one started out originally.....), to elephants, lions, tigers, hyenas, and giraffes. It was actually really exciting, and I wish that I could have taken pictures, but we weren't allowed to take pictures with a flash, since it would startle the animals. Fair enough, I didn't really want to tick off the giant lions on the other side of that tiny little fencing.
By the time we got out of the tour, it was after 10pm, and we were exHAUSted, since we had been walking around shopping since early that afternoon. We had class early this morning, so we decided to just give in and take a cab ride home, rather than taking the long bus-MRT-bus ride home. 15 minutes and $12 later, we are at our dorm building's door. Wow. Seriously? Had we known we were so ridiuculously close to the zoo, we would have just gone in the afternoon. Instead I think we went as far as we could the opposite direction, and travelled the perimeter of the country back up to the zoo. Next time we'll just cab to the zoo from campus, and save ourselves the hassle.....at $4 each, it'd be silly not to. These are things I wish someone would tell us. Oh well, now we know.
So we started classes today. This morning came early with an 8:30am Service Marketing class for FOUR HOURS. I think it's going to be one of our easier courses, so it's probably good to have it early on a Monday. It was, however, extremely difficult to stay awake in, and if it weren't for the half-hour break he gave us half way through, I don't think any of us would have made it. We were all pooped. I was tired because at 4:40am this morning there was a big group of people in our dorm hallway yelling, laughing, and running up and down the hall for what seemed like forever. Not sure what they were doing, but hoping it doesn't happen tonight. Janene didn't hear them at all, due to her fantastic idea of earplugs. I clearly need to invest in a pair.
After our four hour class we were home free, because our Malay class that we usually will have on Mondays doesn't start until next week. So, we went to the bookstore to get some school supplies. Bad idea, it was really small, and half of Asia was lined up to buy their school supplies too, and we decided to go elsewhere. So, off we go to the mall to go back to FairPrice Xtra. Two things struck us as odd on this trip: 1.) All binders are two-ringed, instead of the standard three-rings we have at home....it's just two rings, closer together. and 2.)We're pretty positive Singapore does not sell loose-leaf paper. The only lined paper they sell is in a book, or a pad, but no loose-leaf. That was unexpected and threw us all off. But, since we are extremely adaptable, we got around it. It was challenging though.
Tonight was a little stressful, because we were given access to our course adding/dropping system online at 7pm, and we weren't able to get into some of the classes we wanted to. We're hoping that we can just go to the class, play the exchange student card, and hope the prof lets us in. Our reasoning for wanting to get into these classes? So that we can travel Thurs-Sunday without missing classes....but we'll have to come up with a more convincing story than that I think.....fingers crossed that we don't have to resort to bursting into tears.....cuz I'm willing to do that.
Janene and I did laundry for the first time today, which was rather interesting. Thankfully the washing machines are free for us to use, and we just have to go downstairs to use them, which is nice. The thing that makes it interesting is that there are no dryers here. Outside our dorm room windows are two metal drying-rack thingys, which we have to hang everything up on. So, currently our bras and underwear are hanging outside for the world to see. Wonderful.
We've discovered that there is a firing range (military?) right behind our campus. We've heard a few gunshots over the past few days, but today we were walking to the bookstore, and there was a "BOOM" so loud that I swear the earth shook. I screamed and Janene grabbed onto Heather, and then we realized that it was a canon! After that there were several more. Not only do they shoot guns, they shoot cannons? Then tonight when Janene and I were hanging out our windows trying to hang up our laundry, it sounded like there was a fleet of fighter jets going by several times. If I didn't know any better (....and I guess I don't really), I would think that Sinapore was gearing up for war. It's just really weird to hear all these military-type noises. I'm sure we'll get used to it though. "Oh that? That's just a cannon...no big deal".....Hmmm I wonder.
It's only 9pm, but I'm utterly exhausted. First day of school, big day! Tomorrow and Wednesday are 8:30am starts too, so an early bedtime tonight couldn't hurt.
Goodnight
xoxoxo
Saturday, January 3, 2009
More shopping, anyone?
I can't believe that as of tomorrow we will have been here in Singapore for a week. On one hand it feels like we just got here, but on the other I feel like we've done so much, and so much as happened that we've been here for at least a month. I think that as we get more and more settled, time will fly by faster than we can anticipate. Carpe Diem has never had as much meaning to me as it does right now.
