Singapore

Hey guys,

Sorry for not posting over the past few days - I've been really sick.

On the bus trip from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh (in Cambodia) I started to feel ill. By the time we had reached Phnom Penh International Airport I was definitely not well. I tried eating cookies and drinking Sprite (my usual pick-me-up), however it didn't help at all.

The last time Sprite didn't solve a problem was when I had food poisoning at KMart. That was not fun (throwing up in public never is).

So I had food poisoning in Cambodia! Fantastic! This was something I was not going to forget. Andy had lost his passport, both Bernd and Nina had been mildly sick during the trip (Nina the day before) and now I had major stomach issues.

I believe it came from either our decidly 'local' lunch at Bokor the day before, although both Nina and Bernd shared that with me, or the chicken/fish I had on the beach the night before. Whilst we all ate the same food from the same place, I guess I was just unlucky.

All I can say is I am very VERY glad Phnom Penh & Bangkok Airports have clean, new, Western toilets. I can't imagine having diarrohea with squat toilets ... ugh! (I'm going to be VERY careful in China).

Thanks to everyone who travelled with me that day for all your drugs, support and warm clothes.

Now I am feeling a lot better, and the assessment that I missed has been rescheduled I am free to relax (Postcript: my bastard lecturer has turned it into a 3000-word essay due in 4 days - argh!) .

Advice for overcoming food posioning:
Don't take Imodium etc.. unless you HAVE to - believe it or not, I didn't take any till Day 2 (I didn't have any!).Drink only waterEat plain white bread and bananas.Don't visit Singaporean doctors (!) - they just hand you a veritable medicine cabinet full of drugs that don't really help. Plus they keep you waiting AGES with their fantastically useless queuing system.

This past week has been crazy! We are leaving tonight for Cambodia, a trip that has been planned, and re-planned and discussed incessantly for the past few weeks! It's been nuts, and a whole lot of fun.

However, this week has also made me realise *finally* that I am here to study as well as party and travel, and so I've been a little bad a left a few assignments to the last minute.

It began last Sunday with a walk around campus and the surrounding area with the local environmental group - the Kent Ridge Heritage Walk. It was a fascinating look at the history of the area – which was the site of the last battle of the Malay regiment in WW2 against the Japanese. The fact that we were there on the anniversary made it all the more special. That, and we discovered our campus has bunkers from WW2 hidden behind a water tank! How many uni’s can claim that! That night we went out for Kiran’s birthday dinner at Holland V(illage), the local expat hangout. Very nice Indian food! Happy 23rd Kiran!

Tuesday night, however, was not a time for celebration, as we saw Hotel Rwanda at the cinemas. I haven’t seen a film like that since Schindler’s List, and none of us left dry-eyed. The film was so powerful, and so moving, it really makes you want to do something and stand up against all the injustices in the world. I was almost speechless after seeing it, and for me, that is quite an achievement.

The past few days, Shirley, Tim, Aruni and I have been discussing setting up an 'Australian' stall for the International Fiesta to be held at NUS yesterday and today (where I got to finally see a dragon dance!). It didn't eventuate, but it did mean we finally went to Aussimart - the only store to sell Vegemite in Singapore - however it was shite! Really small, and with only one or two items of interest, we left having bought nothing. It was a letdown really - we had built it up (having walked past it many times when it was closed) to be this amazing store, and a cure for all our intermittent homesickness - but no, it was just a small store selling very little of interest.

However, back to the main topic: my Uni work. This week I had two large assessments due, and I needed to study for a midterm exam (which is on two days after we return from Cambodia!). Suffice to say, it was a difficult week, and I don't think my essay (for one of my history subjects: Colonial Indochina) is entirely up to scratch - but hopefully my Prof. won't notice. The tutorial presentation (for SE Asian studies - on migration) went really well, as that was today.

I feel so relieved now to have those two over - my first real test of studying in another country and I think I may have just made it. At least they were all done and handed in on time!

Now, it’s off to the airport and Cambodia!

Ciao!

For many exchange students, CNY represented too good an opportunity to miss. For most (including myself) it meant 5 or 6 days off in a row, with no tutorials or assignments due.

