So the past two weeks have been crazy. Not actually, but it's crazy for me to think how much I've experienced and then try to summarize it in a blog post. Therefore, there will be two - one for Cambodia and one for Thailand.
Phnom Penh.
I arrived in Cambodia, visa in my passport, at 7:30am and was greeted by an old man from my hostel with a sign with my name on it. My first experience in Cambodia was riding in a tuk-tuk, which is like a little carriage attached to a motorbike (the ones in Phnom Penh are bigger, more cushion-y and have an actual bike whereas the ones in Bangkok are kind of all one car thingy with an actual windowshield for the driver and the ones in Southern Thailand have the carriage like a sidecar to the left of the motorbike. They're all open-air, though) to my hostel - so awesome. I was able to eat breakfast and nap a little before meeting up with Shoshana, my professor from Oregon who was traveling through Cambodia and Vietnam, offering her services to different universities and NGOs. The purpose of my trip was to accompany her to the university and take pictures, etc. during her lectures.
It was an incredibly interesting experience because I got to see the city and culture in a way that I would never otherwise be able to. I met local students and talked to one who wanted to practice her English with me. I also got to tour their campus and see basic things like their school bookstore (which is open-aired and outdoors) and compare them with my other university experiences (for instance, they wear uniforms, but not really consistently and I never quite figured out why or who got certain privileges). Shoshana's translator for the lectures was amazing. He's a fourth year psychology student and was basically volunteered for the job because he speaks English so well. The other students also spoke some English, but it was hard to tell how much. Sometimes, another student would jump in to assist the translator and other times Shoshana would make a joke and most of the people in the class would laugh, but the levels of understanding of what she was saying were all different, so there was definitely a need for translation.
The relationship between professors and students was incredibly different than in the states. The office for the psychology department was just a room with a table and bookshelves and some desks, but not at all formal and when we were sitting in there with Professor Hema (the head of the psychology department and our host for the week), some students just meandered in and joined the conversation. She also had a student drive us (and her) in her car one day and Shoshana said that when she went to another professor's house, there were students there just hanging out. Professor Hema's sister is a psychologist and she explained that she is very touchy-feely with her clients and they sit next to each other during sessions and love each other like mother-child. Whoa how you would get sued in the states for that behavior. Or maybe you wouldn't if the fear of it hadn't made everyone so paranoid. Who knows.
I ended up becoming good friends with the guys who ran the hostel. Apparently, it's owned by Australians or something but they were gone, so it was just these three Cambodian guys about my age and then an older man as well. They actually live at the hostel, just sleeping outside on some chairs or behind the counter or on some benches. I figured this out because I got back late one night and they were going to bed but I figured they did something like that because they were always there. Always. I found out later that all their schooling/food, etc. was being paid for by their bosses at the hostel, so they considered themselves very lucky. Shoshana gave me a dozen milk fruit, which had been a gift to her, and I asked the guys how to eat them (you cut them open and eat the milky inside with a spoon - very delicious). Apparently, milk fruit is relatively expensive but a favorite, so they loved me after that. They found out I was a student and one of them took me to his university on his motorbike (whoa scary - I could tell he drove slowly for my sake) and showed me the library (most of the books were in English) and the new building where he studies law. We had somewhat broken conversations about how to apply for university in Cambodia, how to pay, how long you study, when the semesters are, what students do for fun, etc. It was so awesome - when else would I be able to experience something like this? After showing me his school, he took me to the Tuol Sleng Former Prison S.21 Genocide Museum, which had originally been a high school before it was turned into a prison directed by Pol Pot. It was a very graphic museum with disturbing pictures and displays of tools used for torture and what people looked like when they were found there. It was unreal to see the tiny brick cells and large posters of prisoners' faces and then walk back outside into the green courtyard with trees covered with beautiful white blossoms. How can people do these things to people in such a beautiful world?
One of the days, Professor Hema took us to see Father Kevin who is an American that's been in Cambodia for two+ years and runs a home/organization for children ages 4-18 who have HIV/AIDS. We got to see some of the houses and meet some of the children - they jumped all over us and kept trying to get me to come play while Father Kevin was describing how the organization worked. This is a really remarkable place. It was originally meant to be for the children (who are mostly all orphans due to HIV/AIDS) to come to die, but in the last few years they've had several children reach adulthood and it has transformed into a place of hope and one that gives these children a chance for a future. Father Kevin talked about how now that their kids are becoming adults, a new part of the program is figuring out what to do next for them. He also talked about dealing with teenagers and how they experience all the same things that teenagers everywhere do but the consequences are so different and so much greater for them. There's also the issue of grief and how to deal with it because these children are forming bonds with each other that I (and most of us) could never imagine and there's always the risk that they'll prematurely lose each other.
The moment that impacted me the most was walking into one of the houses and seeing this wall that had a poster of different kinds of fruits and a Snow White puzzle and this picture of construction paper flowers that someone had made for a project and realizing that they're just kids like I was. I know that kids everywhere are the same and I know that I know this, but it took seeing this wall for me to really conceptualize that. People are people everywhere.
The last night I was in Phnom Penh, Shoshana had a lot of work that she needed to do to prepare for Vietnam, but I was able to go with one of her friends from the states who was also in Cambodia at the time to a traditional Cambodian dance performance. It was Karen's friends who run the dance company and who choreographed the show in collaboration with a Japanese woman who plays the ichigenkin (a one-string zither). The performance space was a ways outside of Phnom Penh in a jungle-y area and was absolutely beautiful. It was big and open-aired with a roof and the back of the stage was meant to look like an ancient building of some kind with big stone heads of the Buddha (I think). Very, very cool. The dance was interesting too. It was surprising the variety of sounds the zither could make (she was accompanied by a Cambodian band that usually plays the music for this kind of dance) and the young women dancing were making these really difficult and precise positions look very easy. I was impressed.
Other interesting things were the Khmer food (one time, I had this ground pork with rice that was stuck together and crispy like a rice cake and this other time I had this really delicious Khmer crepe thing with chicken, bean sprouts, mint, lettuce and yummy dipping sauce. I also tried Khmer cake which tasted kind of like flan but had the texture of eggy cake) and the Khmer language (languages are always interesting, I think) and learning to brush my teeth with bottled water and not to open my mouth in the shower. I learned to say "no, thank you" automatically to tuk-tuk and motorbikers because they bug you everywhere you go (although not nearly as bad as Thailand). And Cambodia uses the US dollar! Weird. They also have Cambodia riel, but it's so little that it's only really used for street vendors, etc. and you generally pay with US money (that's what comes out of ATMs), although you might get change in both dollars and riel (they don't use coins).
Also, at Wat Phnom, the [man-made] hill with the wat on top that the city is named after (and my hostel was right next to) there were lots of monkeys and an elephant for pictures. One time, I saw a monkey napping with a baby in the mother's lap. So cute, I almost died. Sad because the monkey is domesticated and dirty and has a bad human-food diet, but oh my god it was NAPPING WITH A BABY. So. cute.
On a sad note, there were a lot of children begging on the streets everywhere and they're very persistent. Sometimes I just had to ignore them to get them to go away and that just breaks my heart. They're just kids. Shoshana told me about some organizations that train children and people with disabilities how to make scarfs and statues and jewelry out of silk or wood or other things and then sell them in these nice stores so that they're making a living from an actual craft and not digging through a dump somewhere. Unfortunately, not everyone can be a part of one of these organizations.
One last thing that I don't really know where to fit in but was an important part of my experience: the first night I was there, I had the evening to myself and went and sat outside the hostel with some homework to read. There was this little boy sitting out there (children do a lot of sitting/fidgeting/hanging out in Third World countries - in my experience at least, because there's not much else for them to do) and I started making faces at him until he felt comfortable enough to sit in the chair next to mine. I drew a circle on my homework and then handed him the pen and he drew a circle and then handed it back to me. We went back and forth like this for a while until he felt comfortable enough to draw on his own. At one point, I figured out he was writing his name (I thought he was maybe three or four but it's really difficult to tell ages in Cambodia because they're all really small and young looking so he was probably seven-ish) so I wrote mine and then he started to copy mine. Eventually, a little girl joined us too and we spent a good hour+ drawing and writing and communicating without language together. It was very fun and once again goes to show that kids are kids/people are people everywhere. And I want to work with them.
Wow, the world is so big.
Next up, Thailand!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Life In Singapore
In an effort to procrastinate all the homework and logistics I have to figure out before leaving on Monday, I'm writing this to fill you all in on some of the details of daily life. Not everything is big, exciting trips to exotic places. I'm also going to school, you know. Well, sort of.
(This is also just for me to remember it all once I'm back, so these details may not be of interest to my general readership. I advise you to skim and read the sections that are most interesting to you. Beware: this is going to be epic)
FOOD
The cheapest food here (2-4 Sing dollars per meal) is sold in hawker centers which are basically food centers (the cheaper ones are outdoors) just filled with a bunch of food stalls of Chinese, Muslim, Indian, vegetarian (usually just one stall dedicated to that) food and usually a drink stand or two. If they're really nice hawker centers (like ones on campus) they might have Japanese, Indonesian or a place where you select some items (like wontons, tofu, veggies, squid, other unrecognizable things...) and they'll boil them and put them over noodles for you or just stalls with more variety. I eat a lot of Indian because I find that (besides being delicious in general) it has more flavor a lot of the time, is pretty recognizable, and you can't always taste the MSG.
My FAVORITE thing to eat is called prata (or roti prata. In Malaysia, it was called roti canai). It's kind of like fried naan, but not so bready. It's just dough that they spread out into a thin circle and then grill on a massive hot plate. It's served with a bowl of curry that you dip it in. Most basic Indian stalls have plain, egg, cheese, onion, and a combination of those. There are a couple of hard-to-reach places that I've found that have a vast variety of kinds like pineapple, kaya (this coconut butter stuff they put on toast here), chocolate, butter, and more that I can't think of. My absolute favorite is banana. Lucky for me, the two guys that run the Indian place in the hawker center near my apartment (one old guy who speaks a little English and another one who might be his son in his early 30s? who speaks English fluently) know me and my friends and always get ready and smile at when they see us coming. We have such a good relationship with them now that if I bring a banana, they will make me a banana prata and only charge me for a plain one (70 cents). It's fantastic.
