Day Four: Scavenger Hunt, Part II

Task 3: Newton Hawker Center

I don't know much about the location of this one, but I know that it is a "hawker center." This is kind of just a food court, but the vendors own their stalls and the food is like home-cooked food. There are a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables and meat, and everything is pretty cheap. Oh, but they're also kind of dirty and "rough around the edges." Very "authentic," whatever that word means.

The task here was to spell the word "Newton" with our bodies...

And then to take a picture with a Singaporean family! But we couldn't find one, so we just sat down with these nice girls.

Task 4: 313 Mall

This is a swanky mall "in town," which means near the city-center. It has a 4-storey Forever 21 and a lot of famous European clothing stores.

It also has tons and tons of really beautiful places to buy food! We made a little detour to buy a snack at this store <-- Bread Talk. We asked our guide what the most "Singaporean" thing to buy would be, and she recommended a "pork floss" bun. Yes, it was a roll with shredded pork on top. It wasn't bad, but it was a little too strange for me to say that it was good.

There was also this neat terrace/patio outside the food court...

Where our task was to take a picture on the chess board!

I really love this picture a lot.

Task 5: Marina Barrage

This was by far the coolest place we went. No matter what I say about it, I can't convey how awesome it was. For one, it was amazing in and of itself, but it was also near the business district (i.e. skyscrapers), the Singapore Flyer (huge ferris wheel) and the new Sands Casino (three buildings with a boat-shaped structure on top). Perhaps the pictures can speak for themselves.

Hopefully you can kind of see that it's like one long, grassy ramp. It swoops up and curves around, opening onto a large field where people picnic, chill, and fly kites, and that is located ON TOP of the structure, and then circles back around to dive down into another field on the ground.

Here's an aerial shot from Google that helps make it more clear.

The picture below is of the "rooftop" field. The sky was really dramatic. Everything about this place was just so beautiful and neat!

The task here was to fly a kite, but instead of paying for that, we just took a funny picture with someone else flying the kite.

Then we took a really cool picture of us jumping...

then with the Flyer...

And the Casino!

And of both...

I'm running out of adjectives, but it was really a great place to have experienced. After this, we headed back, and the scavenger hunt was over! We would have won, but it started raining and so, instead of walking all the way to the metro station, we hailed cabs (which was cheating). Oops!

We're still winners in my book.

Friday night a lot of people (most of the group) decided to go out to a club. I was exhausted, though, so I stayed in. Another girl, Asia, also wound up staying, so we took a walk together and had a nice chat. It was neat to walk around the area surrounding our dorms at night - because of the weather, it kind of felt like being at Ocean Isle Beach.

Day Four: Scavenger Hunt, Part I

So on Friday we went on a scavenger hunt. Our Singaporean student guide designed it for us and got some of her friends to be our facilitators. She split us into groups and gave us clues, from which we had to deduce where in the city to go. We then had to use Google maps and other websites to plot our course (via public transport) to each location. At each location, we had a task to complete. The facilitator went with us to make sure we didn't get lost and didn't cheat.

It was the most fun thing we had done thus far because it got us into parts of the city we probably wouldn't have otherwise seen, and it was a ton of fun. Our group was not too competitive, so we spent a lot of time exploring each location and having fun, which was really the point.

And now, without further ado, the pictures! Here is our group!

From left to right, back row first: Me, Kristine, Kelsey, Jocelyn, Devika, Abby, Dave

Task 1: The National Library

This is only about half of the library! It is too big to easily photograph. It is not ALL library, though. It also houses various concert halls and auditoriums for dance, theater, and musical performances. Nonetheless, it's a very daunting building!

Here we are in front of the signs!

The actual task was to locate a certain book and find a message hidden within. It was neat and tricky, but it took too long, so our facilitator just gave us the answer :-) It was neat to traverse the stacks, though.

Task 2: Toa Payoh

(pronounced, roughly, "tuh-pie-oh")

Toa Payoh is an "HDB community." HDB = Housing Development Board, and it is Singapore's government agency which builds, owns, rents, and sells flats to 85% of the population. It is the most effective public housing scheme in the world, and while it has its fair share of downsides, I'll leave it at that for now.

Each community is sort of like a little town in and of itself. There are, of course, flats (which comprise the majority of these imposing high-rises - Singaporeans like to say they own air instead of land), but there are also lots of shops, both beneath the flats as well as in the surrounding area. This was the first time any of us had been in and around a housing area, and it was clear that this WAS a residential area - you could see people standing around talking, eating, buying things, relaxing. It was a different side of Singapore, and we all really enjoyed it.

