Everything's Magic

I kept hearing that Orchard Road is the place for all of your shopping needs. Plus, it is just supposed to be a really cool place. Lastly, I heard that there were supposed to be crazy sales because of Chinese New Year. Kathrin and I decided to venture over there today to see what was up. It wound up being pretty cool. Some places just looked like I would be thrown out for wearing a t-shirt, but most of it was pretty lax. It wasn't in the many, many stores that the real bargains could be found however; it was in the stalls on pathways. I did wind up buying a new camera case, seeing as how mine sadly came to the end of its existence.

It took a long time getting over there, but I am happy that we went. It was definitely enjoyable, and we were able to find a quicker way home than the way we came. That is useful information to have. Just for the record, the purple MRT line runs a lot faster than the red or green lines. In one of the malls that we decided to check out, there was a show that was put on in celebration of Chinese New Year coming up in 2 days. I didn't have my video camera with me, but I was able to get a video clip with my regular camera. So, I have uploaded it to this blog. We were just walking around the mall and heard these noises, so we decided to see what was happening. It was pretty cool to see:

It was easy enough to see this since I am taller than about 9/10 of this region. As weird as that sounds, I believe it may actually be true. One of my friends said that when they get lost, they merely have to look for me standing over everyone else to find the group. So, seeing this performance of this dragon/lion thing was pretty simple for me. I'm happy we were there in time to see it though.

Last night, we went to Little India and had dinner. It was really nice, and then we went to a pub for a little while, but it was a very good thing we didn't dally around any more than we did. We had to join the rest of the locals in running through the MRT station (most of us in flip-flops) in order to catch the last train to get us back to NUS. Thankfully we caught it, but we only arrived at the station with 1-2 minutes to go. It was an experience that I feel needed to be had in Asia. Asia almost racked another point onto its score (it is beating all of us pretty handily at this point), but we were able to get on the train in time, so that's good. Then we made a bad decision to walk home. A few people were pretty tired, and the walk was much further than we thought. So we walked home for a good 30 minutes. Oh well. We got to retell the story of our White County, GA debacle to a whole new crowd. So of course, that was interesting as always.

Tonight is Sentosa again. That should be awesome. Some people (in fact, most people) are going to a club for some themed party, but I hold the same opinion as Kathrin, Carly, and David. The beach is better than just a club. We can go to a club any time we want to. Sentosa is a really nice place. I think it will definitely be enjoyable. So hopefully we can prove that our decision was more worthwhile.

Chinese New Year is only a couple of days away. So, hopefully I will have some good things to say in my next posting...but until then...

This Could Be The Very Minute I'm Aware I'm Alive...

I got back from Malaysia today. It was definitely fun for a weekend, and I had absolutely no problem getting through security. We went to Melaka. There we found out that there is apparently only 1 crosswalk in the city (at least, so it seemed), there is very little sidewalk, and nobody follows the rules of the road. There were people going the wrong way, and there were people going every which way at this confusing triangle intersection. The lines in the road were only loosely followed, and not too many people signaled before moving over. If you had to cross the street, you had to just kinda run.

The money exchange was nice. Their money was basically monopoly money compared to the US dollar, so I did not feel that bad spending the money that I did. We also lucked out in the hostel we stayed at. The man in charge was very helpful. He would point us the right direction to places we knew of, recommend places to us, and he called to make reservations for us on the taxi back to the bus station and the bus back to Singapore. He also made sure that nobody overcharged us on anything. I would definitely recommend this hostel to anyone wanting to stay in Melaka, because it is a good value, and the man at the front desk was helpful. It is called Heeren Inn. Bedbugs are supposedly a problem in Malaysian hostels, but we did not have them in our room, and neither did the girls in their room. This hostel was very close to the main road with the night market on it in Chinatown, so that was really cool. We got to wander around it for 2 nights, and we didn't have to worry about getting back since it was only a very short walk.

While in Melaka, we went on a boat tour, went into some art galleries and museums, walked around the historic city, chilled by the river, and enjoyed ourselves at the night market. We ate some local food, which was really cool. The Western restaurant we tried was awful. It was tiny portions for a whole lot of money. To make matters worse, Colin ordered the chicken, and it wasn't even cooked, so he had to get it taken off the bill. The service was kinda mediocre, and there was an ant infestation only a little ways away from us. It was called Harper's. Skip out on this one. It looks like a cool little place, but it is not worth it. Instead, eat at a rice ball place. The place we had for rice balls was really good. I feel like we explored the city pretty well. 

They are trying to make the city a tourist hotspot, but they must first put in sidewalks and crosswalks. It is dangerous walking along or crossing the road. They are doing a good job in the river area. They are restoring old buildings as well. I think that in a couple of years it will be a much more touristy area. I'm happy I was able to see it before that transformation.

When on the bus between Malaysia and Singapore, I saw some great scenery as well. It was awesome. I hope to visit another part of Malaysia, maybe Kuala Lumpur later on, but Melaka did leave a pretty good impression of Malaysia. I don't know if I could go back there in the near future, but to Malaysia in general? Definitely. I am definitely happy to be back in Singapore though.

Heaven Must Be Just Like This...

I believe that quote from Tom Delonge sums up how things are here for me. The country is beautiful. The people I've met are awesome. The food is pretty good, and it is dirt cheap...which leads into my next topic. Dirt cheap...kinda like Malaysia! We are about to head over there. I leave in about an hour. It should be fun! There are some restrictions that we must abide by, but overall we should be fine I believe. A few of the Canadians have already been into Malaysia, and they had no problem, so we should be fine.

It is me, Kathrin, Colin, David, Brenna, Quynh, Claire, Sophie, Carly, and Scott on the first trip over. Another group is leaving tomorrow, so that sucks for them, but who knows, maybe they will get to stay later? So maybe it will pan out in the end. I'm hoping this will be a good trip. We don't have accommodation quite yet, but we are hoping that problem solves itself. There are supposed to be places to stay everywhere in Melaka (which is where we are headed), so we are just hoping that if we split into smaller groups we can all find places to stay.

I have some class issues to work out when I get back, but I won' t think about them this weekend. This weekend is purely about Melaka...not school. I will worry about school when I come back. Hopefully, like I said last time, I can post a little more regularly on here. We'll see if that happens or not. Until next time...

Peace

Holiday From Real

So, I'm in Singapore. It's pretty amazing thus far here. We'll see how much I like it once classes start. I've already found a group of friends to chill with so that's really cool. Some of the tendencies here are really throwing me off though. When riding on the bus or in a taxi, I keep getting scared because they are driving on the opposite side of the street. I am not accustomed to that yet. Neither am I accustomed to using the metric system. I went to go work out, and it was all in kilograms and such. That was not fun. Something really positive though is that the food here is only like, S$2-S$4 per meal. The exchange rate is in Americans' favor, so that is dirt cheap in my eyes. Some other things are pretty expensive though.

This post is kinda informal, but I am trying to quickly sum up stuff I've learned and done in a few days into a couple paragraphs. Hopefully I can be a little more consistent with posting stuff now, which will make things a little more specific than this post. I have Skype, so contact me if you want my ID for that. This country is so different in many ways. I miss the good ol' USA, but it is really nice here thus far. I've taken some pics, and those will be up on Facebook eventually. Also, I have taken some video of me documenting certain moments in Singapore. I hope to be able to use it to be able to capture some cultural shows or something around here. It is unreal to think of me actually staying here for 4 months, but that's the case. If it's all like this, then it will be a blast. The adventure has actually begun...