The supermarkets have everything for the most part but a few things have come up. There's no health food section or anything and most of the bread is pure white. It's really difficult to find wheat bread and when you do, it's hard to judge whether it's really any healthier. I've managed to find Adam's peanut butter, much to my relief, but only at a specific store, so I have to go out of my way to get it. I usually keep pb and j fixings in my fridge, plus yogurt and eggs that I've boiled in my kettle (that's another thing, they don't refrigerate their eggs) for breakfast and whatever produce I've gotten from the fruit stall nearby (I love having watermelon when it shouldn't be in season! And I can get a bunch of bananas for only a dollar!). Dinner is always eaten out and sometimes lunch as well. Healthy is real hard to do here when rice or noodles (or prata) is served with every meal.
DRINK
The drink that seems to have taken over Singapore is called Milo. It's just chocolate powder made into hot or iced liquid (like ovaltine or something) but it's actually really good. It's everywhere, plus the company makes other things like little chocolate 'nuggets' and energy bars and cereal. I'm pretty sure Milo has athletic clubs or campaigns for kids or something like that because the label is all over bus stops, etc.
The vending machines usually have a variety of very corn syrupy tea, coke, little cans of cold sweetened coffee, and soya bean milk which is like super super sweet, not-grainy soy milk. I really like it, but I am not fooled by how it pretends to be healthy, oh no. When you get it 'fresh' from a drink stand, they put some syrup in your glass first. What do you bet it's corn syrup or some other kind of liquid sugar? That is what makes it delicious, though.
At the nicer hawker centers, there's lots of fruit/fruit juice stands (piece of watermelon or pineapple for 40 cents!). Some of the REALLY nice ones have sugarcane juice that they make in front of you by putting canes through this crushing machine and then straining the juice for you (I don't really like the caney after taste). Many places also have whole coconuts that they'll chop a hole in for you and give you a straw and a spoon (you'd love it, Dad). I don't really like the milk but I love scooping out the meat and eating it.
Most places have lime juice, grass jelly drink, barley drink, tea with milk, ice lemon tea, etc. My favorite thing to drink is called teh tarik. It's sold at most drink stands and some Indian/Muslim places. It's kind of like chai but spicier - like Indian chai. It's made with tea, evaporated and condensed milk and then poured from glass to glass high in the air to make it all frothy. SO GOOD. My friends and I had to cut back because we would just keep ordering them and then realize that at dinner alone we'd had 2-3 and then we'd go back in the evening to get more. mmmmmmmmm. OH MAN I also just discovered teh halia which is exactly like teh tarik except that it's ginger tea. SO SO SO GOOD.
CLOTHES
Everyone here dresses really nicely all the time. Back home, I wear my t-shirts all the time and when I wear anything else, I feel like I'm dressing up or something. It didn't occur to me until I was packing for the Cameron Highlands that I don't ever where my t-shirts out of the house here (well, unless I'm just going to the hawker center). I'm way too dressed down if I do. I always have to pack a sweater to go to school because of the air conditioning. Literally, I bring the warmest sweaters I have to class, and I'm still cold. One girl who is doing the same exchange as me except backwards (she's from NUS going to UO) next fall, said the other day in our air-con classroom, "oh I'm so cold! I'll never survive in Oregon! Is it cold there? Do I need to bring a coat?" I told her of course she'll need a coat because she'll be there for fall and winter, but I didn't know how to explain that the cold you feel from an air-conditioner is very different from the cold you feel from a winter day. She'll find out soon, I guess!
BATHROOMS
Or 'toilets,' as everyone says here. In Singapore, most bathrooms are stalls with western toilets and then one stall at the end with a squat toilet. In Malaysia, it's mostly all squat toilets and hoses (in addition to toilet paper most of the time) but when there are western toilets, the seats are always up. I think the women just prefer to squat. As a professional outdoor reliever (thank you, Mom), the squat toilets do not phase me (although, I did take a picture of the first one I used - before I used it, don't worry. TMI?).
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
The MRT is the train that goes all over the city. It generally runs every six minutes (more often during peak hours) 6am-11:30pm every day and is very efficient and always on time. There's a station very conveniently located by my apartment but it doesn't go straight to school, so I tend to take a couple of buses to get to campus. If I leave my house at 9:30am, I can catch two buses and get to my class that starts at 10:10am just on time. They have these little plastic cards called ez-link cards that you have to "top-up" periodically and you just scan it every time you enter and leave a station so it calculates how far you went and therefore, how much they should charge you (same goes for buses). You get in big big trouble if you don't scan properly on entry and exiting because they think you're trying to get out of paying the correct fee. Apparently, ez-link cards are also taking over Singapore because they're trying to get people to use them to pay for other things as well (such as printing in the school library). Singapore is big on efficiency.
The really interesting/weird/disturbing/sometimes comical thing about the MRT is the anti-terrorist campaign they have going. They have little TV screens on the landings at the stations and also on the trains and when they're not advertising movies, they play this tape that they've made that's supposed to keep people informed about looking out for "suspicious looking persons or items" (this is also periodically said over the intercom. That and "please encourage older persons to hold on to the rail or to take the lift"). There's two different versions of the video. They both start with images of bombings that have occurred on public transportation in other parts of the world (such as the one in London a couple years ago) and then a guy comes on and says that they should have been prevented and this is what you can do to keep Singapore safe. They go on to show a dramatized seen of a very suspicious looking young man in a black baseball cap carrying a big, bulky black bag get on the train very suspiciously, sit down very suspiciously, and stow his bag under a seat very suspiciously. The whole time, this older woman is watching him and when he gets up to leave, she confronts him about leaving the bag behind but he denies that it's his. She then bolts to the button on the wall of the train that you push to talk to the driver in case of an emergency and they go through this whole scene of what to say and what to do if you're a passenger on the train and it stops for an unknown emergency (my favorite part is when they tell you that if you feel sick or nauseas, just breathe deeply and wait for medical people to arrive while showing a clip of a woman clutching her chest and taking huge, heaving breathes and backing into a little corner, all the while looking confused rather than like she's going to throw up).
The shorter version of the video just shows the woman watching the young man but not doing anything and then he gets off the train and as it's driving away, he checks his watch, pulls out a little black remote, and presses a button. It then shows the train rounding a bend in a tunnel, disappearing from view, and then BLOWING UP. As in, there's computerized fire and smoke that comes rushing down the tunnel towards the camera. The video then says something like, "Don't let this happen." Whoa whoa whoa. Freaky freaky freaky. But that's the point, right? Scare everyone so nothing ever happens. hmmmm. In line with that, there's also all these bulletin boards around town with messages like "less crime is not no crime" and "a walk a day keeps the fats away." Well, thank you, Singapore. I'll keep those things in mind.
CLASSES
I'm actually only in taking three classes which means I only have class on Mondays and Thursdays. They're long days, though. And it turns out, those are the worst days to have class (besides Friday), because most people have Monday off for traveling or Thursday and Friday off for that reason. When we went to the Cameron Highlands, we had to leave Thursday night because I had class that day and then I had to come back on Sunday for class on Monday while my friends got to stay for another day of hiking. Plus, everyone goes out on Wednesdays (it's ladies' night) and I either have to stay in, or leave way early. But enough whining. I only have class two days a week. (Don't worry - I'm definitely finding productive ways to occupy myself on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but that's for another post another day)
I'm in two social work (SW) classes, both of which only meet once a week for lecture and once every other week for tutorial (or discussion, as we call it in Eugene). All classes, no matter what they are, are two hours (Thursdays, I have three in a row without breaks) I was supposed to take a third social work class that met on Tuesdays, but it was this huge, boring lecture and I'm really not in Singapore to be in a class like that where all I get graded on is how well I regurgitate the information for the final exam. Luckily, my adviser back home understood. Both SW classes are relatively low-level and not too much daily work. That also means they're not that interesting, though. One is a research class that I'm finding difficult because what is discussed in lecture does not really apply to the project we're supposed to be doing and we've only had two tutorials which have been discouraging rather than helpful because we do mini activities and then go through and get told what we did poorly or just plain wrong. Our introduction and literature review for our research project is due Monday and I don't think anyone in the class is really clear on what it was supposed to be exactly. Ack. At least I like the two girls I'm doing the project with. The professor that does the lectures is a really nice lady, but she really doesn't know how to teach at all. She's Indian and her accent is pretty hard to understand - which she knows, but that means that she stops all the time and says (Ferris Bueller style), "Do you understand?...Does anyone understand?...Sigh...You don't understand. How should I explain..." The thing is, we probably would understand if she just gave us a minute to process what she was saying and if her examples matched her powerpoint better. Alas, the pressure to understand everything perfectly immediately really ways on the class and hardly anyone ever responds.
My other SW professor is very nice and has a lot of experience and conducts the class with humor and patience. It's the material, though, that's not that stimulating. I'm also not really clear on what assignments or readings we have because there's no syllabus and he didn't care if we bought the book. I don't even know what the book is. I've tried to express my concern about this, but he was so relaxed about it all that I've decided not to worry because every will reveal itself in good time.
The third class I'm taking is in the University Scholars Programme, which is the NUS equivalent to the UO honors college. It even has a student computer lab and hang out room (minus the HC's wonderful, big purple couches). This class is AWESOME. It's so awesome that I enjoy going Monday mornings (minus the getting out of bed part) and I'm only a little bitter about missing out on majority of Wednesday evenings with my friends. The professor is from the states (Pennsylvania, maybe?) but she's been in Singapore a while. She obviously loves her job and her students and creates a very open and accepting class environment. We have this online forum thing for just the students in the class that we communicate on (she comments too) so that we can continue our discussions from class. It's a small class (maybe twenty students?) and one guy is even putting together a contact list so that we can all be friends as well as classmates.
The class itself is called Historicizing the Black Pacific. It's hard to describe what this means, especially considering that the definition of this is part of our ongoing discussion in class and also on the forum. To make it really simple, I guess I could say that it's studying the relationship (and the history of) African Americans and Asian culture and vice versa. Except even broader than that. But it's cool because there are three American students (including me) plus the American professor who knows a whole lot about Asia and Singapore and history in general and then a bunch of really intellectually-minded Singaporean students. And we're talking about stuff that all of us live but didn't really know and we have different perspectives that we have to come together with in order to really explore the topic.