However, I decided to experience CNY here, and catch up on Uni work and readings etc... Travel has taken its toll on my uni work, and I need to do more than the bare minimum as my grades are transferred (for many of the Northern Hemisphere students, esp. the Americans there work is taken as a pass/fail!)

So...as there were a few of us remaining in Singapore, we made the most of it, visiting Istana (the Preisdent's House on Orchard Rd), having a 'reunion dinner' with a local family, and watching the firecrackers and fireworks from Chinatown itself on NYE.

Chinese New Year is celebrated in Singapore with a two-day holiday. The holiday revolves around spending time with your family and relatives, particularly if you haven't seen them in a while - hence the many full flights, and the importance of Taiwan-China flights around this time.
We (Jane, Mike, Brandy and myself) spent Tuesday night (New Years Eve) at Jane (from Canada)'s Aunt's apartment enjoying reunion dinner, and learning to play Mahjong (Chinese 'pairs' game basically). It was great - the variety and amount of food was unbeliveable, and I tried many types of fish and meat (including cow and pig stomach) that I would never have otherwise eaten. (At least its preparing me for grasshoppers and spiders in China!). Got to practice some of my limited Chinese and visit my first HDB apartment. Thanks Jane!

Reunion dinner ended around 10pm, so we made our way to Chinatown, along with 500,000 other Singaporeans, and wedged ourselves in the crowd to count down New Years. Despite the numbers, it seemed remarkably quiet compared to Sydney NYE crowds, where by 10pm you may as well stay at home because its so packed.

The firecrackers which followed the countdown (done in Chinese! - Shi, Jiu, Ba, Qi, Liu, Wu, Si, San, Er, Yi) are a tradition, however I don't think they've been used in Singapore for many years - and only now has the ban been lifted! I am not too sure why they'd ban such an obvious part of the celebrations, but hey, this is Singapore, the land where you can be fined for spitting, but having 10 people sitting in the back of a pickup truck is fine!

At midnight, after some of the crowd had dispersed, we followed a mass of people around the streets of Chinatown to do some last-minute CNY shopping. We picked up a box of Mandarins for half-price (still overpriced compared to normal!), some sticky cake, and bubble tea along with admiring the tackiness of it all. It's just like Christmas - again!

Wednesday, the first day of the new year, is a day of new beginnings - so the Chinese are expected to have a new haircut (they can't cut their hair in the first three weeks of the new year, as its bad luck), and wear an entirely new outfit. This is the day when they visit all their relatives, and the kids pick up Ang Pao (red packets - containing money). I spent Wednesday at home, and saw Seoul Raiders, a Korean-Hong Kong action comedy, along the style of Charlie's Angels. Very poor, but it knew it was being stupid, so it was ok!

Thursday was our visit to Istana ('Palace' in Malay), the President's residence near Dhoby Ghaut station on Orchard Rd. This place is MASSIVE! It covers a block from Orchard Rd to City Hall. It's only open on selected public holidays every year, and we got to wander around the grounds (just like Government House in Sydney) and selected rooms in the house. Apparently, in the afternoon President Nathan and his wife came out to greet visitors, but we had left by then

And that was it, Chinese New Year Singapore-style!

Wow! How time flies...this is nuts! My blog posts are, well, firstly delayed, but secondly organised based on the trips I make away from Singapore! I knew I would travel, but not this often! Ah well, you only get a chance like this once, right? The money can work itself out later.

Sandwiched in the two weeks between my weekend in KL, and my big mid-term break in Cambodia was Chinese New Year (my first in a Chinese-majority country), Kiran and Doreen's birthdays, and the NUS International Fiesta! Plus my first assessments (one for SE Asian studies, and one for History). It started relatively quiet...and then rapidly accelerated until the day we left for Cambodia I was majorly stressing! But more on that later...

Tuesday, February 1st, 2005.
Tonight we went to dinner with my host father. The Host Family programme is one established by NUS to help exchange students, however as with many things, it has its limits. Basically, the program involves each student being paired with a local 'parent', with the aim being they take them out to the non-touristy attractions and places, and show them a side to Singapore that would otherwise not be known. Since signing up for the program when I arrived, I have only been out once with my host father - Prof Albert Teo - and this level of meeting seems quite normal. Many have only been out once. Whilst it would've been great to have seen him more and done more, everyone knows how busy we all are - because after all, we are not just here on holiday.

