Indian food and almost something rude
Good ideas: all you can eat buffets, and Indian food(yum)
Bad idea: all you can eat Indian buffet
Today we headed down to Little India in search of cheap stuff at the Mustaffa centre. For lunch we went to an Indian Buffet place. After piling up our first plate with delicious curries, chicken, mutton, naan and rice we asked how much longer the buffet was open. 30 minutes was the response - we would have to eat fast! I don't think I have crammed that much Indian food down my throat that fast ever. It sounded like a good idea at first, after the first plate the rest is pretty much free, so eat up...but around my 3rd plate I started to feel queasy and my face was apparently bright red. I thought about hiding out in the loo several times, and on the way home I swear I was uncomfortably close to losing it. Well although I didn't puke (I rarely do, excluding beer!) the rest of the day was quite unpleasant. So a word to the wise: do NOT saturate yourself with foods your stomach is unfamiliar with!
It was also raining so much the streets flooded, something that doesn't happen often in Singapore.
Posted by Evan at 8:22 AM
BIRDS!!!
I hope you really like birds, because that's all this post is about. I went with Misha, Lisa and Cindy on Saturday to the Jurong Bird Park. We saw LOTS of birds! Well despite what you may think of such a place initially it wasn't half bad at all, actually it was fun! We saw the "All Star Birdshow" and the "Birds of Prey", which are just bird acrobat shows with talking birds, dancing birds, basketball playing birds, snake killing birds...you name it. To spare you the details of our afternoon with our feathered friends here are some of the better pictures:
Misha got to volunteer to hold the loop as parrots flew threw them:
If you still want to see more birds I posted some more pics
HERE.
Posted by Evan at 5:31 AM
Photo Gallery
If you've had enough of reading my jabber I just started uploading photos to a
photo gallery here. Because we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a thousand times that when I am writing!
Posted by Evan at 9:36 AM
Pulau Tioman - Day 3
We spent the weekend at a guest house called Moktar's Place. The best part was it was right beside the beach and we didn't have to share with other people. It didn't have airconditioning, which is sometimes a problem with a few people, but we were already used to just a fan. I guess it was fairly nice, at least I didn't mind at all, you just had to ignore all of the ants and cockroaches and the occasional lizard and using the bathroom floor as your sink. At least it didn't have one of the squat toilets found in every other bathroom in Malaysia!
There were these monitor lizards EVERYWHERE there. You couldn't walk anywhere without seeing one! The Malay kids would throw rocks at them though, along with the chickens. They looked harmless enough so I considered picking one up a few times but good thing I didn't because I later found out that they have a locking bite and release a poison that prevents your wound from healing for a veeery long time.
We both rented masks and spent the day snorkeling in the shallow waters in front of the guest house. The beaches all around the island have coral reefs lining them just a few meters from shore. This made swimming a little difficult but snorkeling superb. It was quite amazing to float around watching all the action going on down there. I floated face down for a couple of hours swimming along with schools of fish, watching them clean themselves on the coral. The reefs are just amazing, so many colours, shapes and action; I could have done it for hours but we had a boat to catch and my back was extremely burnt (should have remembered the sun screen).
After lying around in a hammock on the beach for an hour to dry off we had to catch out boat at 1:30. The hammock was oh so nice, I could have stayed there forever!
We were super lucky that we left from one of the first places of departure because the other southern beaches with the resorts had oodles of holiday traffic backlogged and waiting for a seat on our 20 seat boat.
Arriving in Mersing the tiny town was just buzzing with people trying to catch rides back to Johor Bahru and Singapore. We even had one guy "offer" us a ride in his car for 160RM - No Way! We didn't have to walk far though as some touts reeled us in with their offer of a 20RM bus ticket all the way to Singapore, we couldn't resist. When the bus pulled up it had only about 10 free seats and there were around 30 of us waiting. We eneded up waiting for almost an hour to sort the matter out but as always my good friend luck was there and I was the very LAST person on the bus!!