That's why I was really put-off when one of my classmates told me that she thinks I "think differently than we do." The thing was, I shared with the class some of the stuff that she and I had disagreed on and there were people nodding along and agreeing with me, so I know I was not alone in my opinions. I know that sometimes I will - and do - think differently than the people I come in contact with because I've grown up in an entirely different place but it's hard to find where the line is drawn between it being a cultural difference and just a difference of opinion that's based in the fact that every person is different. I disagree with people all the time at home but never have to question why - people disagree. Duh. But here, there's a whole new element and occasionally, I feel labeled with my 'American-ness' in an unfair way, and other times I can recognize that that is what's influencing how I think. But I mean, come on. Two of the American guys I'm good friends with here are openly conservative and I'm very openly liberal and I'm sure we disagree on PLENTY but all three of us are American. And yet, we think differently than each other.
GUM (on a lighter note)
I miss it. I really do. I didn't think I would but man oh man, sometimes my breath smells or my mouth tastes gross or I've just eaten something really spicy and all I want is GUM. (For those of you who don't know, it's not sold in Singapore.) Luckily, I've been traveling outside of the country and get to indulge during those trips.
POLICE (or something...)
I don't see them very often, but I feel like they're used just for fear like the terrorist videos. They may not be police, but every once and a while, they're just there, in the MRT stations. The first time I saw it, I was waiting to meet someone at this one station and these two young guys in army-looking uniforms, big heavy boots, and hats (kind of like berets) came walking to the area by where you enter and exit the station and then just stopped and stood there, still and silent, for like ten minutes. The only movement besides shifting that they made was when one looked at his watch and then they abruptly started walking away, probably to another station where they would stand intimidatingly. Bottom-line: follow the rules in Singapore.
VALENTINE'S DAY (+PDA IN GENERAL)
It's absolutely ridiculous. Valentine's Day (today, actually) has literally taken over NUS. Even in the USP lounge. It's a mess. In the lounge, people hung thousands of signs with pictures and love notes, someone set up a shrine for a friend, someone else made a cardboard coffin for a reason I didn't really understand, and other people wrote love notes all over the glass windows in some kind of washable pen.
The minute February hit, there was this Cafe L'Amour set up in the main walkway of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences building outside the library and as V-Day got closer, it just got worse. They were selling roses, bouquets of other flowers, chocolates, cupcakes, clothing, jewelry, music, and other love paraphernalia. There were hundreds of strings of little red and pink hearts hanging from the ceiling and arrows taped to the ground leading you to the "cafe." I even got emails about spreading the love campaigns, etc. For someone who is very neutral about Valentine's Day (I generally think it's pretty silly, but I don't hate it or wear black to symbolize my dark, emo side as some people do), it was very overwhelming. I should have taken a picture.
There's actually a lot of PDA in Singapore - a lot more than I expected, really. And I feel like it's different, somehow, than the PDA in the states. There is never any question of if two people are together or not. People just cuddle and kiss and hold each other everywhere - on the MRT, on benches, in malls. I thought it was like that in the states too, but, for some reason, I feel like it's a little more subtle - or at least most of the time. So I guess it makes sense that Valentine's Day is a big deal here. Although, my Singaporean friends were not fans of the overly decorated passageway or lounge.
And this brings me to the conclusion of my very informative, very long post. If for nothing else, it will be well-worth for me to have it once I'm back in the states and trying to remember all the little details that seemed so natural when I was living here. Goal: learn how to make prata. I will wow you all with it's deliciousness.
Signing off by wishing my beautiful state, Oregon, a very happy 150th birthday! In celebration, I very appropriately listened to Raina's song, O Oregon.
Happy birthday, home!
(This is also just for me to remember it all once I'm back, so these details may not be of interest to my general readership. I advise you to skim and read the sections that are most interesting to you. Beware: this is going to be epic)
FOOD
The cheapest food here (2-4 Sing dollars per meal) is sold in hawker centers which are basically food centers (the cheaper ones are outdoors) just filled with a bunch of food stalls of Chinese, Muslim, Indian, vegetarian (usually just one stall dedicated to that) food and usually a drink stand or two. If they're really nice hawker centers (like ones on campus) they might have Japanese, Indonesian or a place where you select some items (like wontons, tofu, veggies, squid, other unrecognizable things...) and they'll boil them and put them over noodles for you or just stalls with more variety. I eat a lot of Indian because I find that (besides being delicious in general) it has more flavor a lot of the time, is pretty recognizable, and you can't always taste the MSG.
My FAVORITE thing to eat is called prata (or roti prata. In Malaysia, it was called roti canai). It's kind of like fried naan, but not so bready. It's just dough that they spread out into a thin circle and then grill on a massive hot plate. It's served with a bowl of curry that you dip it in. Most basic Indian stalls have plain, egg, cheese, onion, and a combination of those. There are a couple of hard-to-reach places that I've found that have a vast variety of kinds like pineapple, kaya (this coconut butter stuff they put on toast here), chocolate, butter, and more that I can't think of. My absolute favorite is banana. Lucky for me, the two guys that run the Indian place in the hawker center near my apartment (one old guy who speaks a little English and another one who might be his son in his early 30s? who speaks English fluently) know me and my friends and always get ready and smile at when they see us coming. We have such a good relationship with them now that if I bring a banana, they will make me a banana prata and only charge me for a plain one (70 cents). It's fantastic.
The supermarkets have everything for the most part but a few things have come up. There's no health food section or anything and most of the bread is pure white. It's really difficult to find wheat bread and when you do, it's hard to judge whether it's really any healthier. I've managed to find Adam's peanut butter, much to my relief, but only at a specific store, so I have to go out of my way to get it. I usually keep pb and j fixings in my fridge, plus yogurt and eggs that I've boiled in my kettle (that's another thing, they don't refrigerate their eggs) for breakfast and whatever produce I've gotten from the fruit stall nearby (I love having watermelon when it shouldn't be in season! And I can get a bunch of bananas for only a dollar!). Dinner is always eaten out and sometimes lunch as well. Healthy is real hard to do here when rice or noodles (or prata) is served with every meal.
DRINK
The drink that seems to have taken over Singapore is called Milo. It's just chocolate powder made into hot or iced liquid (like ovaltine or something) but it's actually really good. It's everywhere, plus the company makes other things like little chocolate 'nuggets' and energy bars and cereal. I'm pretty sure Milo has athletic clubs or campaigns for kids or something like that because the label is all over bus stops, etc.
The vending machines usually have a variety of very corn syrupy tea, coke, little cans of cold sweetened coffee, and soya bean milk which is like super super sweet, not-grainy soy milk. I really like it, but I am not fooled by how it pretends to be healthy, oh no. When you get it 'fresh' from a drink stand, they put some syrup in your glass first. What do you bet it's corn syrup or some other kind of liquid sugar? That is what makes it delicious, though.
At the nicer hawker centers, there's lots of fruit/fruit juice stands (piece of watermelon or pineapple for 40 cents!). Some of the REALLY nice ones have sugarcane juice that they make in front of you by putting canes through this crushing machine and then straining the juice for you (I don't really like the caney after taste). Many places also have whole coconuts that they'll chop a hole in for you and give you a straw and a spoon (you'd love it, Dad). I don't really like the milk but I love scooping out the meat and eating it.
Most places have lime juice, grass jelly drink, barley drink, tea with milk, ice lemon tea, etc. My favorite thing to drink is called teh tarik. It's sold at most drink stands and some Indian/Muslim places. It's kind of like chai but spicier - like Indian chai. It's made with tea, evaporated and condensed milk and then poured from glass to glass high in the air to make it all frothy. SO GOOD. My friends and I had to cut back because we would just keep ordering them and then realize that at dinner alone we'd had 2-3 and then we'd go back in the evening to get more. mmmmmmmmm. OH MAN I also just discovered teh halia which is exactly like teh tarik except that it's ginger tea. SO SO SO GOOD.
CLOTHES
Everyone here dresses really nicely all the time. Back home, I wear my t-shirts all the time and when I wear anything else, I feel like I'm dressing up or something. It didn't occur to me until I was packing for the Cameron Highlands that I don't ever where my t-shirts out of the house here (well, unless I'm just going to the hawker center). I'm way too dressed down if I do. I always have to pack a sweater to go to school because of the air conditioning. Literally, I bring the warmest sweaters I have to class, and I'm still cold. One girl who is doing the same exchange as me except backwards (she's from NUS going to UO) next fall, said the other day in our air-con classroom, "oh I'm so cold! I'll never survive in Oregon! Is it cold there? Do I need to bring a coat?" I told her of course she'll need a coat because she'll be there for fall and winter, but I didn't know how to explain that the cold you feel from an air-conditioner is very different from the cold you feel from a winter day. She'll find out soon, I guess!
BATHROOMS
Or 'toilets,' as everyone says here. In Singapore, most bathrooms are stalls with western toilets and then one stall at the end with a squat toilet. In Malaysia, it's mostly all squat toilets and hoses (in addition to toilet paper most of the time) but when there are western toilets, the seats are always up. I think the women just prefer to squat. As a professional outdoor reliever (thank you, Mom), the squat toilets do not phase me (although, I did take a picture of the first one I used - before I used it, don't worry. TMI?).
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
The MRT is the train that goes all over the city. It generally runs every six minutes (more often during peak hours) 6am-11:30pm every day and is very efficient and always on time. There's a station very conveniently located by my apartment but it doesn't go straight to school, so I tend to take a couple of buses to get to campus. If I leave my house at 9:30am, I can catch two buses and get to my class that starts at 10:10am just on time. They have these little plastic cards called ez-link cards that you have to "top-up" periodically and you just scan it every time you enter and leave a station so it calculates how far you went and therefore, how much they should charge you (same goes for buses). You get in big big trouble if you don't scan properly on entry and exiting because they think you're trying to get out of paying the correct fee. Apparently, ez-link cards are also taking over Singapore because they're trying to get people to use them to pay for other things as well (such as printing in the school library). Singapore is big on efficiency.
