Welcome to Singapore

In the confusing process of getting our visas, we were informed that we would have to prove that we planned to leave Malaysia in less than a month in order to get a visitor's visa (to enter the country to get our actual visa). So we bought some cheap tickets to Singapore on a random date and hoped that we would be able to use them. It turned out that the tickets were completely unnecessary, and immigration did not even ask about them.

Our flight was on Thursday at 2010 out of Kuala Lumpur, but in order to avoid traffic and make it to the airport on time we had to leave around 1300. I didn't know if I would be able to go because I would have to skip all my classes for the day, but my professors were quite nice and excused me. A guy we met a few days before happened to be going to KL around the time that we needed to, so that saved the time and expense of navigating public transportation.

Our trip was uneventful, and we arrived at our hostel around 2230. The sleeping arrangements were dorm style, with twenty other beds in our room. Fortunately the air-conditioner provided enough white noise to mostly mask the sounds of people snoring as well as those entering the room in the wee hours of the morning.

I got up two hours before the others and went wandering

down alleys,

 and through jungles of condos

past temples and shrines of various creeds,

to the beach.

When I got back to Kevin and Landon were up, and we ate breakfast at the hostel

and took a bus across the city to Little India.

We walked the streets, not entirely sure of where we were but that just added to the sense of adventure.
I found some interesting fruit whose identity is unknown but its taste was rather like paw paw.

Silk shops and street art.

We bought passes to Singapore's amazing public transit system
and took a train to city center,

where we found our way to the ninth floor
 of a parking garage to get a better view.

Apparently Singapore is doing quite well financially, the three-towered Marina Bay Sands resort cost approximately $8,000,000,000

and this Nissan GTR (~$115,000) seemed cheap when compared
to the Bentleys, Rolls, Lamborghinis and Ferraris that inhabit the city.

With no specific destination in mind, we explored the area,
pausing to pose with the skyline.
(The petals blowing in front of us were courtesy of a wayward gust of wind.)

Somewhat tired from a long day's wanderings, we chilled on the beach to watch the sun set.

We spent the evening hanging out with some people we met at the hostel. We met an Italian who apparently just wanders around the world, staying in hostels and couch surfing, making money from dancing and modeling gigs. Anders, a guy from Chicago, who teaches math in China, was in Singapore for a weekend of conferences. He joined us in exploring Chinatown, which was quite busy due to the approaching Lunar new year.

The nightmarket in Chinatown.
(Photocred: Anders)

 I found some delicious noodles with unidentifiable meat-type substance. I felt no ill effects from it, but the others who ate similar dishes were somewhat miserable the following day. I also found bubble tea, which was amazing. I had forgotten how much fun it is to drink.

The train we took back from Chinatown terminated several kilometers from our destination. It was nearly midnight, so we assumed that the trains were just done for the day. We left the station, attempted to get our bearings and started walking. After about fifteen minutes, we decided we were going exactly the wrong direction and returned to the station for guidance. Some helpful security guards informed us that the trains had not finished quite yet, and we rushed to the station just in time to catch the last train of the night.

On Saturday morning we found a bit of rainforest at MacRitchie Resivoir to hike in, and ended up walking about 10km. It was a little incongruous to find such a large patch of relatively deserted forest in the middle of such a large metropolitan area.

We left the hostel at 0500 on Sunday morning to catch our 0700 flight. The trains were supposed to begin running at about 0530, but we waited until nearly 0600 and the gate remained locked. So we took a taxi with a very talkative and crude driver who got us to the airport in twelve minutes.

The flight back to KL displayed some beautiful clouds.
I wanted to hop out the window and go climbing in the cloudscape.

Once in KL we managed to find a bus that would take us to UTP, but it didn't leave for about two hours so we did a bit of exploring.

Monday I had eight hours of classes without a break, fringed by studying on either side. Little sleep, two quizzes Tuesday morning, and an intense workout with Kevin and Landon left me barely functional for the rest of the day. Another day or two of studying and I should have some idea what's going on in Organic, which apparently skips all the nomenclature content that makes up about half the course at S&T.