We're all moved into our apartment now. I'm sharing a room with Alba from Barcelona. I like it a lot there so far, but we still need to buy some decorations and furniture, it's very bare. We're having a pre-party at our place tonight for the exchange students so that should be a lot of fun, I'm excited. Then we're all heading to Sentosa island for a huge New Year's party. It's on the beach, there's live music and a foam party, it goes from 8pm-6am, and they're expecting about 10,000 people! Should be a good time.
The immigration center here is my least favorite place on earth. We were there for a couple hours on thursday to apply for our student passes, then we were there another 2 hours today just to pick them up. It was hell.
We're starting to talk about the trips we'll be taking this semester. It seems like everyone only signed up to have class on tuesday and wednesday and i have class monday-wednesday so i might try to change that so it'll be easy to travel with everyone else. Our agenda includes trips to Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia. yikes. i think i should take out some more loans. We have a study week at the end of february (which we will basically treat like a spring break since our classes are pass/fail and we therefore don't need that week to study) and then i have an extra 10 days after finals in april to travel so we'll plan 2 big trips for those weeks and go to the other countries over our 4-5 day weekends.
A few of the roommates have started calling me the "baby dictionary". I'm the baby because most of the exchange students are from Europe or South America and are 22-24 years old. It seems more common for them to study abroad during their last year of college, whereas I am only a sophomore. They think it's crazy that i'm only 19 so i am therefore the "baby". The dictionary thing is because i'm the only native English speaker in my apartment so im constantly being asked how to describe things. I think their english is very good; i don't have much trouble at all communicating with them. i could never speak another language as well as they speak english but they think they have lots of work to do.
Last night we were hanging out in an apartment where 8 exchange students live. We somehow got the idea to make lists of curse words/phrases in every language we knew and post the lists on their wall. There was an english, dutch, spanish, french, and norwegian list so i learned some very interesting new phrases =).
We're going to go to little india now where everything is cheaper and buy some sheets, towels, clothes hangers, etc. for our apartment. The other day i bought a crappy cell phone there for about $35USD!
We don't have internet in our apartment until friday (right now im back at the hostel to take advantage of the free breakfast and internet) but this weekend ill find time to start posting some pictures!
Happy New Year everyone!!!!!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
last days at sleepy sam's
Here's a pic from the street sleepy sam's (the hostel) is on. The Sultan Mosque is in the background.
I got my luggage last night! I was ecstatic.
We found an apartment today =). It's about a 10 minute walk to the MRT (subway) and then only one stop away from the school. There are a million malls in this city so we're only about a 5 minute walk from a center with a grocery store, restaurants, fast food, and some stores. There will be 6 of us in the apartment. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen and very large living room; i like it. My roommates (or flatmates as everyone calls them here) are Edouard (France), Leslie (France), Josep (Spain), Alba (Spain), and Kevin (Argentina). We'll hopefully be able to move in tomorrow.
We went to the club Zouk last night. A French DJ named David Guetta was there. I don't have any idea who he is but all of the Europeans were really excited, he's apparently pretty famous. It was cheaper if you arrived before 10 so we got there at 9:30 but ended up staying until 3:30am....waaay too much time. It was very fun though, and it was interesting to watch how everyone dances, but very tiring to dance for so many hours.
Nothing too exciting has been happening the past couple days, we've just been busy apartment shopping and going out to eat. I had sushi for the first time today and it was surprisingly good. The hostel had the game Jenga and I was the only one who had played before. A group of us played for over an hour yesterday and we played a few games again this afternoon. We played outside and people walking actually stopped to watch us and see if we would make it fall. We also nap a lot, somewhat because of the jet lag but also walking in the heat is exhausting. I am sweaty ALL THE TIME here. It's very gross.
that's all for now...
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Day 1...
To my friends: this blog will probably be very boring for you. I haven't done any traveling or partying yet, it's all about my flight here, apartment searching etc...it's mostly for the parents ;)
It's about 3am friday morning here in singapore so i've been here just over 24 hours now. The flights here were stressful to say the least. I had to fly from minneapolis to chicago, another flight to tokyo, then another to singapore. First flight: canceled. So i had to get on a flight with another airline. Second flight: overbooked by 25 people and i did not have a seat. Stressful for about an hour, but eventually enough people gave up their spots where i was able to get on the flight. However, the flight was then delayed about an hour meaning i would miss my flight to singapore. Luckily, the Tokyo airport is amazing and delayed their flight to accommodate those of us on the late flight from chicago. So, i ended up getting here the same time as planned. BUT then i realized my luggage did not make the trip. It was still in chicago, and when they realized it didn't make the flight they booked it on the next flight to tokyo but not for the connection to singapore....so anyway i've been spending a lot of time on the phone with the airlines, i have been wearing the same clothes for a long time now, and i have no idea where my luggage is. They said it will hopefully arrive tomorrow night.