One of the lessons I learnt on this trip was to NEVER travel on a holiday in Asia. There are just so many people and they all decide to go someplace. This created a HUGE traffic jam at the border. I think we were parked outside of this one building for over an hour. And when we were actually moving the sea of people walking down the highway was still moving faster than us. Eventually our bus emptied and we got out to walk the rest of the way to the border. After another hour we cleared both of the checkpoints only to find that our bus had left us there! Good thing it wasn't our first time in the city, that would have been dreadful. So we waiting in the giant lineups for the transit buses and finally made it home, and before midnight too!
Posted by Evan at 6:08 AM
Pulau Tioman - Day 2
Tired from a long day of travelling we slept in a little today. Compared to Singapore the night was strangely a little cold due to all of the rain, the first time I have been cold since arriving here! We had breakfast at a nice place right on the beach (it's not a great pic but gives you an idea)
Finally around noon we got our act together and followed the only path on the island south to Tekek beach.
Just beyond tourist beach we found ourselves walking through the actual city of Tekek, where people really live permanently. It appeared to be quite a nice little place but you could really see how poor some of these people were compared to us. Whole families were living in houses built on stilts that were nothing more than two or three rooms and a toilet. But good thing is all of them seemed to be super happy and were always friendly.
Tekek is on the west side of the island along with about 5 other beaches. There is also a beach on the east side but the only way to get there is by boat or to hike. Of course we chose to hike, but leaving so late we would only be able to hike part of the 8km trail. Leaving the nice beaches behind we followed the trail up and into the thick island jungle. I was a little nervous at first, not knowing what could be in there or what to expect, but that feeling soon was replaced by excitement. Not long after leaving the coast we ran into a family of about 4 monkeys in the trees above us. There were really scared of us and disappeared before we could take any pictures, but they continued to watch us from the trees. We also saw tons of lizards, some a few feet long. But other than that there wasn't much wildlife except billions of bugs and ants and a few birds. I have never been in a jungle before so it was exciting to see how thick it can get in places. It is kind of like you are walking in the middle layer of a giant sandwhich with mud and roots below you and huge leaves and vines and trees completely sealing up the canopy above. The sounds were also really cool, it sounded just like an attraction at Disneyland would lead you to believe with all sorts of animals singing their song. It was also super humid and sticky in there; once you got wet you would not dry. Leaving so late in the day we didn't quite make it to the east coast, but we made it over the main hill and could see Juara beach! Satisfied at that we turned around and headed back home eager to go for a
swim.
Samson on the trail:
After a refreshing swim in the bathtub warm water we strolled on over to the other restaurant for some seafood bbq. We ordered some fried rice and fried noodles but the main course was the interesting part:
Barracuda and Shark meat!! I have never tried either before. The barracuda was quite good, cooked in a sambal chilli sauce. The bbq shark on the other hand was a little strange. The meat wasn't really like fish at all, it was kind of stringy and dry, but it still was pretty good.
Posted by Evan at 8:01 AM
Tioman Island - Day 1
Sunday was the Buddhist holiday Vesak day so we had Monday off work, our second long weekend in the three weeks we have been here! The Pharmacology guys still haven't gotten their student passes yet so they can't leave the country. So just Samson and I decided to head to Malaysia and check out Tioman island because traveling there takes a little time so a regular weekend would be too short. Well it turned out that even three days was way too short of a time, but we still had a wicked trip!
We left our place early Saturday morning to try and catch a bus into Malaysia from downtown. I couldn't find any information of the bus route online except that there was supposedly one leaving at 9am. Well it turned out that I was spelling the company's name wrong so of course I couldn't find their web site...who woulda thought to use the Malay spelling (without a 't') of Transnasional...oh well. So we showed up at 8am hoping to get a last-minute ticket to Mersing...BAD idea. There were tons of people there waiting for just a few buses. The ticket office was closed due to a "down system"...but we soon learned the real reason. After waiting around for 45 minutes we finally found the sales man, a short and chubby Malaysian guy dressed just like everyone else buried the mass of people. I told him where we wanted to go but he just told us we had to wait to see if there were any free spaces on the bus. Around 9am the bus was pretty much full so we bugged him again to let us on. He and the drivers kept insisting that we wanted to go to Johor Bahru, which is just across the border and no where near Mersing.