Today our goal was to be tourists. We planned on going on a boat tour, but on our way to the marina, it got really cloudy and looked like it was going to do that torrential downpour thing that Singapore clouds like to do. So, we panicked, and decided it wouldn't be too desireable to be caught in that kind of weather on a little boat. We'll do the tour another day.
By the time we got to the marina (where we got to see the ocean here for the first time in daylight, and it's way blue-er than I thought it would be, it's beautiful!), we were hungry and looking for lunch. We found an amazing Japanese food place where we were able to satisfy all our cravings for sushi, gyozas, edamame, tenaki, and Danielle even got her salad. Life was good.
After lunch we ventured down to Chinatown to check it out. Janene and I got very lost earlier in the week, walking around downtown looking for a place to have breakfast, and thought that one of the places we passed through was China Town. Nope. We were wrong. Dead wrong. After seeing what we saw today, we definitely would have known for sure if we were in Chinatown. We walked through a strip of little shops, which took us over an hour just to get through one strip, and it turned out we had only walked a block! The amount of people there was insane. I know I've said the malls are bad, and there are tons of people everywhere, but this was ridiculous. Hundreds, upon hundreds of people were slowly shuffling through this one little area. It was definitely an interesting place to be, but after spending a few hours there, we decided to cancel our quest for a chinatown dinner, and head back to less crowded ground.
And so we hit the mall. Again. Surprised? I think there has only been one day our entire time here that we have not shopped in a mall. It's like an addiction. We were quite productive with our shopping today though, as we finally found shorts that fit us and that we liked. Also, we were able to find this store called "Fair Price Xtra", which is like a very hectic Walmart (busy Walmarts in North America have nothing on Fair Price Xtra......nothing), where we were able to buy things like more cereal (thank goodness), snacks for our dorm rooms, and laundry detergent.
We booked our hostels tonight for when we go to Thailand next week. The first three nights will be spent in Phuket, close to the beach, and our fourth night will be spent in Ko Phi Phi. We are taking our backpacks on the plane as carry-on, so not to go through the lost luggage chaos that we just went through. Danielle still doesn't have her suitcase full of her clothes, so hopefully that comes for her before we leave. She has most her essentials, just not clothes, so she's been borrowing from the four of us until hers arrive. Hopefully hers arrives, the airport still has no idea where it is........which would cause me to freak out, but she's surprisingly calm about the whole thing, and handling it very well.
As I mentioned in my last post, tomorrow we go to the zoo. Janene can harldy contain herself, she's so excited to see the penguins. Apparently her life-long dream is to pet a penguin. I'm hoping she gets a good fix of them tomorrow. After the zoo we are going to go to the Night Safari, where we get to see all the nocturnal animals, which is bound to be a cool experience.
Monday morning we start classes. I don't feel mentally prepared to start classes, because I've been on co-op for the past eight months, and have been in major unemployed/travel mode for the last little while. So, I'll have to actually go to lectures and study? In beautiful, hot Singapore? Really? Is there someone I can speak to about having this changed, because I'm really not in the mood............there must be some kind of mistake.
We have to go through the most-likely frustrating experience of attempting to change our class schedule around to meet our ideal travel needs. We're trying to build a schedule where we have class Mon-Wed, and then have Thurs-Sun to travel each week. I know, it sounds unrealistic, but we're hoping. Keeping our fingers crossed. We get access to attempt this manoever on Monday night, so it's going to be interesting.
Tonight Janene and I are finishing our work term reports for our co-ops that we just completed back home. A work term report is really the last thing that we want to be writing right now, but it needs to be done. Wish us luck at the zoo tomorrow, we might not be able to get Janene to leave.
xoxox
Today our goal was to be tourists. We planned on going on a boat tour, but on our way to the marina, it got really cloudy and looked like it was going to do that torrential downpour thing that Singapore clouds like to do. So, we panicked, and decided it wouldn't be too desireable to be caught in that kind of weather on a little boat. We'll do the tour another day.
By the time we got to the marina (where we got to see the ocean here for the first time in daylight, and it's way blue-er than I thought it would be, it's beautiful!), we were hungry and looking for lunch. We found an amazing Japanese food place where we were able to satisfy all our cravings for sushi, gyozas, edamame, tenaki, and Danielle even got her salad. Life was good.
