Closing Ceremonies

So its been approximately one million years since I've posted anything...blame school.  I was kinda sad that I actually had to do classwork these past two weeks; I keep forgetting thats the real reason I'm here...but with midterms just around the corner it was time to do some studying.

Anyway, 2 weeks ago Thursday (August 26) Brett and I decided that it would be cool to go see the closing ceremonies of the first ever Youth Olympic Games that took place here in Singapore.  We took the bus to the marina bay area near downtown.  The stage that the big event was held on actually floats, making it able to be moved anywhere around the bay!  It was a true engineering marvel :)  When we got there we received (along with everyone else you see) a big bag full of random things that symbolized either the Games or Singapore.  There was a Singapore flag, an Olympic flag, an awesome hat, washable tattoos, a muffin (it was delicious), a bottle of water and other things that I am currently forgetting...but it was a nice surprise!  I couldn't believe that the thousands of people there got all of this stuff.  Pretty crazy.  The actual ceremony consisted of a short concert by I-don't-know-who (that means I'm not sure who they were, not an actual band name), some dances, the legit Olympic removing of the flag, fireworks and more dancing!  It was pretty neat; now I can say that I went to the first-ever Youth Olympic Games.  Check out some more pics here.

Bintan

This past weekend Brett and I took a little trip to Bintan, Indonesia.  We started on our adventure by taking the bus for 30 mins, the train for 30 mins and another bus for 10 mins.  After arriving at the ferry port, we rode on a boat for 2 hours, went through customs and took a 45 min bus ride to the place we were staying.  It was quite the expedition!  When we finally got there we were expecting a picturesque place with a relaxed atmosphere; it was definitely picturesque but we weren't aware that there were 30 other exchange students from all over the world staying there at the same time!  It was a crazy coincidence, there were Spaniards, Canadians, Americans, Germans, you name it, they were probably there.  It was fun, met a bunch of swell foreigners and chilled till the wee hours of the night.  The next morning we decided to do some snorkeling using our newly-purchased snorkels and masks (we figured it would be a good investment, especially when we go to Thailand or Vietnam).  There were crabs, lots of different fish, hermit crabs and odd-looking-octopus-things.  Thankfully no sharks. (The guy who sold us the snorkeling equipment said the one bonus of snorkeling over scuba diving was that there are no bubbles to scare to scare away the sharks so we'd have a better chance of seeing one!  Yikes.  I successfully avoided any bubble-fearing sharks though.)

This was where we stayed; about 12 US dollars a night.  Very nice.

That afternoon we checked out the other beaches and basically just relaxed the rest of the day.  We took it easy that evening and the next morning and headed back to Singapore Sunday afternoon.  It was a great trip, had nice weather and got some quality sun.  Great success.  If you want to see more pictures click here.

National Day

I would like to start by saying this; you will never find a cleaner downtown then the one in Singapore.  It almost seemed unreal.  Not a single piece of trash on the ground as far as the eye could see!  We went downtown on Singapore's National Day (their Independence Day) to take part in all of the festivities.  As we arrived, we walked around for a while before settling down along the street preparing for the fireworks.  Before they started there was a parade that consisted of what seemed like the country's whole armed forces driving down the street.  Jeeps, humvees, mobile bridges and tanks all lead the way followed by a couple hundred marching soldiers.  As soon as they passed the fireworks went off; after they were finished we took some photos of downtown as seen from the marina.  It was pretty neat seeing everything lit up!  To see some more photos click here.

THE ZOO!

You aren't human if you don't love the zoo.  Yeah, I feel bad for the animals.  But think about it this way; the animals live their whole lives scavenging for food and protecting their young.  What does the zoo do for the animals?  Feed them and give them protection.  Perfect.

I just realized how dumb the above paragraph is.  Oh well.

ANYWAY, Brett and I went to the zoo.  And it rocked.  Nothing really gives me that same excitement that I get from looking a lazy lion in the eyes :)  We saw all kinds of insane animals.  Huge twelve-foot crocodiles, exotic big cats (white tiger, regular tiger, jaguar, lion, the leopard was hiding), elephants, big ol' rhinos, monkeys and giraffes were some of the token animals we saw.  There was one area that housed 100 baboons, it was huge!  Some lesser known, yet still awesome animals were wallabys, tree-kangaroos, and KOMODO DRAGONS.  Yeah, dragons.  But nothing can top the orangutans.  Or the ring-tailed lemurs.  The orangutans had a giant tree-filled area all to themselves.  I don't really know why I thought they were so awesome, they just were.  Check out the video below.

