Singapore

03-01-2005
Woke at 10:50 this morning, which is very much a Tristan thing to do. I had thought that because I was here, and everything that was associated with it, that perhaps I would change and be suddenly able to wake up early, but alas no, it is not to be!! Hahah!! I found out today from Tim that we can't get net access till tomorrow Whilst this is definitely not a long time to wait, because it was expected I am a bit annoyed now - I want net access!!!

The rest of the day was fantastic - I finally bought a camera from Far East Plaza [Orchard Rd] (which apparently takes the number 1 place at the top of the Singaporean 'Blacklist' of retailers not to shop at, but the place I bought from seemed very nice and the camera works, and the warranty card is there (both for Singapore and international), so I am very happy so far. For those of you in-the-know with digital cameras, it was a Pentax Optio S5i, which I bought for S$550 or A$440. Considering the same camera in Aus is at least $650, I was pretty happy!

As an aside, during our travels on Orchard Rd, Tim and I visited Borders (the bookstore), and discovered the slogan of the Expat magazine (for those Expatriates who are living in Singapore away from their home country) was 'Living well is the best revenge'. Revenge for what??!?! For living in Singapore...for living in Asia??? I am assuming it is probably in reference to living away from home, but still, it could be far more subtle and less us-verses-them!

From Far East, Tim and I once again returned to Sim Lim Square, and the Changi Prison Museum. Sim Lim remained unchanged, but the museum was a very somber experience. The museum itself is quite small, and the chapel has been recreated or moved from its original place, but that does not detract from the events. The displays are well laid-out, and the abundance of quotes and first-hand reports really add a personal scale to such a large event. It bought me very close to tears, especially reading all the 'In memory of' notes in the chapel. So many lives lost, and for what .... ?

What surprised me (aside from the honesty with which the Singaporeans have dealt with WW2) was the fact that the original prison location has been maintained, and is now a women's prison. It just seems quite surreal and almost sacreligous to re-use such a horrific place for modern purposes. In Sydney I think the site would have been maintained, and definitely not re-used. The memories and ghosts there would be too hard to handle.

Dined again at Clementi - quite possibly the best food in the world for under $4!!

04-01-2005
Live as an exchange student began for real today, with the day ending with me knowing people!! Hooray!!!

I woke up rather early (8:30ish) and went to find a bank. I had been told, and read, that there was a DBS (the main local bank) branch at the National University Hospital (NUH), which is located on campus, about 5mins walk from my room. However, after a 20minute walk to and around NUH, I could not find it anywhere. ATMs yes, branches no. I even asked at the main information counter, and they just smiled and said no. Damn!!!

So from there, I went to Clementi by bus and opened an account. In Singapore, you take a 'Q' number, and wait, and each counter (when free) serves the next person from a central queue. Seems to work really well, except their queues are HUGE!!! At least DBS has a seperate area for new accounts. They tried to cheat me by telling me my minimum deposit was S$500, when they knew for well I was under 21 and therefore it was S$1. Grrr!

At least that is done now!!

From there, I went to registration, and found out they had my email and internet account activated in AUGUST 2004!!! So they COULD have sent it to me, but no, that would have been too hard apparently.!!! Grrrr again! At least now I have internet access - you don't know how important email is till its gone!

From registration, I met loads of people, 25 from the University of California (mostly Berkeley), 3 from Holland, and one in my cluster from Scotland. Very cool! Because of this, we ate really early at PGP (6pm!!), and watched cheesy Singaporean tv - a show about exchange students called 'Big Unknown' which had a Polish guy going to SMU (Singapore Management Uni), and their sitcoms (Living with Lidia especially). They are awful!! But they are so bad they are good. They give a real insight into Singaporean culture, life, and especially, their language. They have 'Singlish', which is English, with key phrases in Malay and Mandarin added, oh, and 'lah' put at the end of every sentence! It's interesting to say the least.

01-01-2005
Today was basically a 'discover Singapore' day. I am getting a little tired of leading Tim around everywhere, and to be honest, I'm sure he is sick of me doing so. However, at the moment there is no alternative, so we just have to grin and bear it. That being said, everytime we get lost (which for us seems to be quite often), we eventually find the right way, and from there learn about a new food place, or bus, or MRT station, or something that is useful. So it is not all bad!

We did brief tours of Little India, at which we visited an out-of-the-way food outlet which served some of the cheapest beer in Singapore, and walked past AussieMart (still there from 2003!) and Apollo Banana Leaf (a very famous Indian restaurant that serves most of its dishes on banana leafs!). From there we proceded to Chinatown, walking around the entire block, from Yue Hwa and People's Park (big shopping centres) through past Smith St (which at night turns into a food market with excellent satays) into the markets and past the temples. This is the real Singapore, rather than Orchard Rd and the big clinical 'Westfield'-clones.

After Chinatown, we went to Bugis, which is near the city centre, and was where we stayed when we came here as a family last year. The area has been gentrified beyond belief, from one of the 'red-light' districts, to a covered shopping centre (maintained in the style of the old shop-fronts) with a Japanese department store, cinemas and a MRT station. Close to Bugis are the markets (a la Thailand, Indonesia, with lots of fake clothing, food and the like - except Bugis is far more 'local'-focused, with little touristy goods), and Sim Lim Square. Sim Lim is an interesting location. It is similar to Pantip Plaza in Thailand, except without the fake CDs. Instead, you have store after store selling the same cameras, discmans, iPods, and computers at similar prices. Many stores have given up price-matching, instead telling the tourist to 'be careful'. Whilst this is true, as some tourists have come away with the wrong goods (after they have been swapped under the counter following the purchase), and others have got to the end of bargaining, only to be told they have run out of stock, it is just as bad to inflate prices on the basis that they are 'legitimate'. In my mind that is just as bad - they are playing on the bad side of others.