"where you go?"
"Mersing, we want to go to Mersing."
"ah ok, I see... Johor Bahru?"
"nono, Mersing"
Then they decided to switch to Malay, because apparently I can't speak English and look like someone who might speak Malay.
"hwlerjweldsofsaluewojhsadfls"
"umm, sorry I don't speak Malay"
"hmm, okok I see"
So he turned to Samson and started speaking in Malay to him...so of course Samson told him that he also doesn't speak Malay the guy just shook his head like shame on you.
Well finally one of the other drivers walked up to us and said they would take us to Mersing and assured us there was in fact 2 seats for us. But it would come at a price...$26sg each just to get there - down system my ass! I offered him half that (about the usual price) but having the upper hand he said take it or leave it. We took it. On the bus I got talking to an Indian couple and they had also been charged the same outrageous rate as us so I guess it wasn't that bad if others were getting the same rip off as us - at least we were on our way to Malaysia!
Despite the huge traffic jam due to the holiday the Singapore checkpoint was relatively quick and orderly, just as expected. Then it was back on the bus to cross the bridge into Malaysia! Before we even reached the border there was a noticeably huge difference from Singapore. The customs buildings were way smaller and run down, but I actually liked it a lot more - they actually have personality, compared to the cold steel and marble of the Singapore side. Pulling up along side a bared, jail like building we got off the bus once again, this time taking our packs with us, and filed past another customs agent - one who was actually friendly and glad to let you into their country! Clearing customs we went back outside to board our bus again but the drivers stopped us short. "Sorry, I no check the list, no room for you, you take a taxi to Johor Bahru and then maybe another bus." We couldn't believe it...they wanted to leave us at the customs, not even fully into the country yet. I was actually really mad because they still had our 52 bucks and giant grins on their faces. But they DID give us our money back thankfully, and also apologized for the mix up. It didn't really matter to us much, if we made it to the island great, if not no biggie, at least we were in Malaysia! We hung around anyway not knowing where to go in the first place, watching the bus fill up and our old seats disappear. That's when our awesome luck came through...being stuck in the border traffic jam for so long the only other bus from Singapore to Mersing that day caught up to us and pulled up right beside our old bus. Our old driver called us over and said we had a ride to Mersing afterall - the last 2 seats on the bus! We handed the new driver our 52 bucks happily, saw him put it in his wallet and then hand our old driver $10 cash, which he promptly added to his collection...what was that exactly? They then kicked some very confused Chinese guys out of their seats at the very back of the bus and stuck us there, giving them 2 nice seats at the front. Once again I was the only visibly western-looking traveler on the bus!
Malaysian border:
The drive out of Johor Bahru was pretty boring - we were stuck in a massive holiday traffic jam which delayed us over 90 minutes. Finally we stopped in the country side for a rest break as the bus had no toilet. There was a guy selling deep-fried bananas (Pisang Goreng - yay I learnt some Malay!) which were deceivingly good and tasted nothing like the banana mush I thought they would. Back on the road it started to rain like I have never seen it...the windows of the bus were like waterfalls, you couldn't see a thing out of them. The highway started to flood with light brown water running out of the jungle, but that didn't stop our driver from driving at top speed anyway. The ride was surprisingly rough, but apparently Asians can sleep through anything. But there were a few bumps that would lift you off of your seat and wake everyone up, so at least I had fun laughing at everyone's reactions.