Regardless, thanks Albert! It's been great! He took us to Muthu's, an Indian restaurant owned by the brother of the owner of the Apollo Banana Leaf restaurant 2 doors down!. It turns out they worked together until about 30 years ago, when they had an argument and began operating competing restaurants. Having eaten at both now, I can say its a neck-and-neck race - both are SOOO good! Although Muthu's has just undergone a refurbishment and looks really nice. Definitely wins points for style. No more banana leafs though

So, back to the evening. Faruuk (Bosnian, studying in the Netherlands), Martin (Hungarian, studying in the Netherlands), Albert and myself headed off to Racecourse Rd. Once there, an ex-student of Prof Teo's came up and said hello - something which would rarely be done at a Uni level in Sydney I think. Or maybe not. I dunno - I would do it with my year 12 teachers, but I don't think I would with Uni lecturers etc... - they wouldn't know me for a start!

We ate fish head curry (!) - the first time for us exchange students - and it was really tasty. Not too spicy (we specifically asked for it mild), and really juicy. Definitely a must-try. Just don't eat the eyes - leave that to the locals! We also had vegetables, and an assortment of curries. All of it was far more authentic (as far as I have been told) than Sydney Indian food, and so cheap too! Even better.

We then went for a walk through the red-light district of Little India - somewhere that I didn't even think existed. Well, it does! In all its un-subtle glory. One moment you are walking down a seemingly innocent busy street, full of money changers and food stalls, and then you turn left down a back alley and end up in a distinctly different world. Compared to the almost-clinical Signapore portreyed in shopping centres and Orchard Rd, this is something else. We almost called it un-Singaporean, but of course, that's nonsense. ALL of Singapore is Singapore, and it's this variety that makes it so special.

The alley (Deskar Rd if you're interested) is just a very simple street, with red lanterns hung above all the (open) entrances to the brothels. As you walk along, you can peer in and see the ladies 'available' - the idea being you can see before you buy, so to speak. Apparently this street exists to serve the migrant workers mostly, with the 'quality' being lower than the other red-light district of Geyleng.

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005.
No clubbing for me tonight - need to budget now! KL ate too much money

Instead, I went to two cultural performances held on campus. Tonight made me realise how un-cultured USyd is, and also, how busy NUS is at night - even so early in the semester. It just seems to be far more lively come 5pm+, at a time when USyd just dies. I still can't pin it down to one, or a few, reasons, but I think it has something to do with regular and efficient transport leaving the Uni till 11pm, and a general desire to study and stay at the libraries to do so, until late in the evening. I'm presuming living in apartments adds to the quest for space - which NUS' libraries have in abundance.

So, instead of my regular diet of Dinner-->Procrastination-->Clubbing-->Cheese Prata-->Waking up at midday on Thursday, I went to the pre-Chinese New Year (CNY) presentation at PGP, and a Thai Dance performance by a group from a Thai University.

Both were really interesting - and for different reasons. The CNY presentation was given by some local students, as was more an inidication of Singaporean presentation-styles, than it was about CNY - but that's cool. As a result, I met Pavi, an international student here who runs iCare - a program similar to ADG or UniMates at USyd. We talked about the similiarities and differences between volunteering in our two countries, and how Uni students respond. As may seem strange there are far more similiarities than differences.

Back to the presentation: we went through the various rituals and traditions associated with CNY, and the various Singaporean touches - such as Bak Kwa (glazed pork). We then gave two mandarin oranges to the person next to us, and learnt the standard CNY greetings: Xin nian kuai le / Gong xi fa cai. Which translates to: Happy New Year / May you be very prosperous!

At the Thai Dance performance, we were treated to some really beautiful, fluid dances performed by students our age! It felt far more real than those I've seen at hotels and tourist attractions in Thailand, and it demonstrated the different styles and motions of Thai dance through about 10 dances. It was great to be able to see performances like that - I really think USyd should start promoting local and regional performances on its grounds. I'd definitely go.