After lunch we ventured down to Chinatown to check it out. Janene and I got very lost earlier in the week, walking around downtown looking for a place to have breakfast, and thought that one of the places we passed through was China Town. Nope. We were wrong. Dead wrong. After seeing what we saw today, we definitely would have known for sure if we were in Chinatown. We walked through a strip of little shops, which took us over an hour just to get through one strip, and it turned out we had only walked a block! The amount of people there was insane. I know I've said the malls are bad, and there are tons of people everywhere, but this was ridiculous. Hundreds, upon hundreds of people were slowly shuffling through this one little area. It was definitely an interesting place to be, but after spending a few hours there, we decided to cancel our quest for a chinatown dinner, and head back to less crowded ground.
And so we hit the mall. Again. Surprised? I think there has only been one day our entire time here that we have not shopped in a mall. It's like an addiction. We were quite productive with our shopping today though, as we finally found shorts that fit us and that we liked. Also, we were able to find this store called "Fair Price Xtra", which is like a very hectic Walmart (busy Walmarts in North America have nothing on Fair Price Xtra......nothing), where we were able to buy things like more cereal (thank goodness), snacks for our dorm rooms, and laundry detergent.
We booked our hostels tonight for when we go to Thailand next week. The first three nights will be spent in Phuket, close to the beach, and our fourth night will be spent in Ko Phi Phi. We are taking our backpacks on the plane as carry-on, so not to go through the lost luggage chaos that we just went through. Danielle still doesn't have her suitcase full of her clothes, so hopefully that comes for her before we leave. She has most her essentials, just not clothes, so she's been borrowing from the four of us until hers arrive. Hopefully hers arrives, the airport still has no idea where it is........which would cause me to freak out, but she's surprisingly calm about the whole thing, and handling it very well.
As I mentioned in my last post, tomorrow we go to the zoo. Janene can harldy contain herself, she's so excited to see the penguins. Apparently her life-long dream is to pet a penguin. I'm hoping she gets a good fix of them tomorrow. After the zoo we are going to go to the Night Safari, where we get to see all the nocturnal animals, which is bound to be a cool experience.
Monday morning we start classes. I don't feel mentally prepared to start classes, because I've been on co-op for the past eight months, and have been in major unemployed/travel mode for the last little while. So, I'll have to actually go to lectures and study? In beautiful, hot Singapore? Really? Is there someone I can speak to about having this changed, because I'm really not in the mood............there must be some kind of mistake.
We have to go through the most-likely frustrating experience of attempting to change our class schedule around to meet our ideal travel needs. We're trying to build a schedule where we have class Mon-Wed, and then have Thurs-Sun to travel each week. I know, it sounds unrealistic, but we're hoping. Keeping our fingers crossed. We get access to attempt this manoever on Monday night, so it's going to be interesting.
Tonight Janene and I are finishing our work term reports for our co-ops that we just completed back home. A work term report is really the last thing that we want to be writing right now, but it needs to be done. Wish us luck at the zoo tomorrow, we might not be able to get Janene to leave.
xoxox
Friday, January 2, 2009
Hi, my name is...
Today we did a few pretty fun and interesting things.
The first fun thing was breakfast. A couple days ago we were in a super market, that just happened to be located in the middle of a mall, and we bought our favourite cereals from home. Today was the first day we were able to indulge, and it was incredible. I never realized how much I missed normal western breakfast food, and I'm not even really much of a breakfast person. The past week that we've been here, it's been surprisingly really difficult to find food that we would want to eat for breakfast, especially since there seems to be whole marinated ducks hanging in every restaurant and food stall that we walk by. Breakfast is too early for duck. Quite frankly, I'm starting to feel like dinner is even too early for duck. So, cereal this morning was pretty exciting.
Next exciting event on our list was booking our first weekend trip. We have decided that we are going to check out Thailand first, leaving next Wednesday night and returning Sunday night. We will be spending four nights there, and we're super excited. Our round trip flight from Singapore to Phuket was $250 SGD, which isn't amazing, but isn't too bad either. We're looking forward to seeing the beaches there, it sounds pretty incredible.