Alongside the high-rise flats, there was this street of little shops. They sold all sorts of things from clothes, DVDs, fruit, ice cream, coffee, meals, shoes, purses, electronics, etc. It was a really neat place to meander around.

Our task in Toa Payoh was to find this ice cream stall, buy $1 ice cream, and take a picture of ourselves eating it. What fun! The ice cream was, as mentioned, only about 71 US cents, and it was a block of ice cream between two wafers. Delicious!

Miscellaneous Observations, Part I

Here are a few random facts, tidbits, and other miscellaneous pictures!

Men's and women's bathrooms are usually on separate floors of a building, and bathrooms (as well as water fountains) are far less prevalent than in the U.S.

They drive on the left side of the road. The speed bump is called a "zebra crossing."

They speak something closer to British English than American English, so their signs look kinda funny sometimes. This is an exit sign at a metro station.

The food is yummy. Here is one of the best dishes I've had: Honey Chicken Rice with cabbage. Yum! And there's the usual Bubble Tea that I get almost every day. This was $3 + $1.50 for the Bubble Tea, and that's before conversion to US dollars!

Almost everything is very clean, even most bathrooms. It is a strange thing to notice, but all of the hand soap in dispensers seems the same, and smells deliciously fruity/tropical!

They have beautiful and unique lamp posts in certain sections of town.

Day Three: First Day of Classes, Assorted Pictures, A "Formal" Dinner

<- Pictures of PGP (dorms) from different angles. See what I mean by their use of vertical space?

This post will mostly consist of assorted pictures of the dorms and campus.

This was the first day of classes, and thankfully they went well. We will have a rotation of three teachers for the Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand history course, and our first teacher is a professor named Dr. Quek. She is hilarious, kind, and a great teacher. The first day she let us ask any and all questions we had about Singapore, and since we are a diverse group, all kinds of questions came up, and we all learned a lot.

^ The Central Library is behind and to the right of us (not our right). See those pillars?

^ This is looking from the walkway right outside the Central Library toward our classroom hallway.

We mostly eat lunch in the Canteen (this is their word for cafeteria) because it is very close to our classroom and pretty cheap. One day I got a sizable chicken curry noodle bowl for only 1 Singaporean dollar! The food is not always as good as at other locations, but it is still a great deal for what you pay.

^ Not every building is super-modern. I think this might be a residence hall on campus.

^ Here is the bus stop across from the library. See all the trees in the median and everywhere?

After class, instead of the Canteen (which had not greatly impressed me the day before when I ate there during our tour), I went to a courtyard outside the post office on campus with Rena, Dave, and Keesler and ate there. I got chicken nuggets from a place called Cheers, but Rena got peanut butter Kaya toast from this shop called Ya Kun Kaya. Let me explain.

Kaya is a "coconut egg jam," and this shop spreads it on toast. It sounds simple, but it is DELICIOUS.

We sat and ate and talked for a long time, taking it easy. Later, I blogged in the dorm room.

At 6:30 we all met up at the bus stop to go to a "formal dinner" (see my slightly-too-formal outfit above) with our teachers and two of the "vice-deans" of the university. We went to a very swanky Indonesian restaurant in one of the largest malls in Singapore. I sat next to Dr. Quek, and she was a lot of fun to talk to during dinner. She helped us figure out which pieces where less spicy (because all the food was very spicy) and made the slow waiters bring us lots of water. It was great to try new dishes, even if the spice was difficult to handle.

The Day After Arrival, Part II: First Excursion Into "The City"

The second night hailed a fun adventure into the city. Of course, all of Singapore is both a city and a country (about the size of the greater Charlotte area), but they call a certain area "the city." I haven't quite figured out which area this is yet, but it's around the major "ethnic neighborhoods," Chinatown and Little India. My group headed towards Little India and a smaller enclave called the "Arab Quarter."

^ It was our first time riding the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit - essentially the metro). What an experience!

All of these pictures are blurry and bad, but it was an exciting night! It was our first time seeing tall buildings up close and walking around at night.

We ate at a little Egyptian restaurant down this alley-sized street named Haji Lane. We chose it because Devika's guidebook said it catered to "Singaporean hipsters."

Our restaurant was called "Al Tazzag." The guy kept trying to get us to smoke a hookah. We politely declined about 20 times.

I got a chicken shawerma wrap (which was not so great and too spicy) and fresh-squeezed apple juice (which was wonderful and refreshing).

Even though the service was awful, and the food wasn't so delicious, the atmosphere was very nice. There were stores with trendy clothes and Asians smoking hookahs up and down the alley. It was trendy, hipster, and felt "off the beaten path." It was certainly an unforgettable first night out!