We finally arrived way behind schedule in mersing at 2:30, instead of around the estimated 12:30. We were the only people who got off the bus in Mersing. It was still pouring rain so we took shelter between the gas pumps at a gas station and carefully planned our mad dash to the closest awning. A tiny man pulled us into the first store we hit asking us if we needed a ride to Tioman. Now I know this is not always a good idea without looking around first but we weren't too enthusiastic about scouring the town for the best deal at the moment. Inside the place we met up with the Indian couple I met our first bus, who were still arguing over room rates with these guys. We ended up buying a "high speed" return boat ticket for 70RM($23) from them, plus one night at a guest house for 40RM($13) - a bit more than the going rate but not a rip off at least. And they had a free "shuttle" to the jetty, which was just a small, rusted out Japanese van with seats that weren't even attached to the frame, so I didn't even check for seat belts.
Our boat was supposed to leave at 3pm but didn't even show up until after 4. Plus there were about 50 people waiting for a 20(?) seat boat! Once again luck came though and we got on and even got a seat.
A few people had to stand at the back of the boat and ended up getting soaked later... It was still raining cats and dogs but the first half of the boat ride went smoothly. That's when we hit the rough water! We had to slow right down and even still it was a rough ride. There were huge swells and waves 5 or 6 feet deep at times. Waves kept crashing over the front of the boat and a few even went completely over the top of boat at times, completely drenching the people at the back! I was absolutely having a blast with it, for some reason I found it really fun. Samson on the other hand didn't see eye to eye with me and actually got a little sick and had to sit at the back with his head over board! After dropping most of the passengers off at their beaches we were the only ones who got out at a beach called Air Batang. As we got closer the seas calmed and we caught our first glimse of Tioman Island:
Arriving around 6pm we checked in and immediately went in search of a place to eat. It was a tough decision between the only two places that were open so we chose a place with a patio over top of the sand. Having not eaten much all day we ordered 4 entrees and 3 deserts between us, plus drinks. We were completely stuffed and satisfied for only 39RM($13)!
Posted by Evan at 8:13 AM
still here?
If anyone out there is still actually reading my page regularly I am sorry for the lack of updates. There's just so much to do here right now! I am actually writing this at 3am on May 26 but I'll post stuff as the date that it happened. So please stay tuned...
Posted by Evan at 12:03 PM
wow, in the top 20!
NUS has been rated 18th in a new global ranking of universities by The Times of London, a highly influential national newspaper. Published in The Times Higher Education Supplement (The Times Higher) on 5 November 2004, the World University Rankings lists the top 200 universities around the world. The table below shows the top 20.
Posted by Evan at 6:40 PM
a day at the zoo
Today the 5 of us (Samson, Cindy, Misha, Lisa and me) went to the
Singapore Zoo for the day! I haven't been to many zoos in my time but I would have to say that this is one of the best. There were sooo many animals from all over the world on one "island" surrounded by tropical forest and a lake. We spent the entire day just walking around the place looking at the animals and that was no where near enough time. They have an open cage policy, so unless the animal is really dangerous the only thing between you and it is a small moat or tiny fence. This makes you feel like you are right up close with the animals. Plus there are a bunch of monkeys and other things that are trained to roam freely around the place and are often found on top of the huts or swinging from the rafters! The zoo is mostly outdoors so after walking around for a good 7 hours we were all beat and ready to go home.
Here are some pics of the highlights:
Oh man we got to ride an elephant!!!1 I've never done that before so it was actually really fun. And no this was not just a "kids" ride. There were actually lots of adults lining up to do it! Misha was gracious enough to forfeit his ride so we could get some pics of ours! He says it was no big deal because he has done it tons of times in India!
This one is most definitely the highlight of our day! (Mom don't look) All 5 of us managed to fit under this snake. It was actually quite heavy and really strong. Even with it squirming around gently holding its head was hard. If it really wanted to it could squish you in a second, but of course it was really nice and trained to put up with people like us all day long. The snake people were extremely nice too! For only $12 they let all 5 of us get an individual shot plus our group shot!
Posted by Evan at 7:45 AM
wooo brand new digital camera!!