And the lemurs were AWESOME.  We were in an enclosed area where all of the animals ran free; thats where we met all of the 'King Julians' (some little kid kept saying 'mom, look at all the King Julians!'  Its from the movie Madagascar).  They were climbing all over the place within half an arms length.  It was tight.  I got some alright pics but their movement was so darty that it was kinda tough :(

After the main zoo, Brett and I downed a family feast from KFC and headed to the night safari.  It was basically the zoo with nocturnal animals; hyenas, tigers, etc.  And lots of different types of deer and pigs. I said to Brett, "Not super impressed with the night safari; if I want to see any deer or pigs I'll just go home."  Good ol' Iowa.  

Check out all 144 zoo pics here.

Sentosa Island

The Merlion

So I've been really lazy/busy with class lately and haven't been updating this badboy...but here we go! Thursday Brett, Darryl (new guy we met, he's from Arizona!) and I went to a place called Sentosa Island, Singapore's resort area.  Very touristy.  But its a must-see place, so we checked it out.  We took the bus (if we want to go anywhere outside of campus the bus is a necessity) to the monorail that took us to the island.  As we arrived the first thing we saw was a giant replica of the Merlion, Singapore's national 'mascot'.  Kinda like the United State's eagle.  Except the eagle is actually real.  Anyway, after we saw that we did a little hiking through the island trails and wandered upon the zipline.  We HAD to try it out, it took us right down to the beach!  So we got all suited up for the ride, took it down to the beach and continued our journey down by the water.  From there we took a bridge to the 'Southernmost Part of Continental Asia'.  It was a little island with a great view...of the ocean filled with cargo ships.  It was quite a dreary sight actually. There were TONS of ships waiting to get filled up at the shipyard; this unfortunately has taken the blue out of the water in Singapore's ocean and made it murky.  I needed to cheer up so we wandered around on the beach and threw the frisbee around for a bit (easily the best part of my day, frisbee + beach = AMAZING).  To wrap up the day we got food, ate on the beach, and headed home.  If you would like to see some more pictures, check them out here.

Zipline! (Boats in the background)

Domestic Adventures

Henderson Waves Bridge

Brett and I decided to check out a couple of 'must see' places around Singapore the past couple days.  Tuesday we went on a hike through a number of parks, starting in Kent Ridge Park (the site of the last battle on Singapore ground in WWII).  From there we walked through some gardens in Telok Blangah Hill Park, then got on what was called the Canopy Trail (a path as tall as the trees! haha).  We continued hiking over the Henderson Waves Bridge, one of the 10 engineering marvels of the world?  Question mark?  Brett read it in a book, I guess :)  It was pretty neat regardless, and unfortunately tough to get a good picture of.  The bridge took us to a great spot to snap a couple of pictures of the city.

Singapore!

These photos were taken from the highest point in Singapore, Mount Faber (I think this means the highest point while you're still on the ground, those buildings downtown are clearly higher than us haha).  It was a great spot, you could see 360 degrees around the country.

Flight of the Swans Sculpture

The next day we moseyed to the botanical gardens.  While there we checked out Swan Lake and the Flight of the Swans Sculpture.  We didn't see Lancelot or Elaine though...kinda sad about that.  We also saw some lilly ponds, crazy huge trees and quite a few flowers.  I don't think that it was flower season here so there weren't as many as we hoped.  Oh well, it was cool nonetheless.

If you want to see some more pictures, check out this link.

Feel Free to Comment!

I really have no clue if people actually read this baby or not...but if you do, you should leave comments!  I mean, you don't have to.  But if you have any questions or comments you should make them known!  That is all.

A Couple Major Differences

A lot of people have been asking me what some of the biggest differences have been so far.  So I made a list!

1.  Money - In Singapore they use what is called the Singapore Dollar.  There are 2, 5, 10 and 50 dollar bills and coins worth 1 dollar, 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents.  Price wise, everything here at the University is way cheaper than in the US (something about because its owned by the goverment, I dunno).  For example, we eat meals in the dining center for S$2.50 or S$3 (S$ means Singapore Dollar) versus the $8 we pay at ISU.

