Day 49: Back in Singapore

I made it back to my Singapore residence, safe and sound. I had to hire a taxi to get to the bus station so I could go home, but it was pretty cheap, only about 30 RM. And considering I got 127 RM in exchange for $S50, that's saying something. I did get a bit of footage of the town while riding the taxi, though. Again, I'm kicking myself for not doing more research on the hotels...

The bus ride home took longer because we had to stop at several places to drop people off. We left at 2:00 PM and I reached my stop at about 7:30 PM. I knew taking the train home would take at least another half-hour, so I bought some soup at City Plaza. It had prawns and noodles and some sort of green leaf vegetable I couldn't identify, and it was pretty good. After that, I headed home. Maybe this trip did turn out to be a bust, but at least I learned from it.

Day 48: Mistake

I've made a terrible mistake. I found out that the hotel I'm staying at is basically out in the boonies. The nearest public attraction not associated with the resort is 5 kilometers away, and there's no easy means of public transportation around here. And I decided against the bike trails as there's no way in hell I was gonna go into potentially mosquito-infested Malaysian woods without insect repellent. So I just hung around the hotel all day. I went to the pool for a while, but none of the slides were running when I went. They turned them on several hours later when I went to have dinner. Boy, was I upset.

The good news is that my room is comfortable. I've got a queen-sized bed, chairs, a sofa, a decent bathroom, and air conditioning. I've been watching a fair bit of National Geographic since it's pretty much the only channel I get that's in English. And there's only about 10 channels...

Well, this is a learning experience, and I learned to do more research before you book, and don't book at the last minute!

Day 47: Arrival in Malaysia

This week is recess week, which is basically my spring break. So I booked a three day trip to Malacca in Malaysia. It was my first time doing so, but everything seems to have worked out okay. I rode a bus here from Singapore. It was a four hour journey, but that was no big deal since I'm used to being in a car for ten hours when riding to Iowa State University.

The hotel I'm staying at is called the Bayou Lagoon Park Resort, and I managed to get a decent room price. It's nothing fancy, but it's not bad, either. I even have my own balcony! There's also a water park here (though it's nothing extravagant), some bike paths, and there's a zoo within a few kilometers.

Check-in wasn't until 3 PM, but my bus arrived at Malacca Sentral Bus Station (yes, that's how it's spelled) at 1 PM, so I just hung around there until it was closer to check-in time, and then I chartered a taxi. There are English-speakers around here, which is nice, but most of the street signs and advertisements are only in Malay. While riding in the taxi, I was surprised to find that some of the stoplights have timers that show how much time will pass until they change. That's actually a pretty neat idea, at least in my opinion.

I mostly hung around the hotel area because I didn't want to end up hopelessly lost somewhere so late in the afternoon. There's some places to eat right in my hotel, so dinner was covered.

There's not much footage today, but hopefully that will be rectified tomorrow. Some of this is from when I was riding the bus, and some of it is from around my hotel area. It isn't the nicest-looking place, but remember, this is Malaysia, not Singapore.

Day 43: History Lesson

I went to the Eurasian Heritage Center with Amy (my student buddy) and a bunch of other students. Naturally, while there we learned about the Eurasian history of Singapore. There were all sorts of facts and items scattered about, but the parts that intrigued me the most involved World War II. You see, Singapore was bombed like Pearl Harbor and occupied by the Japanese for three and a half years. And most of these Japanese folks really weren't nice, especially to the Eurasians. I took 25 straight minutes of footage just for the WWII stuff because I found it so fascinating. (That particular video had to be split in two so I could upload it.) If I went too fast for you to read, I apologize, but I didn't want to get left behind by the group. Just pause the video if you want to read the stuff.

Before we ate our lunch, we got to watch and participate in a Eurasian dance. I'm not really a dancer, so I just filmed the whole thing. And of course our lunch had curry and other spicy food in it... I just ate the rice and bought some cup noodles when I got back to my residence. Sometimes having a sensitive tongue really blows...

Day 36: Making a Splash

This is a bit late again thanks to exhaustion, homework, and the fact that my internet connection has been a bit iffy. But anyways, I spent a Saturday visiting Sentosa Island, where Universal Studios Singapore and many other attractions are located. Sentosa Island is just a bit to the south of Singapore, and its connected to the city by boardwalk and monorail. I found out that among the attractions are the Adventure Cove Waterpark and the S.E.A. Aquarium, and I'd be cheating myself if I didn't visit those places at least once. Of course, there's also Universal Studios Singapore, but I think I'll go there another day.

I took the monorail, which was a small fee, but I knew I'd be doing a lot of walking once I got there. There's a big plaza not far from the station, and its filled with all sorts of shops and restaurants. The famous Universal Studio's Globe is there, too. I filmed around for a while, then I went to the Malaysian Street Food place for lunch. I ordered char kway teow from one of the stalls there. I'm pretty sure it's the same stuff I had the day I got my student pass. The spiciness left my throat burning afterward (like many dishes here, there are chilis in it), but it was yummy.

