Weekend 3 in Singapore

Ok, clearly blogging is not my calling. I apologize for the lack of upkeep since I know you're all dying to hear about my adventures over here. Now that classes have started to pick up, I feel like I have so much to do. I have some assignments, but mostly teachers assign a lot of reading. Not my favorite thing to do. This past weekend was one of the funnest so far. Saturday, we made a trip to the zoo. I took over 300 pictures that day, not even kidding. The animals were just so cool! By far one of the best zoos I have ever been to. Or maybe it's just that I don't remember anything about zoos since I haven't been to one in forever. One of the first animals we saw was a big ugly monkey with a gigantic nose. Apparently, the bigger the nose, the more attractive the male is.

We saw a lot of other monkeys, and definitely noticed a trend. They REALLY like to groom each other.

We also saw most of the main characters from The Lion King. We saw Simba,

Nala,

Timon,

and Pumbaa.

One of the coolest animals of the day though was by far the elephant. They had an elephant show that showcased how smart these animals were. Now I understand why KC loves them so much! At the beginning of the show, they elephants sprayed the audience members. We were in the second row, but luckily we only got misted.

Amazingly enough, even though elephants are ginormous animals, they have an amazing sense of balance. This elephant walked across the log like a balance beam, turned around without touching the ground, and then managed to balance on only two feet.

Basically, the point of the show was to show how strong yet gentle elephants are. All of us were amazed at how talented these creatures are.

Even though the elephants were really cool, my favorite animal of the day was by far the white tiger. One of the tigers seemed to know what us tourists like, since he was putting on quite the show. He spent most of the time pacing back and forth at the front of the exhibit, swam around in the water, and then went back to strutting his stuff so all of us could take fifty million pictures of him. I just counted the pictures that I took, and I took 45 pictures of the white tigers alone.

The zoo was very eventful, but tiring, so Saturday night was a night for relaxing. But we were ready for more adventure the next day. On Sunday we went to the horse races! We all dressed up and pretended we were the fancy rich people that go to horse races. I was crossing my fingers that there would be a horse named Dover so that I could cheer for it. (That was a reference to My Fair Lady if you didn't get it.) Unfortunately, there was no Dover, but there was a horse named Jewel Princess. I would have bet on her solely because of her name, but her stats in the past didn't look too great so I refrained. We were also disillusioned about fancy people going to horse races. We only paid a few dollars to get into the grandstand, so we were surrounded by old men who were smoking and betting. I guess you have to be in the owners' boxes in order to see the fancy part of the races. All in all though it was a mucho fun day.

Despite the intense wind and the sporadic rain drops here and there, the races were a blast. This weekend was one of the best and I look forward to the coming weekend as well! Hugs and kisses to all!

Love,

Reb

Adventures in Singapore

I guess I never realized going into this how time consuming it would be to keep a blog! I'm failing miserably, but hopefully I'll be able to catch up and stay caught up! Firstly, no blog about Singapore would be complete without pictures of palm trees =)

I haven't been able to do much touring around since classes started on Monday, but I went everywhere in my first week here. After going to Little India, we decided it would be a good idea to go to Chinatown to eat and explore.

From left to right: Evan, Gina, Geoff, and me. We're all from UConn but only Evan and Gina are on exchange with me.

On Saturday, we decided to hit up the beach! I think this is the first time I have ever been to the beach in January.



The water was surprisingly chilly, but with the hot weather here it was definitely welcomed.

Saturday was Romana's birthday, so we went to dinner at a restaurant by Marina Bay. That part of the city is absolutely gorgeous at night. We were able to see the Marina Bay Sands lit up:

The Fullerton Hotel:



The Merlion:



And other parts of the city:

On Sunday, Aunty Lay Hoon and Gu Gong took me out to lunch and then up to the SkyPark, which is the top of the Marina Bay Sands building. The view of Marina Bay and the surrounding area was spectacular from 56 stories high, even with the fog.







After the visit to Marina Bay Sands, I was dropped off at the zoo, where I met Geoff and Gina for the Night Safari. It was hard to take pictures since you weren't allowed to use flash photography, but I tried to get a few good ones!





And of course an elephant for KC =)

That pretty much sums up everything fun I've done here so far. My friends and I have done plenty of shopping; there are malls and street vendors everywhere!! Monday marked the beginning of classes for this semester =( I wish my time in Singapore could be all fun and games but I guess I have to fit some studying in as well! And the reason why I haven't posted any pictures of my room yet is because I'm still partially living out of my suitcases... oops. I guess I should finish unpacking soon. That's all for now though! More to come on the good life in Singapore! Miss you and love you all back home! xoxo

Love,

Reb

HERE!!!!

Happy New Year from Singapore!! I finally landed here on Monday morning! The flight was so long, but I managed to sit next to some friendly people on the plane, so it made it a little more bearable. I've done so much since I got here, but at the same time I don't know if I'll be able to do everything before I leave in 4 short months!

I feel like I have so much to share about this place that I don't even know where to begin. First of all, everything is green and beautiful and warm! Definitely a nice change from the cold and snow in Connecticut!

Everything about Singapore is just so different! I have to be extra careful when crossing the street because everything is opposite from the States. Traffic drives on the left side of the street, so it gets a little tricky. And cars do not stop! We were crossing the street the other day, and this car was not slowing down at all for us. If my friend hadn't stopped walking, the car would literally have hit him. And cars drive FAST. I guess that's just city life for you. Something I am definitely not used to.

So far it's been nice meeting new people, meeting up with family, and just exploring Singapore in general. Yesterday, we decided to go to Little India for lunch. We saw neat little shops like this one that I want to go back and explore more in the future.

The one place we've consistently gone to over and over again is the large mall, VivoCity. Inside is a large store called VivoMart that is basically the Singapore version of Wal-Mart. We've gone there everyday so far, so I wouldn't be surprised if we end up there at some point today. Plus the mall is so big in general that you need days to finish shopping. I swear I walked at least 5 miles just walking around in the mall. And even as we were leaving we discovered that there were shops that we hadn't even seen before. The only problem is that clothes are so expensive! I left room in my suitcase for many purchases, but so far it seems like the only affordable thing here is food and transportation. Which I'm definitely not complaining about since the food is delicious.

Overall, I'm having the time of my life. I miss home a lot (not the weather, just the people), and it's weird that everyone at home is in a different time zone; but I know everyone is only one skype call away! But now we're off to Chinatown I believe, for more scrum-diddly-umptious food! So long for now, and harass me if you don't see another post in the next few days!

Love,

Reb