September 14, 2009

I'm finally back from Singapore! I was there from Sept 6th - Sept 13th. I hand wrote notes and things that we did each day, so I could type it up when I got home.

Sept. 6:

We flew out of Perth around midnight and got into Singapore early in the morning. We went to the place we stayed and slept until about noon. We just wandered around when we finally got up and checked out the area right around the place and got dinner at a Hawker center - which are a cheap Asian food courts in Singapore.

Sept 7:

We went and visited Little India. It's a lot like Chinatown in New York and places like that. It's really touristy with lots of little trinkets, fruit, and "flea-market" like items. It was really hot and humid the entire time we were there. Like one day the temperature was 88, but felt like 101 because of the humidity; another day it was 97, feels like 111, according to weather.com. I took my inhaler with me and used it every day because the air seemed so thick. Besides Little India, we visited the Mustafa Center which is like a giant indoor mall/flea market. They burn a lot of incense there (both inside and outside) and there's all kinds of different smells from spices and other foods. I had an Indian dessert, which I couldn't quite get the name of. It didn't really taste like anything I could describe, and there's nothing to really compare it to from American foods. It had a really grany texture and not much flavor.

After these areas, we went more into the actual city. This is less touristy and is actually very modern. It looked like it could be a city out of America or somewhere like that, not at all rural or village-like, as I think some people might expect. They also had way more American things than Australia does. They had Burger King, KFC, McDonalds, and later in the week when we went to the grocery store, they also had a lot more American brand names there too - cereals, chips, juice, etc. Which isn't what I would expect compared to Australia!

The only thing I was really disappointed about, was that I realized everything in the world comes from China. In Little India and Chinatown, I really wanted to find cool things to bring back, but literally everything there was mass produced from China. China is taking over; everyone relies on them for material goods.

For dinner we went to Sakae Sushi. It was all you can eat sushi from 3 - 5 for $16 (all the prices are in Singapore dollars which are about 40% less than the American dollar.. so maybe $10 American). We had so many plates of different sushi. It was the first time I'd ever tried it, so everyone was telling me what to eat. I ate california rolls, things with fish, cucumber, shrimp, etc. It was alright; I could definitely eat it again, but I don't think I would chose to eat it again on my own. I just know that I don't mind it now if some of my friends ever wanted to go. This was also my first time using chopsticks, which was interesting. I was quite terrible at them, but got better as the week went on. After dinner, we headed over to the faithful McDonalds to get Oreo McFlurries. The McDonalds there was really cool because there is a separate section just for ice cream, so you don't have to wait in line with all the other people, and a McFlurry is only $2.

After dinner we went down Arab Street, which had a lot of fabrics. 2 of the girls I was with got pashminas - they were 4/$10, which is really cheap. I didn't get one. I don't think I would really use it? I did get Indian silk though, although I ended up with a ton of it because, like every other country except America, they use the metric system, and I wasn't that sure of how much 2 meters was until later (turns out its 7.5 feet). But I think I'll use it for my college quilt, as accent squares or something, so it will be a great reminder of my trip abroad. Then we went back to the room and rested/slept for the rest of the night.

Sept. 8:

We went to the Singapore Zoo. It's the biggest zoo in the hemisphere AND there's a Ben and Jerry's there. I never realized how much I'd miss ice cream while abroad. They don't do a lot of ice cream here. So we all bought Ben and Jerry's; 2 of the girls twice. It was expensive though, as was the Hagen-Daas later in the week. The zoo was really unique, they don't really keep the animals in cages, they just kind of roam free and stay away from people of their own accord. So there would be like monkeys and gorillas in trees above our heads as we were walking around. We saw 2 shows: one on Asian Elephants, the other a Water Show with a seal and penguins.

This was also the first time in the week we were blatantly stared at. Being white, we were definitely the minority in Asia. And not only were we white, but we were a group of all girls, and as soon as we would talk people would realize we were American, not European, and get really excited. 2 guys that couldn't speak English were so excited they took a picture with us on their camera. No one else took our picture, but a lot of people through the week would stare at us, or get really excited to talk to us about why we were visiting Singapore.

I got lots of bug bites while at the zoo, but they didn't swell up like they do here in Australia. I guess I'm just allergic to things here, but not there.

At night, we went on a Nigh Safari. It is next to the zoo, and you get to go around at night and see what the animals do. We took a tram for a lot of it, as most of us were pretty tired after already being at the zoo most of the day. We got to see a lot of Asian versions of animals at home like deer and cows and bulls. A wolf was howling at the moon when we went passed it. At the beginning of the park, there was also a flame thrower/swallower type show going on. It was pretty cool. They blew fire everywhere and had like fire baton type things they twirled.