The really interesting/weird/disturbing/sometimes comical thing about the MRT is the anti-terrorist campaign they have going. They have little TV screens on the landings at the stations and also on the trains and when they're not advertising movies, they play this tape that they've made that's supposed to keep people informed about looking out for "suspicious looking persons or items" (this is also periodically said over the intercom. That and "please encourage older persons to hold on to the rail or to take the lift"). There's two different versions of the video. They both start with images of bombings that have occurred on public transportation in other parts of the world (such as the one in London a couple years ago) and then a guy comes on and says that they should have been prevented and this is what you can do to keep Singapore safe. They go on to show a dramatized seen of a very suspicious looking young man in a black baseball cap carrying a big, bulky black bag get on the train very suspiciously, sit down very suspiciously, and stow his bag under a seat very suspiciously. The whole time, this older woman is watching him and when he gets up to leave, she confronts him about leaving the bag behind but he denies that it's his. She then bolts to the button on the wall of the train that you push to talk to the driver in case of an emergency and they go through this whole scene of what to say and what to do if you're a passenger on the train and it stops for an unknown emergency (my favorite part is when they tell you that if you feel sick or nauseas, just breathe deeply and wait for medical people to arrive while showing a clip of a woman clutching her chest and taking huge, heaving breathes and backing into a little corner, all the while looking confused rather than like she's going to throw up).
The shorter version of the video just shows the woman watching the young man but not doing anything and then he gets off the train and as it's driving away, he checks his watch, pulls out a little black remote, and presses a button. It then shows the train rounding a bend in a tunnel, disappearing from view, and then BLOWING UP. As in, there's computerized fire and smoke that comes rushing down the tunnel towards the camera. The video then says something like, "Don't let this happen." Whoa whoa whoa. Freaky freaky freaky. But that's the point, right? Scare everyone so nothing ever happens. hmmmm. In line with that, there's also all these bulletin boards around town with messages like "less crime is not no crime" and "a walk a day keeps the fats away." Well, thank you, Singapore. I'll keep those things in mind.
CLASSES
I'm actually only in taking three classes which means I only have class on Mondays and Thursdays. They're long days, though. And it turns out, those are the worst days to have class (besides Friday), because most people have Monday off for traveling or Thursday and Friday off for that reason. When we went to the Cameron Highlands, we had to leave Thursday night because I had class that day and then I had to come back on Sunday for class on Monday while my friends got to stay for another day of hiking. Plus, everyone goes out on Wednesdays (it's ladies' night) and I either have to stay in, or leave way early. But enough whining. I only have class two days a week. (Don't worry - I'm definitely finding productive ways to occupy myself on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but that's for another post another day)
I'm in two social work (SW) classes, both of which only meet once a week for lecture and once every other week for tutorial (or discussion, as we call it in Eugene). All classes, no matter what they are, are two hours (Thursdays, I have three in a row without breaks) I was supposed to take a third social work class that met on Tuesdays, but it was this huge, boring lecture and I'm really not in Singapore to be in a class like that where all I get graded on is how well I regurgitate the information for the final exam. Luckily, my adviser back home understood. Both SW classes are relatively low-level and not too much daily work. That also means they're not that interesting, though. One is a research class that I'm finding difficult because what is discussed in lecture does not really apply to the project we're supposed to be doing and we've only had two tutorials which have been discouraging rather than helpful because we do mini activities and then go through and get told what we did poorly or just plain wrong. Our introduction and literature review for our research project is due Monday and I don't think anyone in the class is really clear on what it was supposed to be exactly. Ack. At least I like the two girls I'm doing the project with. The professor that does the lectures is a really nice lady, but she really doesn't know how to teach at all. She's Indian and her accent is pretty hard to understand - which she knows, but that means that she stops all the time and says (Ferris Bueller style), "Do you understand?...Does anyone understand?...Sigh...You don't understand. How should I explain..." The thing is, we probably would understand if she just gave us a minute to process what she was saying and if her examples matched her powerpoint better. Alas, the pressure to understand everything perfectly immediately really ways on the class and hardly anyone ever responds.
My other SW professor is very nice and has a lot of experience and conducts the class with humor and patience. It's the material, though, that's not that stimulating. I'm also not really clear on what assignments or readings we have because there's no syllabus and he didn't care if we bought the book. I don't even know what the book is. I've tried to express my concern about this, but he was so relaxed about it all that I've decided not to worry because every will reveal itself in good time.
The third class I'm taking is in the University Scholars Programme, which is the NUS equivalent to the UO honors college. It even has a student computer lab and hang out room (minus the HC's wonderful, big purple couches). This class is AWESOME. It's so awesome that I enjoy going Monday mornings (minus the getting out of bed part) and I'm only a little bitter about missing out on majority of Wednesday evenings with my friends. The professor is from the states (Pennsylvania, maybe?) but she's been in Singapore a while. She obviously loves her job and her students and creates a very open and accepting class environment. We have this online forum thing for just the students in the class that we communicate on (she comments too) so that we can continue our discussions from class. It's a small class (maybe twenty students?) and one guy is even putting together a contact list so that we can all be friends as well as classmates.
The class itself is called Historicizing the Black Pacific. It's hard to describe what this means, especially considering that the definition of this is part of our ongoing discussion in class and also on the forum. To make it really simple, I guess I could say that it's studying the relationship (and the history of) African Americans and Asian culture and vice versa. Except even broader than that. But it's cool because there are three American students (including me) plus the American professor who knows a whole lot about Asia and Singapore and history in general and then a bunch of really intellectually-minded Singaporean students. And we're talking about stuff that all of us live but didn't really know and we have different perspectives that we have to come together with in order to really explore the topic.
That's why I was really put-off when one of my classmates told me that she thinks I "think differently than we do." The thing was, I shared with the class some of the stuff that she and I had disagreed on and there were people nodding along and agreeing with me, so I know I was not alone in my opinions. I know that sometimes I will - and do - think differently than the people I come in contact with because I've grown up in an entirely different place but it's hard to find where the line is drawn between it being a cultural difference and just a difference of opinion that's based in the fact that every person is different. I disagree with people all the time at home but never have to question why - people disagree. Duh. But here, there's a whole new element and occasionally, I feel labeled with my 'American-ness' in an unfair way, and other times I can recognize that that is what's influencing how I think. But I mean, come on. Two of the American guys I'm good friends with here are openly conservative and I'm very openly liberal and I'm sure we disagree on PLENTY but all three of us are American. And yet, we think differently than each other.
GUM (on a lighter note)
I miss it. I really do. I didn't think I would but man oh man, sometimes my breath smells or my mouth tastes gross or I've just eaten something really spicy and all I want is GUM. (For those of you who don't know, it's not sold in Singapore.) Luckily, I've been traveling outside of the country and get to indulge during those trips.
POLICE (or something...)
I don't see them very often, but I feel like they're used just for fear like the terrorist videos. They may not be police, but every once and a while, they're just there, in the MRT stations. The first time I saw it, I was waiting to meet someone at this one station and these two young guys in army-looking uniforms, big heavy boots, and hats (kind of like berets) came walking to the area by where you enter and exit the station and then just stopped and stood there, still and silent, for like ten minutes. The only movement besides shifting that they made was when one looked at his watch and then they abruptly started walking away, probably to another station where they would stand intimidatingly. Bottom-line: follow the rules in Singapore.
VALENTINE'S DAY (+PDA IN GENERAL)
It's absolutely ridiculous. Valentine's Day (today, actually) has literally taken over NUS. Even in the USP lounge. It's a mess. In the lounge, people hung thousands of signs with pictures and love notes, someone set up a shrine for a friend, someone else made a cardboard coffin for a reason I didn't really understand, and other people wrote love notes all over the glass windows in some kind of washable pen.
The minute February hit, there was this Cafe L'Amour set up in the main walkway of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences building outside the library and as V-Day got closer, it just got worse. They were selling roses, bouquets of other flowers, chocolates, cupcakes, clothing, jewelry, music, and other love paraphernalia. There were hundreds of strings of little red and pink hearts hanging from the ceiling and arrows taped to the ground leading you to the "cafe." I even got emails about spreading the love campaigns, etc. For someone who is very neutral about Valentine's Day (I generally think it's pretty silly, but I don't hate it or wear black to symbolize my dark, emo side as some people do), it was very overwhelming. I should have taken a picture.
There's actually a lot of PDA in Singapore - a lot more than I expected, really. And I feel like it's different, somehow, than the PDA in the states. There is never any question of if two people are together or not. People just cuddle and kiss and hold each other everywhere - on the MRT, on benches, in malls. I thought it was like that in the states too, but, for some reason, I feel like it's a little more subtle - or at least most of the time. So I guess it makes sense that Valentine's Day is a big deal here. Although, my Singaporean friends were not fans of the overly decorated passageway or lounge.
And this brings me to the conclusion of my very informative, very long post. If for nothing else, it will be well-worth for me to have it once I'm back in the states and trying to remember all the little details that seemed so natural when I was living here. Goal: learn how to make prata. I will wow you all with it's deliciousness.
Signing off by wishing my beautiful state, Oregon, a very happy 150th birthday! In celebration, I very appropriately listened to Raina's song, O Oregon.
Happy birthday, home!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Entry Between Epic Adventures
Cameron Highlands, Malaysia=SO BEAUTIFUL
The night bus worked out fantastically well. Big, comfy seats that lay back really far and not too much air-con. There were only six of us on the bus and so at 4:30am our bus driver woke us up and told us to get on this other bus (same company, I think). In my groggy state I didn't really realize how sketchy it was that two buses just pulled over on the side of the highway in Malaysia and swapped passengers. But oh well. We (me and Karlijn [car-line] and Jo - my two travel partners) figured that our bus driver just wanted to get ride of us so he didn't have to drive the whole way and could have the morning off.
Our hostel was awesome and we shared a dorm room with two guys, one from Barcelona who is traveling around the world by bike (he had a sweet bike, Dad) and the other from New Zealand. We also met this 79 year old man who was born in America but lives in Spain for three months out of the year and then travels the other nine. I hope to be that badass when I'm 79.
