Singapore - begins

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Much to my surprise, we are still awake! We got up at 2.30am this morning to get to Hangzhou Airport for the flight to Singapore. Flights were pretty much on time and unremarkable. Unfortunately Xiamen airlines makes you tranfer at Fuzhou, even though it's only 45 minutes from Hangzhou so that added time on the journey which was a bit rubbish, but at least we have another city (well, airport) to add to our list.

Singapore is pretty cool. I really like it so far and am now thinking of adding INSEAD back on to the list of potential places for me to do my MBA at next year! Our hostel is near a Kaplan training centre too, so I joked to Rachael that I should go in and do some GMAT practise. Actually, I downloaded some apps and was practising on the plane and i have to say it's worse than i thought. Although my maths is slowly getting better i am still flummoxed by any kind of problem solving or data sufficiency test which, in terms of the GMAT, is a pretty major obstacle. Oh well. I'm actually being very good this holiday and haven't brought any crap to read, just my maths and Chinese flashcards to learn.

So, back to Singapore. We arrived about 5 ish and took a longer walk from the train station to the hostel - Hangout @ Mt Emily - to explore a bit. There were some teething problems with the electricity in the hostel but they were dealt with fairly professionally (if not as fast as i would have liked) by the girl on reception and the room is fine. Only two hangers, which for girls with summer dresses isn't ideal, but it's cheap and a great location. Tonight we wandered down to Little India and found a really nice, cheap restaurant when we had channa masala, potato curry, naan bread, parata and some other curries. We also got a mango lassi which was sooo sweet. The service was great and there were lots of Indian people there which we took as a good sign! Bizarre thing to comment on maybe but we noticed that the Indian people here are very dark, a lot darker than at home. It's was a bit weird at first actually, seeing so many foreign (non Chinese) faces. I was a bit thrown, which sounds silly, but in Tonglu we are used to not seeing any non Chinese. Rachael and I need to acclimatise in general, we keep trying to talk to people in Chinese here! On the way back to the hostel we stopped at 7-11 (yes, 7-11!) and got slurpees. I have so many good memories of long hot Canadian summers revolving round trips to 7-11 to get Slurpees I felt i couldn't walk past without indulging.

Speaking of Chinese, on the plane we decided to do some language practise. Obviously i am learning Chinese and rachael is worried about forgetting her Gaelic so we were having (very basic) conversations where she'd say something in gaelic, tell me the English and i'd answer in Chinese. it was most amusing, especially when the saw the confused looks of the other passengers.

I think tomorrow we are going to to an open top bus tour in the morning then head to tourist information.

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Comments

[Russ]

Singapore
Hi Mate, This isn't the answer to your email just a quick bit of info, I stayed in the Summer Tavern hostel which is close to some good bars etc which are on Clarke Quay area. Cheap, cheerful and clean, it was one of the better hostels I stayed in in 2006. Have a fantastic time, Russ x