Sept. 9:

We went to Chinatown for the morning. It was a lot like Little India - tons of shops/flea market type things. It was really hot and I got a little bit sunburned just from walking around here. Little did I know that the next day I would be getting really sunburned! For lunch, we ate at an authentic Chinese restaurant, away from the touristy areas. It was probably the best thing I had while in Singapore - I split prawn soup (prawn is like shrimp) with Corey.

After Chinatown, we did a tour of some of the buildings in the business district. I got to see the Parliament buildings of Singapore, including the Supreme Court building. We went to the Raffles Hotel, which is famous for having famous people - like Michael Jackson - stay in it. And we saw St. Andrews cathedral, which is really pretty.

The city was really clean, like everyone told us it would be. They do waste a lot of energy on air conditioning though. I guess they have to, with it feeling more than 100 degrees most of the time, since they're practically on the equator. But, a lot of buildings, especially in Chinatown and Little India are air-conditioned without doors, so the cold air just blows to the outside.

For dinner we went to the Hawker center again and then looked for a place to go out during the night. We tried a club our friend had told us about (Zouk), but it was $25 to get in, so we didn't go. We ended up walking around and went to Brewksters, a nice place where we just got drinks. I tried a Singapore Sling, since it's Singapore's famous drink. It was disgusting and gave me a headache, but at least I tried it!

Sept. 10:

We decided to go to Sentosa, the most popular beach in Singapore, that's set up like a resort, because it was sunny and nice out. We took a tram over water to get to Sentosa. There was a lot of restaurants and things you could pay to do. We just laid on the beach and swam the whole day. Most of the girls also forgot to put on sunblock, thinking they would get tan even though none of us have seen real sun since June. So needless to say, they got really burnt. I wasn't so bad, except for the places on my back I couldn't reach. Sentosa is also the southernmost tip of Asia, I took a picture of myself next to the sign! We walked across a rope bridge over the ocean and up a look out tour to take pictures too. We got dinner there and in the evening went to "Songs of the Sea" which was like an animated laser show around the water. It was more for little kids, but it was cute.

On the way back from Sentosa, we stopped at a mall. Everything in Asia stays open late, especially compared to Australia (where things only stay open until 5pm). They even have malls that stay open 24 hours a day, so you can shop all the time any time. Even so, we still weren't out that late, because we were always too tired.

Sept. 11:

We were nearing the end of our trip, most of us were sunburned, and it was also a rainy day. So we went to Orchard Road, which is a huge street with just tons and tons of malls. Huge malls. 11 - 12 stories above, and another 11 - 12 stories below. The biggest malls I've ever seen. These ones were in sharp contrast to the places we were earlier in the week, such as Chinatown and Little India. Everything was modern and there are a lot of high fashion stores such as Louis Vutton, Dolce and Gabana, etc. There are also huge food courts with really good food.

In the evening we went to Clarke Quay, which is really touristy, and where most of the night life in the entire country is. A bunch of the girls wanted to get sheesh, which is just like hookah, so they got that and we got a drink and just sat down there and talked until about 11:45. One girl got a really cool drink that had jello in the bottom - it looked really cool.

Sept. 12:

In the morning 2 of the girls went back for things they wanted in Chinatown, so Corey and I wandered around the city. We went past the National Museum of Singapore, which looked really cool but she didn't want to pay the $10 to go in and look around. We also went and visited a couple of temples. I took incense from one of them and went through the temple, it was really cool. Then we went and got smoothies because it was so hot already.

We tried to go on a picnic in Canning Park. It lasted about half an hour. It was so hot, and bugs were biting us up. So we ended up going back to the room and just reading and stuff until dinner. We got dinner and went and visited a couple of tourist attractions.

We got to walk past Esplanade - these big dome shaped buildings, we took pictures next to the Merlion, and then Brittany and I went on the Singapore Flyer. Its a big ferris wheel, like the one in London, except this one is supposed to be the biggest on in the world. You get inside a capsule that can hold 28 people (there were only 6 in ours) and it takes about 30 min to ride around the entire thing. I tried to take pictures, but it was hard at night to get good ones. After that, we went back to Clarke Quay for an hour before going home.

Sept. 13:

For our last day in Singapore we went to Bugis Junction, a sort of mall with outdoor kiosks. I ended up getting a manicure and pedicure for $20 US dollars total. Very pretty purple. I got earrings there as well. Then we got lunch and it was time to go get our bags and head to the airport. We left Singapore at 3:50 and got back to St. Cat's here in Australia at 10:00 pm.

I was really glad I got the chance to see Singapore. It was so hot, but I got to see a lot of cool things that I'll probably never get the chance to see again.

I'm going to put up some of the pictures, but not all. Probably most of the good ones, but I took over 200, so I can't put up them all! = )

---

---

---