Yup, that's right folks, I have now officially gone high-tech with my own laptop and brand-spankin' new digital camera! Samson, Misha, Lisa, Cindy and I went into the city today to go electronics shopping. Samson is in Fizz also, but in 3rd year, and Misha, Lisa and Cindy are all pharmacology students from UBC doing 8 months of Co-op here. Today we went to the electronics megopolis Sim Lim. It's a gigantic mall catering just to cameras, cell phones, and computers! I think there are around 7 or 8 floors, but I couldn't fit them all in my view finder.
After shopping around for a while and me and Misha really haggling hard with the merchants I ended up with a Canon A520 for a decent price! Misha can really drive a hard bargain! Misha also bought an uber-nice cell phone for about $450 that comes with everything imaginable!
So tonight I tried my hand at some night shots. I tried to take some pics of all the beautiful plants around here but none of them turned out in the dark. The rest are just shots of buildings. Here are 2 pics of my residence. They are surprisingly the best ones out of about 40. I think I need more practise.
You can see my kitchen window in this one. It is the bottom left window with the light on. The front building is the general store here, called Georgie's. And the highrise is actually only 1.5 blocks out of a whopping 26 at this residence!
This is just a walkway around the building, nothing special, but I thought it looked nice.
Tomorrow the five of us are going to the zoo. It should be fun! Funny, though, that there are five of us again, just like in Germany.
Posted by Evan at 11:18 PM
Banana anyone?
Continuing with the fruit theme, here we have the rare Singapore Siamese Banana, found only in the street stands of Clementi.
This "banana" actually had two separate banana's in it - they were just sharing the same skin!
Posted by Evan at 8:17 AM
Adios Kung
So Kung left tonight. Well actually he's leaving tomorrow bank to Taiwan for a few days, but with his plane ticket he got a free night in a hotel - and definitely beats sleeping on my tile floor!
On Monday night Samson, Kung and I went to the zoo to go on the
Night Safari!!! It was definitely the best $25 bucks I have spend in a while. There are tons of trails through jungle with aminals right there beside you. They don't use fences, just small ditches and natural objects, so it feels like you are right there with the animals. There is a cage you can go in with giant bats hanging right beside your head. One even took a lunge at Kung! We also went in a cage with a few flying squirrels and flying foxes jumping and gliding around. The best part of the night was the actual safari part where you get to take a jeep/bus thing through the manicured jungle past tigers, elephants, giraffs, anteaters and lots of other weird things from everywhere from india to malaysia to africa. This thing called a Tapir was running around shreiking looking for its friend and almost ran into the vehicle right beside Samson! I would definitely recommend this for anyone visiting Singapore anytime soon!
Tuesday night Samson and I met Kung in China Town after 'work' and got some dinner at the china town hawker centre. For some reason we were super hungry and ordered a couple of meals each, plus drinks and desert - the food here is just so damn good! I think we were hungry because it hasn't been as hot lately because of all the rain we have been getting; it was only about 26 degrees, so I guess the heat didn't squash our appeteits. Later we went and explored around the Singapore River part of the city, but it's mostly just financial district and super expensive restaurants and hotels...I think I like the outskirts of the city better.
The Merlion guards the entrance to the Singapore River.
Posted by Evan at 9:38 PM
mmmm Durians!
Being the ignorant foreigners that we are Samson and I mistakenly bought a durian the other day without knowing it! Actually neither of us had ever heard of them before, but have seen the stands all over the city. So the other day we were walking through the streets melting in the sun and had a craving for some nice tropical fruit. The next food stand we happened to pass was a durian stand, and just our luck they were selling delicious looking fruit all nicely packaged.
With our choice find we hopped on the bus back home to enjoy our treat. Upon arriving back at the dorm we quickly realized that neither of us even had the slightest clue about eating one of these. So we thought it best to put the thing aside and ask someone what on earth we are supposed to do with it. Well the thing ended up sitting on my desk for a day before it started to emit the most potent smell. Not knowing what to do I did the next logical thing, I hung it out my window in the courtyard hoping that would solve the problem. And it did, but only for another 2 days because I forgot the thing was there and came home one day to a room that smelt like a sewer. No doubt I must have pissed off a few neighbours! Now I didn't want to waste my money entirely so I decided to at least try the thing before I threw to the trash. Well not to let you down but it did actually taste somewhat good, if you can get past the diaper smell first!
here's what good old Lonely Planet has to say about durians: (if only we read this before!)