Friday, we walked from one town to another and got caught in a really long, strong downpour and wandered into this merchandise/strawberry-selling place (CH is famous for their tea and strawberries) on the side of the road that took pity on us and gave us plastic bags for ponchos and really ugly strawberry umbrellas (they probably couldn't sell them, they're that ugly - I kept mine, though). We went to a Buddhist temple that was very beautiful, ate some lunch, took a nap, hung around and then went to dinner with our new friends. We got a steamboat which is this big pot of boiling broth and then tons of plates of raw chicken, beef, prawns, jellyfish, tofu, eggs, noodles, and veggies and you cook it in the broth and then eat it. No one explained to us what to do so we ended up overflowing it the first time and our waiter laughed at us. All in good fun, though. The hostel had a "Jungle Bar" and we sat around an outdoor fire and drank tea and talked. It was SO refreshing to get away from the heat. It felt like a late May-early June night in Oregon. I wore the only two sweaters I brought to Singapore and was still a bit on the chilly side.
Saturday, we did an all day tour (very touristy but totally worth it). It was us three girls, our friend from New Zealand, a couple from Norway, a couple from the Czech Republic and our guide, Spencer, all crammed into a land rover. We drove up this crazy road that shouldn't be considered a road and then trekked for an hour+ into the jungle with Spencer telling us all these things about the area and the plants, etc., until we reached a place where we saw the BIGGEST FLOWER IN THE WORLD. Here's the catch: it's actually a mushroom. BUT it looks and blooms like a flower, so everyone considers it one. In fact, I had this flower book when I was little that I LOVED and it was in it and I kept thinking about how cool it would be to see it someday and low-and-behold, I got to! My seven-year-old self was so very happy. It smelled rancid too, just like my book promised it would.
On the way back, we (well, some of us. The Norwegian couple turned out to be rich snobs who weren't adventurous at all) went swimming in this very cold, very nice waterfall pool thing. The water was clean enough to drink.
Stop number two was an aboriginal village where they taught us to shoot blow sticks (blow guns?). I got the dart thingy in the center of the target on my first try. Boom baby. I felt weird about the whole thing, though, because Spencer said we could walk around the village and we were totally just these white, western elitist tourists who were intruding on the daily life of this village. We played peek-a-boo with the kids, which they loved, and they waved us goodbye but I could tell that the women of the village were not pleased. Apparently, they get invaded by a tourist group everyday. That would piss me off too.
After lunch, we went to a tea farm and saw all these rolling hills of tea plants (this is what google images will show you when you search for CH). It was amazing. So green, so pretty, and the bushes were strong enough to hold you, so I totally stretched out on them for awhile before we went to the tea factory and cafe. I love tea.
At the Butterfly Farm we got to hold lots of crazy bugs, etc. such as butterflies (duh), turtles, frogs, and, wait for it...SCORPIONS. I told the guy handing them out that I would only hold it long enough for my picture to be taken and then he had to take it back, which he agreed to - right before it put one in my hand and then another one on my shoulder. My SHOULDER. By my FACE. Gah.
The strawberry farm was pretty uninteresting except for the fact that they sold all sorts of delicious strawberry things so we stuffed ourselves with waffles, scones with fresh jam, and strawberries covered in chocolate and whipped cream. My internal season clock was way thrown off though because it's winter back home so I should definitely not be eating strawberries. It's not the season for strawberries! Oh wait, I'm living in perpetual summer.
Saturday was pretty similar to Friday night and I had to get up Sunday morning to come back to Singapore because I had class Monday. My friends had breakfast with me and then we walked through the little farmer's market and bought some fruit and then I got on the bus. Four stops and nine hours later I was back in the heat. Whew.
I'm spending this week getting ready for the next two weeks of traveling (well, and I went climbing this morning - totally shredded my hands but that's what makes me so awesome)! I take off for Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Monday to meet up with my professor from home and then I go straight from there to Bangkok on Friday to meet up with Nathan from home and I come back a week later! The plan right now is to do awesome university stuff in Cambodia, fly to Bangkok and spend a couple days there (maybe we'll run into the dozens of other exchange students from NUS that will be there) and then head north in search of elephants (and tigers and rock climbing?...)! Expect numerous epic posts about those adventures upon my return!
LOVE,
M-"I want to see the world through tea"-addy
The night bus worked out fantastically well. Big, comfy seats that lay back really far and not too much air-con. There were only six of us on the bus and so at 4:30am our bus driver woke us up and told us to get on this other bus (same company, I think). In my groggy state I didn't really realize how sketchy it was that two buses just pulled over on the side of the highway in Malaysia and swapped passengers. But oh well. We (me and Karlijn [car-line] and Jo - my two travel partners) figured that our bus driver just wanted to get ride of us so he didn't have to drive the whole way and could have the morning off.
Our hostel was awesome and we shared a dorm room with two guys, one from Barcelona who is traveling around the world by bike (he had a sweet bike, Dad) and the other from New Zealand. We also met this 79 year old man who was born in America but lives in Spain for three months out of the year and then travels the other nine. I hope to be that badass when I'm 79.
Friday, we walked from one town to another and got caught in a really long, strong downpour and wandered into this merchandise/strawberry-selling place (CH is famous for their tea and strawberries) on the side of the road that took pity on us and gave us plastic bags for ponchos and really ugly strawberry umbrellas (they probably couldn't sell them, they're that ugly - I kept mine, though). We went to a Buddhist temple that was very beautiful, ate some lunch, took a nap, hung around and then went to dinner with our new friends. We got a steamboat which is this big pot of boiling broth and then tons of plates of raw chicken, beef, prawns, jellyfish, tofu, eggs, noodles, and veggies and you cook it in the broth and then eat it. No one explained to us what to do so we ended up overflowing it the first time and our waiter laughed at us. All in good fun, though. The hostel had a "Jungle Bar" and we sat around an outdoor fire and drank tea and talked. It was SO refreshing to get away from the heat. It felt like a late May-early June night in Oregon. I wore the only two sweaters I brought to Singapore and was still a bit on the chilly side.
Saturday, we did an all day tour (very touristy but totally worth it). It was us three girls, our friend from New Zealand, a couple from Norway, a couple from the Czech Republic and our guide, Spencer, all crammed into a land rover. We drove up this crazy road that shouldn't be considered a road and then trekked for an hour+ into the jungle with Spencer telling us all these things about the area and the plants, etc., until we reached a place where we saw the BIGGEST FLOWER IN THE WORLD. Here's the catch: it's actually a mushroom. BUT it looks and blooms like a flower, so everyone considers it one. In fact, I had this flower book when I was little that I LOVED and it was in it and I kept thinking about how cool it would be to see it someday and low-and-behold, I got to! My seven-year-old self was so very happy. It smelled rancid too, just like my book promised it would.
On the way back, we (well, some of us. The Norwegian couple turned out to be rich snobs who weren't adventurous at all) went swimming in this very cold, very nice waterfall pool thing. The water was clean enough to drink.
Stop number two was an aboriginal village where they taught us to shoot blow sticks (blow guns?). I got the dart thingy in the center of the target on my first try. Boom baby. I felt weird about the whole thing, though, because Spencer said we could walk around the village and we were totally just these white, western elitist tourists who were intruding on the daily life of this village. We played peek-a-boo with the kids, which they loved, and they waved us goodbye but I could tell that the women of the village were not pleased. Apparently, they get invaded by a tourist group everyday. That would piss me off too.
After lunch, we went to a tea farm and saw all these rolling hills of tea plants (this is what google images will show you when you search for CH). It was amazing. So green, so pretty, and the bushes were strong enough to hold you, so I totally stretched out on them for awhile before we went to the tea factory and cafe. I love tea.
At the Butterfly Farm we got to hold lots of crazy bugs, etc. such as butterflies (duh), turtles, frogs, and, wait for it...SCORPIONS. I told the guy handing them out that I would only hold it long enough for my picture to be taken and then he had to take it back, which he agreed to - right before it put one in my hand and then another one on my shoulder. My SHOULDER. By my FACE. Gah.
The strawberry farm was pretty uninteresting except for the fact that they sold all sorts of delicious strawberry things so we stuffed ourselves with waffles, scones with fresh jam, and strawberries covered in chocolate and whipped cream. My internal season clock was way thrown off though because it's winter back home so I should definitely not be eating strawberries. It's not the season for strawberries! Oh wait, I'm living in perpetual summer.
Saturday was pretty similar to Friday night and I had to get up Sunday morning to come back to Singapore because I had class Monday. My friends had breakfast with me and then we walked through the little farmer's market and bought some fruit and then I got on the bus. Four stops and nine hours later I was back in the heat. Whew.
I'm spending this week getting ready for the next two weeks of traveling (well, and I went climbing this morning - totally shredded my hands but that's what makes me so awesome)! I take off for Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Monday to meet up with my professor from home and then I go straight from there to Bangkok on Friday to meet up with Nathan from home and I come back a week later! The plan right now is to do awesome university stuff in Cambodia, fly to Bangkok and spend a couple days there (maybe we'll run into the dozens of other exchange students from NUS that will be there) and then head north in search of elephants (and tigers and rock climbing?...)! Expect numerous epic posts about those adventures upon my return!
LOVE,
M-"I want to see the world through tea"-addy
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Pineapple tarts, Karaoke, Monkeys...and I'm off!
Not too much to report - I guess that means I'm settling in!
Here's a few highlights:
1. We watched "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" in my Black Pacific class and then I was assigned to discuss gender in the movie with two other girls. Of course, I got pretty heated/excited/opinionated and we ran into a few places where we didn't see eye to eye exactly. After class, one of the girls asked me what my major was and said she wanted to know because she thinks I "think differently than we do." I'm still wondering what I'm supposed to make of that statement.
2. Last Friday I went to a nature reserve here in Singapore with two girlfriends to walk around and there were MONKEYS. Just...like...hanging out. People would walk past groups of them without taking a second glance because it's THAT NORMAL FOR THERE TO BE MONKEYS. Whoa whoa whoa. Apparently, the monkeys around there are the equivalent of squirrels to my grandparents - total pests. If you leave your windows open, they'll come in and take over your kitchen. But whatever, I don't live there, so it was basically just awesome.