The day ended quite early, with a fantastic dinner courtesy of the Tang family (Samantha's family), who took Tim and I to the Parkroyal, where we had Eight-spice tea (a variation on the standard green tea), and one of the best mango puddings I have ever had (complete with dry ice pouring out the base of the glass!). The meal was fantastic, and I would like to thank Mr & Mrs Tang, Samantha and Bobby for their hospitality over the past few days - they have made what could have been quite hard very painless! Cheers!

Home at 9:30pm!

02-01-2005
Went to breakfast/lunch at Cheese Prata on Pasir Panjang (one of the 'local' food places just outside campus) with Jess, who has been here since January 2004 on exchange from USyd, and who has done YEP (the volunteer organisation I would like to get involved with), and travelled substantially around SE Asia, and then went shopping some more along Orchard Rd. I looked more at buying a camera, having got the price of the model I want (the Pentax Optio S5i) down to S$550 ($440 AUS), from $650! All that from just shopping around too - good on me! I think I may have bored Tim somewhat though - his torment is nearly over though, uni starts soon!

We all ended the day watching Singapore play Myanmar at the semi-final of the Tiger cup at the National Stadium. Getting there was half the fun, as we really had no idea where we were going, but for once the information provided to us by the MRT Info desk was correct, and we followed the crowd decked in red (Singapore's colour) to Kallang (on the border of Geyleng, the red light district) and along construction works to the Stadium. Tim kept on referring to it as 'third-world', a term which I dislike, as it places Western values on non-Western (usuaully) states, but I understand his point. For a country as foward-thinking as Singapore, the stadium appears quite backward. It is all concrete, and has wooden benches for seating. Even the SFS has better facilities, and this is Singapore's NATIONAL stadium. Each to their own I guess.

The game itself was interesting, with neither team playing fantastic football, and Singapore losing come full time. However, this being leg two of a two-leg semi, the teams had drawn, and thus it was necessary to play into extra time. At this stage Myanmar had 3 players red-carded for violence, with the end team of 8 players just too tired for Singapore's full 11 (until one player was attacked by a benched Burmese player) and Singapore won 4-2. The crowd revolted though, with some spectators running onto the field, and many fights breaking out between both players and supporters. As we were sitting behind the Myanmar supporters, with had a centre-stage view, and the photos and videos will be posted later. It was the first time I've seen Singaporeans get violent, with one Burmese player throwing a full water bottle at a Singaporean player DURING THE MATCH!!! It was quite crazy. It will be interesting to see how it is reported in the press though!

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.

Singapore is like nothing else - its clean, distinctly Asian, yet fairly Western as well. Visitors don't feel out-of-place, or awkward at any time, and if anything, they marvel at the fact that everything just works!!! You'll come back wishing CityRail worked like the MRT!

Travel
Use the MRT (train system) as much as possible - its fast, easy, and cheap. Trains run every 3-8minutes from 5am to midnight. Buy a tourist/stored-value ticket from one of the booths at the stations, and get what you don't use refunded at the airport train station on your way home.

Taxi's are plentiful, always run on meters, and are also cheap. Really good for trips that the MRT doesn't cover - like the Night Safari.

Food
Singapore has amazing food.

Apollo Banana Leaf in Little India (just down from the Little India MRT station) is fantastic.

Smith St Hawker Centre (a night market in Chinatown) is also ... wow! So cheap, and everything is safe to eat - look for stalls with a big "A" or "A+" behind them - it means the Singaporean govt has checked the place out and its deemed safe. Go for your life.

Eating anywhere in Singapore is safe - I recommend if you have the time (and money) to have high-tea (afternoon tea) at Raffles Hotel. It's an institution, and is well worth it. Don't eat lunch that day though - or you will end up wasting your money.

If you don't do that - go to the Long Bar at Raffles and have a beer or a Singapore Sling (cocktail). Be a tourist!

Shopping
Shops there close very very late (9:30pm mon-thurs, 10:30-11pm fri-sat, 9pm sun). They open at 10 or 11.

Buy electronics from Harvey Norman, Sony stores.

Visit the Chinese markets in Bugis. (near Bugis Junction shopping centre).

The Japanese department stores there are also great. Sogo I think still exists there, and is great.

You won't find pirate CDs/DVDs there though - best place is Johor Baru (the Malaysian town on the border). To get there takes an hour or so, and for students costs ~$4!

Orchard Road (kinda like Pitt St) is huge, glitzy and expensive. Definitely worth the trip though.
Suntec City is excellent - if massive.

Sightseeing
Must sees:

• Botanical Gardens (if only for the Orchids)

• Night Safari (the zoo at night - its amazing!!!)

• the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay complex (looks like bug eyes, or durians
• an Asian fruit - the MRT has signs saying "no durians" - referring to their pugnant smell
• Asian Civilisations Museum at Empress Place (the new one)

• Sentosa Island (its expensive, and a bit of a waste of time/money, but it has a great war history museum in Fort Siloso, and Singapore's only beaches. Don't visit on a weekend!!!)