At 2 pm this afternoon we had our exchange orientation, where about 200 exchange students from around the world attended an info and welcome session. We met a few people, and made plans to meet at the campus pub later on. So, this evening we hung out at the pub for about 3 hours, just meeting and chatting with exchange students. It was pretty fun.
At around 11pm, Janene, Heather, and Tia went downtown to check out a nightclub. However, like moths to a flame, they ended up on Orchard Road shopping at midnight. Pretty standard.
Danielle and I decided it was a good idea to use the 24/7 McDonalds delivery hotline called "McDelivery"........we couldn't resist......but probably should have. I had a double cheeseburger and Danielle had the chicken burger, and we both had curly fries......that's right, remember the curly fries that McD's had in Canada for like 6 months, about 10 years ago? Yup, they're in Singapore, and they call them their "new" fries.....pretty exciting. The overwhelming feeling of yuck that accompanied this poor meal decision was not so exciting though....I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, but I'll probably do it again. Naturally.
Tomorrow we're being super tourists and going on a 2.5 hour boat tour called the Fairwind Junk Tour......sounds weird, but apparently you see some cool stuff. On Sunday we're going to check out the Singapore Zoo and the night Safari. Janene is overwhelmingly excited about the penguins, and there is apparently some kind of penguin parade that takes place, so we're gonna go there to feed her penguin addiction.
Good news is I finally got my computer working! Yaaay!! Turns out I didn't need a converter at all, my computer accepts up to 240V of input, so I can just use an adapter to plug it into the wall! Too easy. Thanks everyone who sent me tips though...some of them were pretty creative.
Well, it's almost 2am here, so I'm off to bed. That's all for now
xoxoxo
The first fun thing was breakfast. A couple days ago we were in a super market, that just happened to be located in the middle of a mall, and we bought our favourite cereals from home. Today was the first day we were able to indulge, and it was incredible. I never realized how much I missed normal western breakfast food, and I'm not even really much of a breakfast person. The past week that we've been here, it's been surprisingly really difficult to find food that we would want to eat for breakfast, especially since there seems to be whole marinated ducks hanging in every restaurant and food stall that we walk by. Breakfast is too early for duck. Quite frankly, I'm starting to feel like dinner is even too early for duck. So, cereal this morning was pretty exciting.
Next exciting event on our list was booking our first weekend trip. We have decided that we are going to check out Thailand first, leaving next Wednesday night and returning Sunday night. We will be spending four nights there, and we're super excited. Our round trip flight from Singapore to Phuket was $250 SGD, which isn't amazing, but isn't too bad either. We're looking forward to seeing the beaches there, it sounds pretty incredible.
At 2 pm this afternoon we had our exchange orientation, where about 200 exchange students from around the world attended an info and welcome session. We met a few people, and made plans to meet at the campus pub later on. So, this evening we hung out at the pub for about 3 hours, just meeting and chatting with exchange students. It was pretty fun.
At around 11pm, Janene, Heather, and Tia went downtown to check out a nightclub. However, like moths to a flame, they ended up on Orchard Road shopping at midnight. Pretty standard.
Danielle and I decided it was a good idea to use the 24/7 McDonalds delivery hotline called "McDelivery"........we couldn't resist......but probably should have. I had a double cheeseburger and Danielle had the chicken burger, and we both had curly fries......that's right, remember the curly fries that McD's had in Canada for like 6 months, about 10 years ago? Yup, they're in Singapore, and they call them their "new" fries.....pretty exciting. The overwhelming feeling of yuck that accompanied this poor meal decision was not so exciting though....I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, but I'll probably do it again. Naturally.
Tomorrow we're being super tourists and going on a 2.5 hour boat tour called the Fairwind Junk Tour......sounds weird, but apparently you see some cool stuff. On Sunday we're going to check out the Singapore Zoo and the night Safari. Janene is overwhelmingly excited about the penguins, and there is apparently some kind of penguin parade that takes place, so we're gonna go there to feed her penguin addiction.
Good news is I finally got my computer working! Yaaay!! Turns out I didn't need a converter at all, my computer accepts up to 240V of input, so I can just use an adapter to plug it into the wall! Too easy. Thanks everyone who sent me tips though...some of them were pretty creative.
Well, it's almost 2am here, so I'm off to bed. That's all for now
xoxoxo
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