With my belly full, I decided to work off my lunch by visiting the aquarium. After all, there's that rule where you have to wait 30 minutes after eating before you swim. Now, the S.E.A. Aquarium is actually the largest aquarium in the world according the Guiness Book of World Records! Before you even get to go inside the aquarium, there's this cool museum that features all these things that sailors in southeast Asia would come across. There were racks filled with pirate weapons, trade goods, treasure recovered from shipwrecks, and lots more!

Then I got to the aquarium itself, and I was as giddy as a schoolgirl. I was awed by all of the beautiful, colorful fish and sea life. I filmed almost every tank in the place at least a little bit, so there is a lot of footage. The sharks and the dolphins were my favorites, but everything in the aquarium was amazing.

Now that I was done filming all sorts of sea creatures, it was time to make a splash for myself at the waterpark! I had to rent a locker since there was no one with me to look after my stuff, but I still had a blast. I ended up tackling one of the most popular rides first. I didn't know what I was getting into, but based on the line I was sure it would be worth the wait. Unlike most water rides, there's a long conveyor belt that hauls you and your raft up to the ride entrance. It was only after coming to the first major drop and seeing a great big hill right in front of me that I discovered that the ride wasn't a water slide, but a water coaster! Up and down I went, screaming my head off all the while. I'm normally not one for roller coasters, but this water coaster wasn't too fast or too steep for me to handle. I ended up having a blast!

There were also racing slides, inner tube slides, a wave pool, a kiddie area, and several white sand beaches. There were no "wedgie slides", though, which is good for me because I'm too scared to ride those. I hit basically every major ride in the park, and near the end of the day I found that there's a giant tank that guests can snorkel in! It's only for a few minutes, but it was still fun to do and was worth the wait.

When I dried off, I agonized over what to have for dinner. While I pondered, I toured the area in and around the main plaza. I eventually decided on Chili's, although I didn't realized until I sat down at a table that the prices at Chili's were only slightly lower than at the Hard Rock Cafe. And I ended up eating too much and got a stomachache. I shouldn't have ordered those soft pretzels; they were a lot bigger than I thought they would be.

I ended my day with a trip to Hershey's Chocolate World! Although I didn't buy anything, it was fun to look at all the sweets and souvenirs they had. And they had the biggest bottles of Hershey's Syrup I had ever seen! While I was filming around, I noticed there was a sign that said, "No Photography". There was no such sign against filming, and no one stopped me, but I think it'd be best to keep that footage to myself out of respect.

So while I ended up dealing with a stomachache for an evening, I really enjoyed my trip. I'll have to go back and see what else Sentosa Island has to offer!

Day 29: Marina Barrage

I'm a few days late in posting this, but I was occupied with other things. I visited Marina Barrage at Marina Bay with my student buddy and some friends for a picnic. Marina Barrage manages the Marina Reservoir, which gathers water from the Marina catchment (man, I'm using the word Marina a lot, aren't I?). We actually talked about it briefly in my Water Resources Engineering class. But anyways, Marina Barrage isn't just to provide drinking water and flood control -- it's also a recreational site. The main building has a giant green roof that doubles as a park, and many people come here to relax. The large, open area combined with steady winds make it a perfect place for kite flying.

The skies were grave when I arrived in Marina Bay, and my prediction of rain was right on the mark. Well, it was actually only a bit of drizzle, but it was enough to make us have our picnic under the roof. We had all sorts of goodies, like egg mayo sandwiches (similar to egg salad), fried fishballs, chicken nuggets, potato chips, Jell-O jigglers, and iced tea. There was more than that, but I don't remember what everything was called. The rain did let up after a while, so I trekked around and gathered footage. The views of the bay were great, and the Singapore Flyer and other landmarks were in full view.

I spent a fair amount of time just relaxing on the green roof and watching the kites fly. There were all sorts of different kites, from traditional shapes to Angry Birds to the Minions from Despicable me to butterflies. Come to think of it, the Minions are really popular over here. I keep seeing Minion merchandise and stuff all over the place, and my student buddy said the lines at McDonalds were out the door when they featured Despicable Me toys.

Back to kites, some of them were really large and fancy. Some of them were so big that that they made a sound similar to a motor as they whipped through the sky. You can hear it pretty clearly in the footage I took. I also spotted a bunch of kites that were caught in trees. Gotta be careful while flying!

My phone also rang while I was filming, and I had a complete brain fart because I thought the ringtone was coming from the camera. I felt like a huge idiot afterwards.

Day 26: The ICA

I had to stop by the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority of Singapore (ICA) in order to pick up my student pass. The place reminded me of the Secretary of State back home, since you have to get a queue number and wait to be called to one of the desks. And the place was JAMMED! I think the number of people was pretty constant for the whole time I was there...and I was there for quite a while. It was a little hard to ignore all the screaming, crying kids who were stuck there with their parents, but managed. My 3DS helped me tune out the people and pass the time.

Then I had lunch at a nearby marketplace. I had some signature Singapore street food. I don't remember what it was called, but it consisted of fried noodles, eggs, and prawns mixed in a sauce I found mildly spicy. Someone less sensitive probably wouldn't have found it spicy at all... Anyways, it was pretty good.

To be honest, it wasn't exactly something I wanted to do on a day I had no class, but I need the student pass. I can't just use the visitor's pass the whole time I'm here; it's illegal. Oh well, it's done and over with.