I don't mean to be a negative nancy though, the luggage thing sucks but i'm still very excited to be here! I like the hostel a lot, mostly because there are so many other exchange students here and i have met a ton of great people. I haven't met any americans other than the guy from U of M who i traveled here with, but i have met students from canada, germany, hungary, austria, france, spain, norway, australia...all over. We're going to start apartment shopping tomorrow. Rent here has increased greatly in the past year or so, it is going to be much more expensive than i was anticipating. I'll probably live in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other people and it'll be about $5000/month. (once you divide that by 6 and account for the exchange rate it's about $540USD/month)
Our hostel serves free breakfast all day. This morning i had something called dragon fruit which i had never seen. The outer part is a bright magenta color with big orange and green leaves and the inside is textured like a watermelon but it is white with like a million tiny black seeds in it. It was tasty, but i think i mostly just liked it because it's pretty =). After breakfast about 15 other exchange students and i walked to the school to pick up some paperwork that is necessary to receive our student pass/visa. Then we had to go to the Immigration center and wait for about 2 hours to apply for the visa. After we went to the mall and all ate at a Japanese restaurant where i had Ton Toro Ramen. Most of us only ate about half our meal because we got so tired of struggling with the chopsticks...it was good though. When we got back to the hostel it was about 6pm and i accidentally fell asleep until 11pm...then i got up and sat outside to chat with some people and we ended up going to a place called Clarke Quay. It's a very interesting place, it reminds me of Disneyland (specifically Downtown Disney if any of you are familiar.) It's a street that has a decorative shelter over the top and on each side is all sorts of bars and restaurants. There is much more emphasis on atmosphere and decoration in the bars than in the U.S. One place is called The Clinic and it looks like a trendy, modern doctor's office. Everything is white, the tables have big lamps overhead that look like the ones over a dentist's chair, and at some of the tables the guest sit in wheelchairs rather than regular seats. Alcohol is very expensive! A beer was about $8-10 USD, and a mixed drink $10-15 USD, so needless to say i did not have anything to drink.
I'm not too tired due to my accidental nap this afternoon but i'm going to try to sleep now to get on some sort of regular sleep schedule...in the morning i will be asking girls to lend me clothes, hair binders, blow dryers, and other necessities i am lacking without my luggage...
It's about 3am friday morning here in singapore so i've been here just over 24 hours now. The flights here were stressful to say the least. I had to fly from minneapolis to chicago, another flight to tokyo, then another to singapore. First flight: canceled. So i had to get on a flight with another airline. Second flight: overbooked by 25 people and i did not have a seat. Stressful for about an hour, but eventually enough people gave up their spots where i was able to get on the flight. However, the flight was then delayed about an hour meaning i would miss my flight to singapore. Luckily, the Tokyo airport is amazing and delayed their flight to accommodate those of us on the late flight from chicago. So, i ended up getting here the same time as planned. BUT then i realized my luggage did not make the trip. It was still in chicago, and when they realized it didn't make the flight they booked it on the next flight to tokyo but not for the connection to singapore....so anyway i've been spending a lot of time on the phone with the airlines, i have been wearing the same clothes for a long time now, and i have no idea where my luggage is. They said it will hopefully arrive tomorrow night.
I don't mean to be a negative nancy though, the luggage thing sucks but i'm still very excited to be here! I like the hostel a lot, mostly because there are so many other exchange students here and i have met a ton of great people. I haven't met any americans other than the guy from U of M who i traveled here with, but i have met students from canada, germany, hungary, austria, france, spain, norway, australia...all over. We're going to start apartment shopping tomorrow. Rent here has increased greatly in the past year or so, it is going to be much more expensive than i was anticipating. I'll probably live in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other people and it'll be about $5000/month. (once you divide that by 6 and account for the exchange rate it's about $540USD/month)
Our hostel serves free breakfast all day. This morning i had something called dragon fruit which i had never seen. The outer part is a bright magenta color with big orange and green leaves and the inside is textured like a watermelon but it is white with like a million tiny black seeds in it. It was tasty, but i think i mostly just liked it because it's pretty =). After breakfast about 15 other exchange students and i walked to the school to pick up some paperwork that is necessary to receive our student pass/visa. Then we had to go to the Immigration center and wait for about 2 hours to apply for the visa. After we went to the mall and all ate at a Japanese restaurant where i had Ton Toro Ramen. Most of us only ate about half our meal because we got so tired of struggling with the chopsticks...it was good though. When we got back to the hostel it was about 6pm and i accidentally fell asleep until 11pm...then i got up and sat outside to chat with some people and we ended up going to a place called Clarke Quay. It's a very interesting place, it reminds me of Disneyland (specifically Downtown Disney if any of you are familiar.) It's a street that has a decorative shelter over the top and on each side is all sorts of bars and restaurants. There is much more emphasis on atmosphere and decoration in the bars than in the U.S. One place is called The Clinic and it looks like a trendy, modern doctor's office. Everything is white, the tables have big lamps overhead that look like the ones over a dentist's chair, and at some of the tables the guest sit in wheelchairs rather than regular seats. Alcohol is very expensive! A beer was about $8-10 USD, and a mixed drink $10-15 USD, so needless to say i did not have anything to drink.
I'm not too tired due to my accidental nap this afternoon but i'm going to try to sleep now to get on some sort of regular sleep schedule...in the morning i will be asking girls to lend me clothes, hair binders, blow dryers, and other necessities i am lacking without my luggage...
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