The past week

Ok so I have an entire week to catch you up on so I'll try to hit the highlights. Last Wednesday, Michelle (another intern where I work), Lisa (intern where I work and living w/her at our host family's house) and I went to Jurong Bird Park. It was beautiful - we walked around, took lots of pictures, and saw a bird show. I also did some more shopping with them in Chinatown and started buying some souvenirs.

Friday I saw a talk about how Computational Biology can be applied to discover new drugs to treat diseases. Immediately after, I headed straight to the airport where our group flew to Phuket, Thailand. We spent Friday night there and left pretty early Saturday morning on a ferry to the Phi Phi Islands. The islands were absolutely stunning - one of the small beaches here was where they filmed the movie "The Beach." We did some snorkeling and even fed monkeys at another beach called Monkey Beach. Then, after lunch, we spent all afternoon out at the beach. Both lunch and dinner were at restaurants alongside the beach so it was wonderful. We then did some shopping around the local village and went to a Reggae Bar where there were some Thai kickboxing matches being held. There were lots of foreigners - mostly Australians and some British there as well. 

Sunday we enjoyed the beach a little more, did some more shopping, and then left on a ferry back to Phuket. To kill an hour or so in Phuket we went to a Pearl Factory and looked at how pearls are made and got to see different types. Then back to the airport for our flight back. It was a short trip and the weekend flew by but it was a ton of fun! I slept in today (took the day off from work) and am going to take it easy tonight.

Thanks for visiting my page and hope you enjoy the pictures. Have a great week!

Zoo and Chinese Theater!

So I've had a great last couple of days. Friday, a few of the girls went out to see the new Harry Potter - tickets were sold out all over town so luckily we got them early! Before the show we took a walk over to Arab Street & looked at a beautiful mosque. We also had some kind of tea (te-terie i think it was called?) that was reeeeeeeeally good. On Saturday, our whole group took a trip to the Singapore Zoo & had a great time. I was surprised with how open the zoo was - a lot of the exhibits were so close you could reach out and touch the animals. Saturday night we hung out at a bar called Wala-Wala in a neat area of town called Holland Village - a nice chill area with a lot of neat bars, restaurants and shops. On Sunday, Shannon and I attempted to make it to a 5 pm mass at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd but as it turns out, the mass wasn't until 6! We stopped in to read the readings for the day and then had to leave later to meet up with some friends for dinner. Hopefully we can get the timing worked out for the next weekend we're in town. At 8 pm, we saw a traveling show called "Journey to the West" - an acrobatic drama with lots of martial arts and cirque du soleil-type performing. It was amazing! Picture-taking was not allowed, but I sneaked a picture without flash of the theater before the show began.

A few of the new foods that I've tried are liver, quail eggs, and stingray. Zafeera (my host mom) cooked liver and quail eggs with some other meat, potatoes, french beans, and rice for lunch on Sunday and while the eggs were good, the liver was not my favorite food. Today for lunch I had stingray and it was really good! It was barbecued on a banana leaf with a spicy sauce - I'd definitely order it again.

In other news, I finished reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult today. Wonderful book - I highly recommend it. Now I can go see the movie :-D.

Tonight we're going to see a comedian perform at the Hard Rock Cafe. If only I didn't have to work at 9 am!

Chinatown and more

Hey everyone! I posted a few pictures that I took of Chinatown from tonight and the signs that are all written in different languages. I'm really starting to love the culture here but it's taken some getting used to being the minority. I love the people that I work with - we go to lunch as a group (7-8 of us usually) to either one of the 6 food courts in Singapore Polytechnic or one of the nearby Hawker centers - outdoor food courts with a million options of foods from different cultures to choose from. The best part is it only costs $2-4! So far I've tried Mui Fun (rice with seafood and veggies in a thick sauce), fried noodles, pork-stuffed steamed buns, chicken rice, Carrot Cake (not a cake in fact but a meal - sauted turnips and this spongy potato-like stuff and eggs) and a seafood soup that was really good. Not to mention I tried durian fruit today - it's this spiny fruit that has a very pungent smell to it and the taste isn't all that much better. Some people absolutely love it but I can definitely say now that I'm not much of a fan. I haven't done much shopping yet but I'm afraid this place is going to leave me broke by the time it's all over. 

There are a few things that I find interesting about Singapore I thought I'd share: they only use forks and spoons (no knives), everything is very open - everyone leaves windows open during the day and dries clothes on bamboo sticks hanging out of their windows because no one has dryers, they eat with two hands (fork in one and spoon in the other - or chopsticks in one and spoon in the other depending on the food), they drive on the left side of the road, there are a lot of outdoor eating facilities that provide hundreds of affordable options of foods to try, there are malls everywhere you turn, and all their outlets have a switch to turn them on and off. For instance, when we're not using a fan we turn the fan and the outlet it's plugged into off. 

Tomorrow is Friday! I'm so excited - plans for the weekend: shopping, Harry Potter, the zoo, and Chinese theatre! 

First weekend & first day of work

Yesterday, the ILAP group met up at Orchard Road to walk around and see some of the sights and malls. We then headed down to Clark Quay to walk around and found a great place there to eat dinner right on the water. If you look through some of the pictures (sorry they're out of order - I'm new to photobucket and couldn't figure out how to move the pictures around and that's how they uploaded), you'll see a very interesting one taken near a restaurant/bar in Clark Quay. Also, Singapore is easily the most diverse place I've ever seen or been to - most of the signs are written in 4 languages - English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, because of the incredibly diverse population. Some other things that are taking some getting used to are: they drive on the left side of the road (I'm constantly looking the wrong way before crossing...I'm getting better though!), they hang most of their clothes to dry (hardly anyone has clothes dryers - I guess it saves on electricity and avoids releasing more heat as well), the 13 hour time difference, and the MRT train system. I rode it to work this morning and it was packed crowded. As for my internship, I met with my professor today that I'm working with and he showed me around Singapore Polytechnic Institute and introduced me to some of the people there. They're all really nice and we even go to lunch as a group with some of the student workers and interns for the summer. Other than that, I've put pictures up of the area around where I'm staying and some pictures from the apartment as well. Enjoy!

Travel & Day 1

So we finally made it! After a 2 hour drive from College Station to Houston, 3 hour flight from Houston to Detroit, 12 hour 45 minute flight from Detroit to Tokyo, and a 7 hour 15 minute flight from Tokyo to Singapore, we arrived in Singapore around 1 am Saturday morning. After getting through Customs and getting our luggage, we stayed at the 5 star hotel right next to the airport, the Crowne Plaza. After 4 or so hours of sleep, we ate a wonderful breakfast, then took a bus tour and boat tour of the main parts of Singapore. We then ate our first Singapore meal at a restaurant not far from Little India (no idea the name). Afterwards, we met our host families back at the hotel. I'm staying with a married couple named Hidier and Zafeera, and they have been incredibly welcoming. I've uploaded the pictures I took yesterday and today as well. Seeing as it's 10:36 pm our time (9:36 am Dallas) and I haven't had much actual sleep the past few days, I'm about to go crash and slowly but surely become adjusted to the time difference. Happy belated 50th birthday Dad!

First post

Hello everyone! While I'm on the other side of the world, I'm going to post updates on here of what I've been up to and links to pictures that I've posted. I'm hoping to do this at least once a week, if not more than that depending on how often I have Internet access. Hopefully it turns out well! 3 days and counting!