3. A big wave of exhaustion hit me last weekend so I didn't do much but Saturday night I had dinner at one of my Singaporean friends' house and it was really, really lovely. They had a lot of Chinese New Year desserts - my favorite were the pineapple tarts. Afterwards, I met up with friends who had gone to the Chingay parade (wiki that - bummed I missed it, ah well) and we spent a few painful hours in an awful karaoke bar where you sing from your table. We broke up the long bouts of super sappy Chinese love songs with renditions of Sweet Home Alabama, Stayin' Alive, and Never Going to Give You Up.
4. I got the opportunity to Skype with one of my FHS classes Tues-Wed night (Tuesday morning for them) and it was really fun to be able to see a group of my classmates from home and tell them about how my classes relate to what we do back at UO. OH! Speaking of class, today in one of my tutorials, we were coming up with a list of words to express different emotions (happy, content, excited, blah blah) but students were also calling out words in Singlish, Tamil, Malay, and Mandarin, which was SO COOL and since they all know I have no idea what they're saying, they would all take the time to explain it to me and when they didn't, the professor would remind them too. Totally the kind of thing I was hoping to get out of studying abroad!
5. I went climbing again on Wednesday morning and it was really fun! More top-rope this time, which I'm more accustomed to. Hopefully, it'll become a regular thing!
6. Tickets are booked for Cambodia with my professor and then Thailand with Nathan (the friend from home who's in Tokyo)! More about that later though because right now I am taking a night bus with two girlfriends to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia (you should definitely google image that) for the weekend! (Don't worry, this time I have ringgit and a place to stay.)
Peace, Love, and Happiness to you all! (I'm wearing my super hippy pants, so I felt like that was appropriate...)
Here's a few highlights:
1. We watched "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" in my Black Pacific class and then I was assigned to discuss gender in the movie with two other girls. Of course, I got pretty heated/excited/opinionated and we ran into a few places where we didn't see eye to eye exactly. After class, one of the girls asked me what my major was and said she wanted to know because she thinks I "think differently than we do." I'm still wondering what I'm supposed to make of that statement.
2. Last Friday I went to a nature reserve here in Singapore with two girlfriends to walk around and there were MONKEYS. Just...like...hanging out. People would walk past groups of them without taking a second glance because it's THAT NORMAL FOR THERE TO BE MONKEYS. Whoa whoa whoa. Apparently, the monkeys around there are the equivalent of squirrels to my grandparents - total pests. If you leave your windows open, they'll come in and take over your kitchen. But whatever, I don't live there, so it was basically just awesome.
3. A big wave of exhaustion hit me last weekend so I didn't do much but Saturday night I had dinner at one of my Singaporean friends' house and it was really, really lovely. They had a lot of Chinese New Year desserts - my favorite were the pineapple tarts. Afterwards, I met up with friends who had gone to the Chingay parade (wiki that - bummed I missed it, ah well) and we spent a few painful hours in an awful karaoke bar where you sing from your table. We broke up the long bouts of super sappy Chinese love songs with renditions of Sweet Home Alabama, Stayin' Alive, and Never Going to Give You Up.
4. I got the opportunity to Skype with one of my FHS classes Tues-Wed night (Tuesday morning for them) and it was really fun to be able to see a group of my classmates from home and tell them about how my classes relate to what we do back at UO. OH! Speaking of class, today in one of my tutorials, we were coming up with a list of words to express different emotions (happy, content, excited, blah blah) but students were also calling out words in Singlish, Tamil, Malay, and Mandarin, which was SO COOL and since they all know I have no idea what they're saying, they would all take the time to explain it to me and when they didn't, the professor would remind them too. Totally the kind of thing I was hoping to get out of studying abroad!
5. I went climbing again on Wednesday morning and it was really fun! More top-rope this time, which I'm more accustomed to. Hopefully, it'll become a regular thing!
6. Tickets are booked for Cambodia with my professor and then Thailand with Nathan (the friend from home who's in Tokyo)! More about that later though because right now I am taking a night bus with two girlfriends to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia (you should definitely google image that) for the weekend! (Don't worry, this time I have ringgit and a place to stay.)
Peace, Love, and Happiness to you all! (I'm wearing my super hippy pants, so I felt like that was appropriate...)
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Happy Chinese New Year!
I don't even know where to begin with my weekend. Whew man.
For Chinese New Year, my school (and most everything else in Singapore) was closed on Monday and Tuesday and so a few friends and I had planned to spend the weekend in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. Unfortunately, and once again because of Chinese New Year, everything was booked and super expensive so we postponed the trip. Turns out that was an excellent decision.
Friday night we went to this man-made lake that is specifically set up for wakeboarding. You hold onto a rope that is connected to a cable that takes you in circles around this big lake with jumps (if you're good enough). I didn't participate because I still wasn't feeling well but I had a great time watching and taking pictures. I was there with some of my friends and some people I hadn't met yet, so had a great time getting to know them too. There was this group of Australians sitting at a nearby table also watching people out on the lake and one had a guitar and was singing all these songs that I knew so I finally went up to him and he invited me to sing with him, which I did for a while. A great evening all around.
Saturday, a group of nine of us (including a Singaporean and some of the guys I'd met the night before) took a little S$2 ferry to the island Pulau Ubin (Singapore territory) and rented bikes for the day. It was so AWESOME. The bikes were really cheap and crappy but it didn't matter, we just spent the day riding around the jungle and saw wild boars, chickens, MASSIVE spiders (gross), wetlands, funny crabs with only one giant claw, and little water/land creatures that look like they should be proof that evolution actually happened. We talked to this local guy who has a caged, previously-injured wild boar, Jack, about where to go and he told us where the best view was and then a place to go swimming (even though you're not supposed to). So we climbed to the top of the island that looked out over a quarry filled with water and then found another quarry where there was a place in the fence you could get through and we went swimming in unfathomably deep water that just goes straight down from the shore and we jumped off rocks and had a great time. We only just got back in time to return the bikes.
That night, some of us sat outside with tea and watched Emperor's New Groove (classic) on peoples' laptops. Lovely way to end the day.
Sunday, I took it easy during the day and then went out to dinner with a group of people and then to the Esplanade to celebrate Chinese New Year. There was a big festival/carnival thing out by the water and I walked around a little and tried some traditional Chinese desserts (all I can tell you is that there were peanuts involved and the outside had the texture of silk string or something) and took pictures with the dragon figure (that was the year I was born). There were some traditional Chinese performances that I watched a little of and then at midnight there were some sparklers (apparently, the only Singapore-approved firework display went on in Chinatown). Happy year of the Ox!
Monday marked the beginning of a spontaneous and epic trip to Malaysia. I don't know exactly where we went, I only know that another group of nine (mostly different people this time) went back to the same ferry terminal that we used to get to Pulau Ubin, showed our passports and then took an hour-long ferry to Malaysia. It was definitely a learning, assumption-challenging trip. But this is what I need to do, right? Take crazy trips like this in order to learn how to travel.
Basically, we showed up in Malaysia with no RM (Malaysian money), no place to stay (we arrived as the last ferry left for Singapore) and no plan. We got a much-too-expensive taxi ride into the nearest town with an ATM and went searching for food. No one at the restaurant (the only one that was open) spoke English but I managed to convey what four of us wanted while the other five debated what to get. Luckily, they never got a chance to order because when they brought out our food, it was massive plates meant for eating family-style. That's what I mean about assumption-challenging; we just assumed one thing on the menu was one-serving. There weren't any prices on the menu, either, so we just had to pay what they told us.
After eating, we just started walking North. We had a cartoon map that was definitely not to scale but all we had and there were a few things to do further along the coast. Over an hour of walking on the side of the road later, we managed to get to an ostrich farm where we got a guided tour. (Did you know, you can stand on ostrich eggs and they won't break?) After taking tons of pictures, we shared ostrich satay (the meat is very tender and delicious), an ostrich burger and an ostrich omelet (apparently, ostrich eggs contain less cholesterol and are overall healthier than chicken eggs). When the owner of the ostrich farm found out we had no idea what to do next, he called a bunch of hotels (which were all full) and ordered us taxis to take us wherever we needed to go. Frances, the old guy who gave us the tour of the farm, went off on his motorscooter thing and came back saying that we could stay at the Chinese Temple that was near by for free. He then took us to dinner where we had great local food. Then he found us a shuttle to what we thought was going to be a local party but turned out to be a bar in a Western resort. So we spent a few hours dancing with him and singing along with the three girls in very little clothing that sang awful old American music before getting the shuttle back to the temple. Four of us managed to find some hammocks (they turned out to be in the outdoor "office" of the temple, which I figured out when an old guy on a motorcycle pulled up next to me the next morning, looked at me like he was very confused and then started yelling to the other guy who came over to explain who I was - I think, neither one spoke English) and the rest slept on the floor in the basement of what looked like a gathering hall behind the temple.
In the morning, we walked to the ostrich farm again for some breakfast and then landed a cheap ride with an English-speaking tour guide who abandoned his current tour group for us. We went to a fruit farm and bought jackfruit, (unripe) guava, passionfruit, dragonfruit, and this other little brown one that was mushy and delicious but difficult to eat. Then our guide took us to his "resort" (by car and then by boat) which was a small floating fishery/lodging area on a river and showed us where they catch crabs and different kinds of fish and where people stay when they want to get away from the city for the weekend. We went swimming and ate lunch and then got back to the ferry terminal to head back to Singapore an hour before the last ferry was supposed to leave. Turns out, everyone else who was vacationing over Chinese New Year was also trying to go back. We were very lucky and landed a ride on the last ferry that left two and a half hours later.
And that was my whirlwind of a four-day weekend (well, six days because I don't have class on Fridays or Wednesdays)! Lots of fun, good people, good places, learning experiences and only ended up costing about US$40. Wow.
Now I just need to plan (actually plan) Cameron Highlands, Cambodia, and Thailand!
Anyone want to join?
For Chinese New Year, my school (and most everything else in Singapore) was closed on Monday and Tuesday and so a few friends and I had planned to spend the weekend in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. Unfortunately, and once again because of Chinese New Year, everything was booked and super expensive so we postponed the trip. Turns out that was an excellent decision.