2.  Breakfast - APPARENTLY, breakfast doesn't exist here.  Its not that they don't eat in the mornings, they just have the same thing for all three meals.  WHO DOES THAT?  So the other day Brett and I went to the dining center at 7am and had pork and rice.  With a cup of broth to drink.  No cereal, no bagels, no OJ.  Oh yeah did I mention that we had broth to drink?  Yeah, no one drinks regular liquids with their meals.  Wow.

3.  Word Differences - We had one heck of a time trying to purchase the lil baby you're seeing on the right there.  CELL PHONES don't exist here.  They have HAND PHONES if you need one.  But no CELL PHONES.  Oh and neither do PAY AS YOU GO or PAY BY THE MINUTE phones.  But they do have phones that you can TOP UP.  Also, when I walked into the store the other day I was asked, "How can I please you?"  Yes, she did work at the store.  :)

4.  Height - Walked into the grocery store.  Easily the tallest person there.  Kinda freaked me out.

5.  Accents -  Almost everyone has accents here (except for the guy that we met from Arizona, but he doesn't count).  I can usually understand about 90% of the things that people are saying, Brett is lucky to understand 50%.  It is HILARIOUS.  We'll talk to someone for a while, walk away and then he'll turn to me and just say, "What?"  He gets so confused!  He approaches people to ask them questions and will just smile and pray that he understands enough to answer his question.  He also prays that they don't ask him a question because if they do and he doesn't catch it, he'll just stand there.  Its so funny.  Sorry Brett, I had to say something...

6.  American Food -  So we've tried eating at a couple major chain food places since we've been here to see what the differences are.  McDonalds is basically the same, minus the fact that real beef is a rarity here.  They either have chicken or pork burgers.  We also tried Pizza Hut.  Besides pepperoni pizza, everything is different!  They have all kinds of crazy seafood pizzas, asian soups and NO SAUSAGE.  There's chicken sausage if you're interested...
And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you.   MCDONALDS DELIVERS!  I laughed so hard when I saw this guy.

8.  Transportation -  Oh yeah.  They drive on the wrong side of the road.  Who knew?

About time...

We finally made it.

The trip started out at about 4am CT, way too early.  Brett and I got on the first flight at 6:20 after saying goodbye to our parents (mom said she only used 4 kleenexes, I'm so proud of her!).  You know how you always see 'that guy' in the airport?  The one that you just say to yourself, 'theres no way that I'll have to sit by him.'?  Well today it was this lil skiny asian dude who was standing there talking to someone on the phone.  But he just kept repeating the same thing over and over about 12 times, no joke.  "Time? Time? Time? Time? Clock? Clock? Clock? Clock? Numbers? Numbers? Numbers? Numbers?"  He was crazy.  We walked past him, smiled to ourselves, got on the plane, AND THERE HE WAS, in the same row, right next to us!  What are the odds?!?  We flew with him to Houston in 2 hours and had a 2 hour layover.  Thankfully he disappeared after that.  Continental got about 200 people seated for our next flight to Tokyo before they decided it would be a good idea to ask everyone to get off the plane for maintenance reasons.  That was awesome, not.

QUICK STORY - As I was packing, I had everything stuffed into my carry-on EXCEPT my neck pillow that my mother made me purchase :) So...she said, "Instead of finding a place for it, just wear it around the airport on your neck!" She was joking, I promise.  The sad thing is, I saw this 'awesome' guy in the Houston airport with his straw hat and his neck pillow around his neck.  It made me laugh! Thanks mom :)

We all got back on the plane after about 45 mins.  For all of you people out there who complain about being short, don't.  Sitting on a plane for 13 hours would've been much more enjoyable if I was 5' tall.  Oh, and another thing.  Airplane food? Yeah, that stuff is TERRIBLE.  I was gonna take a picture of it but I didn't wanna risk breaking my camera.  I ended up snacking on nutter butters, delicious cookies that Heather made, and deer jerky made by good ol' Ben Dennis.  That stuff was real good.  Over the course of the flight I ended up watching She's Out of my League (great movie! I'd suggest it), Bounty Hunter (poor), Family guy, The Office, Bolt, half of Clash of the Titans (poopy), Two and a Half Men and even had time for a virtual round of mini golf.  Great success.  We got off the plane and I had too see what Mac and Don's steakhouse tasted like.  Amazingly, potatoes here taste like potatoes there!  Who'd've thunk?  Then we got on the last flight from Tokyo to Singapore, I slept like a baby for 6ish hours.  The rest is boring, we eventually made it to our rooms safe and sound with all of our luggage.  I was quite pleased.  One day down, 4.5 months to go.