"Large and oval, the durian is the region's most infamous fruit, renowned for its phenomenal smell, a stink so powerful that first-timers are often forces to hold their noses while they taste. In fact, durians emanate a stench so redolent of open sewers that you'll see signs in hotels all over Singapore warning that durians are expressly forbidden entry. It's definitely an acquired taste, like overly ripe cheese."
This is what they look like unbutchered:
So apparently you are supposed to eat the fruit soon after harvesting and definitely don't leave the opened fruit hanging in the sun in a courtyard or else it will go bad! In case you haven't had enough of durians check out this link to the
"king of fruits" (complete with durian poetry!?)
Posted by Evan at 11:09 PM
Kung comes to visit!
With a little bit of time (1 month) to travel the world before he is off to Finland in May Kung decided to come check up on me and see the city for a few days. I took the MRT out to Changi airport to meet him at noon. The transit here is supposed to be really efficient but somehow it took me almost 2 hours to get there! But anyway, we found each other no problem and wasted no time hanging around at the stale airport. We went into town to Bugis to get some food at a Hawker stand. I got laughed at, as usual, when I was trying to get some Chinese food, but that's part of the fun of it, right? I like going to the Hawker centres because they are not so clean and sterile as other parts of the city, and plus there are hardly any tourists at them (usually I am the only white guy!).
MRT station at the airport: (empty because, well, it's the airport)
We walked around the Bugis area for a bit then headed over to Sentosa Island and became tourists for the afternoon. You get to take a cable car to the island and get a good view of downtown and the ports. We spent the day just walking around the island and the beaches, which are actually quite nice.
The southernmost point of continental Asia?!?! - only because it is connected by bridge to Malaysia though!
Other than walking all along Siloso beach we also went to Underwater World. There are lots of cool tropical fish there, and even a long underwater tunning through a fish tank! (unfortunately none of the pics turned out:(
Probably the highlight of the day was the huge, multi-million dollar "magical" fountain at Sentosa. It is basically a giant fire and light display watched by thousands outside in the jungle. There is one similar in Disney land where they have a light show on spraying water, but this one was a thousand times better!
We took the cable car back into town at night and saw all of the beautiful city lights, then we went to Chinatown to get some late night grub. Apparently what is written in Chinese for China Town is much different than China Town in English...Kung says it reads "water bull town"?!?! This was my first time being to China Town so I was a little surprised to see the oodles of western tourists here late at night. Anyway we went to an streetside outdoor restaurent for some beer and noodles before heading all the way back to Clementi and the university - a good end to a great day!
Posted by Evan at 7:10 AM
East Coast Park
Tonight Samson and I went to meet Malini and then headed out for dinner. I met Malini on the plane coming here just as she was returning home to Singapore after spending a year abroad at UBC. This being a big city it would be hard to find each other so we decided to meet at the InterContinental Hotel. Sitting in the swank lobby we were horribly underdressed. She found us waiting in the lobby and the 3 of us headed over to the East Coast Park for dinner. For some reason the place was super crowded with huge waits at almost every place...but we found an outdoor seafood buffet and stuffed ourselves full of prawns, clams, muscles, stingray, crab and tons of stuff so weird I don't think I ever want to know what it is. The coolest part was you got to cook your own food in some oil or else fry it...seafood poisoning anyone? I forgot to bring a camera so you'll have to take my word for it when I say it was good! After we went for a walk along the paths along the beach to digest all the good food we ate and then headed to one of the many pool halls for a few games. Our taxi ride home that night was quite entertaining...our somewhat crazy driver spent at least 5 minutes showing us how at inner peace he was with himself by proving that he can in fact drive with either his left or right hands, or even both if he so chooses! We also had a short lecture on how Tai Chi can stop you from boiling. Not having a clue what he was talking about we asked him what he meant by boiling. Our 20 minute cab ride went something like:
"I get up at 4am each day and practise my Tai Chi in the mountains. It will stop your boiling you know. You know boiling?"