Friday night we went to this man-made lake that is specifically set up for wakeboarding. You hold onto a rope that is connected to a cable that takes you in circles around this big lake with jumps (if you're good enough). I didn't participate because I still wasn't feeling well but I had a great time watching and taking pictures. I was there with some of my friends and some people I hadn't met yet, so had a great time getting to know them too. There was this group of Australians sitting at a nearby table also watching people out on the lake and one had a guitar and was singing all these songs that I knew so I finally went up to him and he invited me to sing with him, which I did for a while. A great evening all around.
Saturday, a group of nine of us (including a Singaporean and some of the guys I'd met the night before) took a little S$2 ferry to the island Pulau Ubin (Singapore territory) and rented bikes for the day. It was so AWESOME. The bikes were really cheap and crappy but it didn't matter, we just spent the day riding around the jungle and saw wild boars, chickens, MASSIVE spiders (gross), wetlands, funny crabs with only one giant claw, and little water/land creatures that look like they should be proof that evolution actually happened. We talked to this local guy who has a caged, previously-injured wild boar, Jack, about where to go and he told us where the best view was and then a place to go swimming (even though you're not supposed to). So we climbed to the top of the island that looked out over a quarry filled with water and then found another quarry where there was a place in the fence you could get through and we went swimming in unfathomably deep water that just goes straight down from the shore and we jumped off rocks and had a great time. We only just got back in time to return the bikes.
That night, some of us sat outside with tea and watched Emperor's New Groove (classic) on peoples' laptops. Lovely way to end the day.
Sunday, I took it easy during the day and then went out to dinner with a group of people and then to the Esplanade to celebrate Chinese New Year. There was a big festival/carnival thing out by the water and I walked around a little and tried some traditional Chinese desserts (all I can tell you is that there were peanuts involved and the outside had the texture of silk string or something) and took pictures with the dragon figure (that was the year I was born). There were some traditional Chinese performances that I watched a little of and then at midnight there were some sparklers (apparently, the only Singapore-approved firework display went on in Chinatown). Happy year of the Ox!
Monday marked the beginning of a spontaneous and epic trip to Malaysia. I don't know exactly where we went, I only know that another group of nine (mostly different people this time) went back to the same ferry terminal that we used to get to Pulau Ubin, showed our passports and then took an hour-long ferry to Malaysia. It was definitely a learning, assumption-challenging trip. But this is what I need to do, right? Take crazy trips like this in order to learn how to travel.
Basically, we showed up in Malaysia with no RM (Malaysian money), no place to stay (we arrived as the last ferry left for Singapore) and no plan. We got a much-too-expensive taxi ride into the nearest town with an ATM and went searching for food. No one at the restaurant (the only one that was open) spoke English but I managed to convey what four of us wanted while the other five debated what to get. Luckily, they never got a chance to order because when they brought out our food, it was massive plates meant for eating family-style. That's what I mean about assumption-challenging; we just assumed one thing on the menu was one-serving. There weren't any prices on the menu, either, so we just had to pay what they told us.
After eating, we just started walking North. We had a cartoon map that was definitely not to scale but all we had and there were a few things to do further along the coast. Over an hour of walking on the side of the road later, we managed to get to an ostrich farm where we got a guided tour. (Did you know, you can stand on ostrich eggs and they won't break?) After taking tons of pictures, we shared ostrich satay (the meat is very tender and delicious), an ostrich burger and an ostrich omelet (apparently, ostrich eggs contain less cholesterol and are overall healthier than chicken eggs). When the owner of the ostrich farm found out we had no idea what to do next, he called a bunch of hotels (which were all full) and ordered us taxis to take us wherever we needed to go. Frances, the old guy who gave us the tour of the farm, went off on his motorscooter thing and came back saying that we could stay at the Chinese Temple that was near by for free. He then took us to dinner where we had great local food. Then he found us a shuttle to what we thought was going to be a local party but turned out to be a bar in a Western resort. So we spent a few hours dancing with him and singing along with the three girls in very little clothing that sang awful old American music before getting the shuttle back to the temple. Four of us managed to find some hammocks (they turned out to be in the outdoor "office" of the temple, which I figured out when an old guy on a motorcycle pulled up next to me the next morning, looked at me like he was very confused and then started yelling to the other guy who came over to explain who I was - I think, neither one spoke English) and the rest slept on the floor in the basement of what looked like a gathering hall behind the temple.
In the morning, we walked to the ostrich farm again for some breakfast and then landed a cheap ride with an English-speaking tour guide who abandoned his current tour group for us. We went to a fruit farm and bought jackfruit, (unripe) guava, passionfruit, dragonfruit, and this other little brown one that was mushy and delicious but difficult to eat. Then our guide took us to his "resort" (by car and then by boat) which was a small floating fishery/lodging area on a river and showed us where they catch crabs and different kinds of fish and where people stay when they want to get away from the city for the weekend. We went swimming and ate lunch and then got back to the ferry terminal to head back to Singapore an hour before the last ferry was supposed to leave. Turns out, everyone else who was vacationing over Chinese New Year was also trying to go back. We were very lucky and landed a ride on the last ferry that left two and a half hours later.
And that was my whirlwind of a four-day weekend (well, six days because I don't have class on Fridays or Wednesdays)! Lots of fun, good people, good places, learning experiences and only ended up costing about US$40. Wow.
Now I just need to plan (actually plan) Cameron Highlands, Cambodia, and Thailand!
Anyone want to join?
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Sunburned in January
Once again, so much has happened since I last wrote! Maybe I should start updating this more often...
1. My first weekend in Singapore, the NUS exchange student group organized a trip for about thirty-five exchange students to travel to the island of Bintan in Indonesia. I went with my roommate, Sophie, and a couple other friends and made many more friends while I was there. It was so great. I spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out on an isolated beach, swimming, eating Indonesian BBQ, and getting to know people from all over the world that will be I sharing this experience with over the next four months. It doesn't get any better than that!
2. Classes started last week, although at NUS there is a two week add/drop period so I'm still working out the details of my schedule. I am currently in three social work classes and one class in the University Scholars Programme (UO Honors College equivalent) called Historicizing the Black Pacific (hopefully I'll be able to better explain what that means once I've been in the class for a while). I was excited to find that my social work classes are very similar to my classes at home and that much of what I'll be studying over the next semester is review (we talked about the Ecological Model today - thank you, FHS!). One thing that is very, very different though, is that I am the only exchange student in my classes and that means that I stand out. Really stand out. And every one of my professors pointed me out to the class either by announcing my presence to the class (because who else would be the student from the US?) or making comments about Western culture/thought and included me somehow. It's also impossible for me to walk around anywhere without getting stared at. It's not a bad thing at all, it's just something I haven't really experienced before. Sometimes it works as a get-out-of-jail-free card because people just seem to be waiting for me to ask for help and are always really friendly when I do.
3. I have two new roommates! Sophie and I lived very comfortably for two weeks and I'm glad we did because now we're good friends, but in the last two days, we've both gotten roommates. They're both very nice and I think we'll have fun together, even if it is a little crowded. In my room is Mari from Norway and Sophie shares her room with Karin from Sweden.
4. Unfortunately, I caught something of a cold last week just from lack of sleep and trying to adjust and everything and it hasn't completely cleared up but I'm doing my best to get over it. I think that going from heat to intensely air conditioned rooms is hard on my body. What makes it worse is that I just found out that last week was one of the coldest weeks Singapore has ever had. I thought it was tolerable. Uh oh.
5. I went climbing on Sunday for the first time in a few months with a friend of an acquaintance and boy, am I sore. Singaporean climbers are ridiculous. What they can do with their bodies is just beyond anything I've ever seen before. Also very nice people though, so I'm not completely scared away yet. I just really need to get back into shape.
6. I've been enjoying exploring the city with some of my new friends (most of whom are Dutch). We often go for dinner somewhere and then don't come home for hours because we just walk around or talk. On Saturday, we went to Sentosa which is an artificial island that Singapore literally created for tourists. They're still working on some areas and you can see patches of "beach" that they're making. It's got white sand beaches with blue waters that have nothing in them and expensive restaurants with Westerners enjoying their afternoon cocktails while they're perfectly clad children run around. They play old American pop songs from my middle school years while people play volleyball and sunbathe. There are little islands just off of the beaches that we swam out to and discovered that they're made out of concrete and hollow rocks. Beyond the islands you can see the huge ships that use Singapore as their port. An interesting contrast that I've never seen before. The plants on Sentosa are alive but were planted perfectly along the edges of fake rock roads. It was like walking in Disneyland, just without the characters. I'm glad I went and got to see it and we had a lovely day, but I don't think I'll be going back.
7. I am currently sitting outside my apartment block drinking mango juice and listening to Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement, the incredibly awesome CD my mom found that has all these great songs with pieces of Obama's speeches in them and I am getting pumped. USA time, Bush's last day in office is over. Tonight, I am going to an inauguration party where there will be musical performances and celebrations and then we'll all watch the live streaming of the inauguration from CNN.com. A couple of my Dutch friends are coming with me. They promised to hold my hand while I cry. I am far from home but I am so excited to celebrate this historical moment from across the ocean. It makes me so happy that people from all around the world will be celebrating with me. So tonight, my heart is in my country.
Whew! Epic post! I'm about to go have dinner with my aunt-by-marriage's brother and I'm very excited to meet him and his family. I will hopefully be writing again sooner so that those of you who don't want to read novels every time you get on this won't have to next time. But I am very grateful you are reading! I love sharing these experiences with the people in my life.
Emails and Facebook messages always welcomed and encouraged! Love, M
1. My first weekend in Singapore, the NUS exchange student group organized a trip for about thirty-five exchange students to travel to the island of Bintan in Indonesia. I went with my roommate, Sophie, and a couple other friends and made many more friends while I was there. It was so great. I spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out on an isolated beach, swimming, eating Indonesian BBQ, and getting to know people from all over the world that will be I sharing this experience with over the next four months. It doesn't get any better than that!
