Singapore: Just Arrived

29-12-2004
Left Sydney feeling very sad...many a teary eye as I left my family at customs at Sydney Airport.

Airside was dead - there was nothing open, which dashed my hopes of picking up some decent Aussie mags to quench my homesick-ness.

30-12-2004
Arrived at 4am from non-eventful flight tired and lonely (esp. at the dead quiet airport), got to PGP in record time (15mins), and then spent another 15 or so minutes trying to find the badly signposted (read: no signpost) fire management office to check-in. When I did find it (totally by accident really), I found they did not have my key, and as such could not let me into my room. As
such, I was put in a common room and told pretty much to sleep until 8:30 at which time I could get my key. Called parents and bawled my eyes out!

Woke at 8am by people refilling Coke machines and whatnot, and slowly stumbled awake. Went to real office at 8:30 to find my room was not yet ready and was being cleaned. So I, quite over being annoyed by now, and merely bemused that somewhere as famously regimented as Singapore could be so inept, joined one of the ladies from the check-in office for a Malay breakfast down at the canteen. I finally checked into my room at 10ish.

Spent the rest of the day unpacking, marvelling at how small my room was, and shopping. In between I felt amazingly lonely and pretty much regretted coming here at all. There appears to be no one else at PGP except for a few random American girls who I see occasionally waiting for the shuttle bus. Everyone else is seemingly a Chinese couple. I also did not expect to feel this foreign. I have been here before as a Tourist, but being a tourist, you tend to stick to 'Touristy' places, and although as a family we ventured from there, I have never done so alone. Quite an experience, and I respect my Dad so much more now for being able to do it so often with work.

Shopped at Robinsons on Orchard Rd, Bugis, went on the MRT and buses, Clementi etc... and had dinner with Samantha, who was one of the coordinators for a Psychology experiment I did at USyd earlier in 2004. I emailed her a few weeks back and she replied the other day. We went to Clementi Central (a massive local hawker centre) and talked about Singapore and life in general. Made me feel much better.

Still went to bed lonely though. The shoes outside the rooms around me don't appear to have moved at all since I arrived. The kitchen is in a similar state of disrepair as well. Eek!

31-12-2004
I awoke not really knowing how today would work. By now, in my head at least, I had expected to have met all my cluster-mates (what they call those who live in the same section as you at PGP, and those with whom you share a kitchen), and subsequently been planning a massive NYE with them.

I finished getting ready at 10:30am, and receieved a call from home. Calls from home right now aren't the greatest - whilst it is fantastic to hear from family (obviously), it reminds me of how lonely I am without them. I really miss them, and the little things get to me. Settling in has not been the breeze I had anticipated it to be. I think I could manage talking to complete strangers if there had been any around. The complete lack of people is beginning to freak me out!!

This call, as with all others, reduced me to tears by the end, but I did manage to get Tim (the other USyd guy who's here) and Jess ( a USyd girl who was here last year)'s Singaporean mobile numbers. I called Tim, and found out he was in exactly the same boat as me (thank god!!), and so we met and went into Clementi and then all around touristy Singapore (Chinatown, Little India, Suntec City, Raffles City, the Esplanade and Orchard Rd) before heading back via bus, which was an experience (although not as bad as yesterday when it took me 1 hour to get from Clementi to PGP, when it should take at most 15mins, just because I took the wrong bus, and then got off at the wrong stop, and then waiting at the wrong internal bus stop and all of it was making me feel more and more foreign. At least when someone stopped to ask directions (!!) I was able to help them!! Yay!

Right now, its 8pm and I've just found out that I could've opened up a computer account with my Matriculation number if I had done so today before 6pm. Now with the public holidays and Sunday, I have to wait till Monday. Ah well. I'm off to spend NYE at Smith St (Chinatown) and Clarke Quay (fireworks). Hope it's a good one!

31-12-2004: Part II
So, off we went to NYE at Chinatown and Clarke Quay. As with most things, this involved us getting hopelessly lost. It doesn't help that I am the only one directing, and can't remember everything perfectly from last time!! We started at Smith St, and had some awesome satays. One thing though - it turns out to be an expensive dinner if you eat satays - as they are 50c each, but you always order around 10, and then there are drinks, so you are looking at $7-8 for dinner, which by Singaporean hawker-centre standards, is quite expensive. So we went there, and had a few Tigers (the local beer), and met an English couple who were making their way along Smith St, eating what they liked as they went, which is exactly the way to do it. They recommended Maxwell St Food Centre a few blocks away as a good place to eat, a recommendation that has been since seconded by Samantha, so I think we will be eating there soon.

From Chinatown, we moved South, rather than our intended North, and ended up in what we thought way Geyleng (Singapore's red-light district), when really it was just Tanjong Pagar! Still, it was a 15min walk through completely unknown territory at 11pm!! Eventually we took a cab back to Clarke Quay, and pretty much retraced our steps totally!! Once we got to Clarke Quay though, we were surprised by its relative calm. All the bars and restaurants were busy (including Singapore's only Hooters - quite a shock considering how regimented the country is!), but it wasn't absolutely packed with people like Sydney is at 11pm on NYE. Suffice to say, we walked around Clarke Quay twice, and ended up at Brewerkz, a micro-brewery, which at that time had the cheapest beer ($4 a bottle - which changed to $13 a bottle post-midnight ). The countdown was marred by overly-loud music, which just crackled in the speakers, but was more than made-up-for with the awesomely stupid idea to spray silly-spray and fake snow everywhere come midnight. This was probably the first time here I've been truly happy! Yay!

The night ended quite early, with Tim & I, realising how expensive the drinks were going to be, leaving for one of the last MRTs back home. Having reached Clementi at around 1am, we did not anticipate not getting home till 2am! However, being us, we managed to come into Uni via the wrong entrance, at ended up at the hospital, which is a 15min walk over the ridge to PGP and a 25min walk to Temasek, over the same ridge. It is this ridge that makes NUS so hard to negotiate, as everything runs on different levels. I'm sure though, in a week or so, we'll be old-hats at it. Anyway, this walk did not take 15mins!! We must have taken the most round-about way to walk across the ridge, but, like all our little side-trips, we ended up knowing a but more of NUS.