"No, not really...do you mean stress?"
"nono, your boiling."
"like frustration?"
"nonono, it stops your boiling."
"heat exhaustion?"
"no, i mean boiling. don't you know? boling!"
"constipation?"
"NO, BOILING, BOILING, it stops it"
and so on and so on....
here's a pretty bad pic I found of East Coast Park. Sure the water looks nice but it's actually oily here from the 20,000 tankers just to the right of the picture. One thing was cool though...you can see Indonesia from the shores here! plus one for my count of countries seen from distant shorelines and airplanes!
Posted by Evan at 9:01 AM
First trip to Little India
Following a random recommendation, Samson and I headed into town today to Little India to Mustafa mall in search of cell phones. We were told that you could get used ones for as cheap as $30-50sg but couldn't find them anywhere near this price. So far Clementi is the cheapest wich some decent second hand ones for under $100. We spend the afternoon walking around little india and its crowded streets. I actually thought it was quite fun...sort of a game almost. The already skinny sidewalks are only about 3 feet wide with all of the merchants stuff spilling out and over them. Plus you have to duck under most of the awnings and hanging merchandise, and I am not a very tall person! Here are some pics of the place (not mine - I'll try to post some more once I get a digital camera)
For a late lunch Samsom and I went to a Northern Indian outdoor restaurant and got some spicy Mutton and neon-orange Chicken with lots of naan. Man was it ever good. I think my fingers are still dyed a little yellow and we were the only ones in the place eating with utensils!!
Posted by Evan at 7:07 AM
First Day at Work
Man, 2 hour work days are tough, especially when you have to fit in tea AND lunch! We went to meet Dr. Ng Kim Choon at a leisurely 11am in his office. After only 20 minutes we were assigned our projects for the next 4 months, then it was time for tea! I met my supervisor, Dr. Wang, and went with him to the Air Conditioning laboratory. He showed me the set up and around the lab but before we knew it it was lunch time, 12:30. And you musn't delay lunch else you miss all the good food. We went to the "Techno Edge", the food court/hawker center in the Engineering faculty (and no they weren't playing techno, thank god). After lunch we went back to the lab but supposedly the cleaning guy bumped the machine and messed it up. Dr. Wang didn't know how to fix it so he just said have a good weekend, see you Monday!! It was only 1:15. I think I will like it here!
Posted by Evan at 7:11 PM
Grass Power!
No, this is not about drugs...In my quest try anything and everything I came across this....Grass Power!!
Who can resist Grass Powers' awesome thirst quenching power and extra Chlorophyll? No one, not even me...so I had to buy one. After a few sips the picture below was the result. Who woulda thought a drink made from wheat grass would taste like crap, err grass?
It is freaking hard to open a bank account in this city! We tried all day to convince the banks that we were in fact registered with the university and are not opening the account for smuggling purposes, or whatever else they probably thought. I think at least 5 banks at Jurong East rejected us because we didn't have our Student Pass or a residence here yet. So defeated we took the MRT back to Clementi to try our hand there. For some reason we can always find what we are looking for at Clementi, and this time it didn't let us down. The first bank we went in signed us up on the spot!! Good old Clementi.
Posted by Evan at 8:05 PM
Labour Day
As you probably guessed it today was labour day in Singapore. Having a three day weekend was just what we needed to catch up with jet lag after the 20 hour flight and 15 hour time zone change. Samson and I decided to head into town today and see a little bit of the city. We ended up walking the entire length of Orchard Road, which is basically malls and hotels. It was hella hot out so we ducked into malls whenever we could, but we couldn't buy anything because we haven't received our grant money yet and were still very poor. So really not much exciting. We are going to see Dr. Ng tomorrow and try to register with the university.
Posted by Evan at 7:05 PM