2. Classes started last week, although at NUS there is a two week add/drop period so I'm still working out the details of my schedule. I am currently in three social work classes and one class in the University Scholars Programme (UO Honors College equivalent) called Historicizing the Black Pacific (hopefully I'll be able to better explain what that means once I've been in the class for a while). I was excited to find that my social work classes are very similar to my classes at home and that much of what I'll be studying over the next semester is review (we talked about the Ecological Model today - thank you, FHS!). One thing that is very, very different though, is that I am the only exchange student in my classes and that means that I stand out. Really stand out. And every one of my professors pointed me out to the class either by announcing my presence to the class (because who else would be the student from the US?) or making comments about Western culture/thought and included me somehow. It's also impossible for me to walk around anywhere without getting stared at. It's not a bad thing at all, it's just something I haven't really experienced before. Sometimes it works as a get-out-of-jail-free card because people just seem to be waiting for me to ask for help and are always really friendly when I do.
3. I have two new roommates! Sophie and I lived very comfortably for two weeks and I'm glad we did because now we're good friends, but in the last two days, we've both gotten roommates. They're both very nice and I think we'll have fun together, even if it is a little crowded. In my room is Mari from Norway and Sophie shares her room with Karin from Sweden.
4. Unfortunately, I caught something of a cold last week just from lack of sleep and trying to adjust and everything and it hasn't completely cleared up but I'm doing my best to get over it. I think that going from heat to intensely air conditioned rooms is hard on my body. What makes it worse is that I just found out that last week was one of the coldest weeks Singapore has ever had. I thought it was tolerable. Uh oh.
5. I went climbing on Sunday for the first time in a few months with a friend of an acquaintance and boy, am I sore. Singaporean climbers are ridiculous. What they can do with their bodies is just beyond anything I've ever seen before. Also very nice people though, so I'm not completely scared away yet. I just really need to get back into shape.
6. I've been enjoying exploring the city with some of my new friends (most of whom are Dutch). We often go for dinner somewhere and then don't come home for hours because we just walk around or talk. On Saturday, we went to Sentosa which is an artificial island that Singapore literally created for tourists. They're still working on some areas and you can see patches of "beach" that they're making. It's got white sand beaches with blue waters that have nothing in them and expensive restaurants with Westerners enjoying their afternoon cocktails while they're perfectly clad children run around. They play old American pop songs from my middle school years while people play volleyball and sunbathe. There are little islands just off of the beaches that we swam out to and discovered that they're made out of concrete and hollow rocks. Beyond the islands you can see the huge ships that use Singapore as their port. An interesting contrast that I've never seen before. The plants on Sentosa are alive but were planted perfectly along the edges of fake rock roads. It was like walking in Disneyland, just without the characters. I'm glad I went and got to see it and we had a lovely day, but I don't think I'll be going back.
7. I am currently sitting outside my apartment block drinking mango juice and listening to Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement, the incredibly awesome CD my mom found that has all these great songs with pieces of Obama's speeches in them and I am getting pumped. USA time, Bush's last day in office is over. Tonight, I am going to an inauguration party where there will be musical performances and celebrations and then we'll all watch the live streaming of the inauguration from CNN.com. A couple of my Dutch friends are coming with me. They promised to hold my hand while I cry. I am far from home but I am so excited to celebrate this historical moment from across the ocean. It makes me so happy that people from all around the world will be celebrating with me. So tonight, my heart is in my country.
Whew! Epic post! I'm about to go have dinner with my aunt-by-marriage's brother and I'm very excited to meet him and his family. I will hopefully be writing again sooner so that those of you who don't want to read novels every time you get on this won't have to next time. But I am very grateful you are reading! I love sharing these experiences with the people in my life.
Emails and Facebook messages always welcomed and encouraged! Love, M
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Safe, Sound, and Settling...
Hello from Singapore!
I left the States a week ago today and so much has happened since then! My flight on the morning of the first was delayed three hours in Portland (we had to switch planes and everything because of technical difficulties) so I missed my connecting flight and spent the night in Tokyo. That turned out to be a much better deal for me because I was able to sleep in a hotel (and talk to my friend, Nathan, who is currently studying in Tokyo) instead of having to get on a seven hour flight to Singapore after flying eleven hours across the ocean. My aunt-by-marriage's brother and his family live in Singapore (although they were spending the holidays in Switzerland) and I was able to spend my first night and day in their condo, which was wonderful. Their helper was very sweet and considerate and I relaxed all day before making my way to my university housing.
Unfortunately, I did not get into on-campus housing, so I am living a bus and a train (called the MRT) ride away from campus in a two bedroom apartment with a central room, kitchen area (with refrigerator, washing machine, sink, hot plate, and microwave), and a little bathroom. Eventually, I will have three roommates but so far only one has shown up (Sophie from Amsterdam) and she's in the room next to mine. The good thing is that there are seven buildings of National University of Singapore (NUS) exchange students around me and also other apartment buildings that anyone can rent. I'm near the MRT station, a supermarket, and local food stalls, so at least I wasn't thrown out in the middle of nowhere!
So far I have spent my time exploring, mostly by MRT and foot (consequently, my feet are very sore). U of Oregon has a direct exchange with NUS and so I met a student from here, Xintian, while she was studying in Oregon last semester and she has been unbelievably helpful. I really have no idea how I would have found my way to campus (let alone the rest of the city) if it wasn't for her! Yesterday was registration for me, so I now have paid all my fees (I hope) and received my Student Pass, which means I am legally living in Singapore for the next four months. Whoa.
One of the main questions that I've been getting from people back home is: how is the heat/humidity? And so far, it's actually been fine. Yes, it's hot. Yes, it's humid. Yes, I sweat all the time. But it's kind of fun and so far, I'm enjoying it. We'll see how long that lasts. I actually have air conditioning in my room but it was broken for the first three days and I didn't mind at all (after I bought a mini fan that I kept on while sleeping). I love the rain here. It just pours like crazy but that meant that I had to go against all my Oregonian instincts and buy a cheap umbrella to carry with me.
The other questions I've been getting a lot concern food. Basically, it's mostly rice and noodles and meat/seafood wherever you go. I haven't really been here long enough to be able to tell you much else yet, except that it's cheaper to eat out (at food stalls and such) than it is to prepare food at home. So far, that's just made meal times an adventure in themselves!
Things I've discovered (some that I'll have to get used to):
- Cars drive/people walk on the left.
- Most restaurants (besides expensive ones) don't give you napkins (sometimes they'll sell them to you).
- Most sinks in houses, etc. don't have hot water. There's a switch to turn the water heater on for the shower but faucets don't have a hot water option.
- Home is yesterday (my computer says that it's 8:48pm on Wed in Portland, but I am typing at 12:48pm on Thurs)
- Bubble Tea here is SO much better than it is in the US.
- There are grocery stores in malls.
- I never know what I'm ordering and usually don't know what I'm eating once I've gotten it.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some but I'm off to brave the sun! (Don't worry, I carry sunscreen with me wherever I go)
Sending love all around the world.
I left the States a week ago today and so much has happened since then! My flight on the morning of the first was delayed three hours in Portland (we had to switch planes and everything because of technical difficulties) so I missed my connecting flight and spent the night in Tokyo. That turned out to be a much better deal for me because I was able to sleep in a hotel (and talk to my friend, Nathan, who is currently studying in Tokyo) instead of having to get on a seven hour flight to Singapore after flying eleven hours across the ocean. My aunt-by-marriage's brother and his family live in Singapore (although they were spending the holidays in Switzerland) and I was able to spend my first night and day in their condo, which was wonderful. Their helper was very sweet and considerate and I relaxed all day before making my way to my university housing.
Unfortunately, I did not get into on-campus housing, so I am living a bus and a train (called the MRT) ride away from campus in a two bedroom apartment with a central room, kitchen area (with refrigerator, washing machine, sink, hot plate, and microwave), and a little bathroom. Eventually, I will have three roommates but so far only one has shown up (Sophie from Amsterdam) and she's in the room next to mine. The good thing is that there are seven buildings of National University of Singapore (NUS) exchange students around me and also other apartment buildings that anyone can rent. I'm near the MRT station, a supermarket, and local food stalls, so at least I wasn't thrown out in the middle of nowhere!
So far I have spent my time exploring, mostly by MRT and foot (consequently, my feet are very sore). U of Oregon has a direct exchange with NUS and so I met a student from here, Xintian, while she was studying in Oregon last semester and she has been unbelievably helpful. I really have no idea how I would have found my way to campus (let alone the rest of the city) if it wasn't for her! Yesterday was registration for me, so I now have paid all my fees (I hope) and received my Student Pass, which means I am legally living in Singapore for the next four months. Whoa.
One of the main questions that I've been getting from people back home is: how is the heat/humidity? And so far, it's actually been fine. Yes, it's hot. Yes, it's humid. Yes, I sweat all the time. But it's kind of fun and so far, I'm enjoying it. We'll see how long that lasts. I actually have air conditioning in my room but it was broken for the first three days and I didn't mind at all (after I bought a mini fan that I kept on while sleeping). I love the rain here. It just pours like crazy but that meant that I had to go against all my Oregonian instincts and buy a cheap umbrella to carry with me.
The other questions I've been getting a lot concern food. Basically, it's mostly rice and noodles and meat/seafood wherever you go. I haven't really been here long enough to be able to tell you much else yet, except that it's cheaper to eat out (at food stalls and such) than it is to prepare food at home. So far, that's just made meal times an adventure in themselves!
Things I've discovered (some that I'll have to get used to):
- Cars drive/people walk on the left.
- Most restaurants (besides expensive ones) don't give you napkins (sometimes they'll sell them to you).
- Most sinks in houses, etc. don't have hot water. There's a switch to turn the water heater on for the shower but faucets don't have a hot water option.
- Home is yesterday (my computer says that it's 8:48pm on Wed in Portland, but I am typing at 12:48pm on Thurs)
- Bubble Tea here is SO much better than it is in the US.
- There are grocery stores in malls.
- I never know what I'm ordering and usually don't know what I'm eating once I've gotten it.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some but I'm off to brave the sun! (Don't worry, I carry sunscreen with me wherever I go)
Sending love all around the world.
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