In the last post I have promised to write about the attractions of Singapore. Singaporeans themselves are known for saying that their country is famous only for shopping and eating. To some extent I agree: huge shopping malls are in every metro station and on every street. The most famous shopping place is Orchard Road - full of fancy shmancy luxurious clothing brands and everything one can imagine under one condition: it has to be freaking expensive.
When it comes to food – it is amazing. One can find food courts from every country (as long as Asian food is great, I do not recommend spaghetti with Asian spices or Mexican kitchen that tastes just weird. Yes: rice is a safe bet. And using the chop sticks is quite easy to learn). The good thing is that it’s very cheap. The proper meal costs around 2 Euro, so there is no point in cooking. One is much better off just going out.
However, Singapore offers many more attractions that make the life of an exchange student amazing. Here is my must-do list:
1. Sentosa – an island on the south of Singapore, only 30 minutes by the metro from the city center. Sand, sea, palm trees, beach volleyball courts. Everything a person needs to forget about school and homework.
2. Botanic garden – a reminder that Singapore lies only 167 km from the Equator - rain forest trees, lakes and orchard gardens. The only minus is that it seems fake. The Singaporeans were planning to convert the whole island into the urban area, but at some point they decided that some parks would be nice, so they ended up planting the trees back. Therefore the area seems to be a bit unnatural (we managed to find FAKE rocks).
3. Flier – an equivalent of the London Eye. Highly recommended – all the skyscrapers are lighted up during the night so the view is amazing.
4. Casino – located on the top floor of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. As long as Singaporeans are obligated to pay the fee of 50 Euro just to enter the casino, the entrance is free for internationals (the money of foreigners is very welcome in Singapore). Not too long ago one of the casino players lost S$26million during one night.
5. Great parties – just as Tilburg people party on Tuesdays in LG, Singapore goes out on Ladies’ Night on Wednesday. In most of the club the entrance for girls is free with a complementary free flow of drinks. Great parties guaranteed.
6. SMU student clubs – come up with some crazy hobby or idea and most likely there is a group of students in SMU already doing it. Wakeboarding? No problem! Sailing? Scuba diving? Paintball? – you name it. I tried wakeboarding a couple weeks ago and – gonna boast around a bit – I was pretty good:)
7. Arab Street – a perfect place if you are sick of rice and all the Asian food. Kebab and mint shisha are the best in the Arab area. It was especially interesting to go there after the sunset during Ramadan. The night markets were very fun to walk through.
8. Marina Bay Sands – Infinity Pool on the roof of the skyscraper.
9. One-time events – the monthly calendar of Singapore is filled with very interesting events such as: F1 Night Race, Youth Olympic Games, concerts, festivals.
The only problem with Singapore is that you HAVE TO go to school and you HAVE TO do your homework. So far the trade- off between school and everything else was definitely in favor of the latter. Unfortunately the deadlines for papers and presentations are coming up so I will have to start hanging out in the library a little bit more.
Greetings from extremely sunny and worm Singapore!
Joanna
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Singapore is a great starting point for traveling. It has very good connections to all of the North-East Asian countries. The cheapest and fastest way is to fly with the low cost airlines such as: Air Asia, Tiger Airways or Jet Star. The prices stated at the websites are from 20 Euro, but even after adding all the taxes and credit card fees the prices are reasonably low. Therefore it is very tempting to travel around.
My first major travel was to Kuala Lumpur. We decided to take a bus since the capital of Malaysia is only 5 hours away from Singapore, and the price for a return ticket was only 25 Euros. The double-decker bus was a great choice – big, comfortable sits with a massage options were better than the business class in an airplane.
What to see in KL? One definitely cannot miss the Petronas Twin Towers (remember to be there no later than 7 AM because the number of entrance tickets issued daily is very limited), Batu Caves (huge caves with a temple inside which is just an hour away from the city), the Bird Park (where the birds are flying freely around you. At some point the parrot sat on my arm!). The only thing I would not recommend is the elephant sanctuary – very expensive and very touristic. Overall, KL is a big city that seems to be very Western. The main things that distinguished KL from Singapore are: trash on the streets, crazy traffic rules, and the restaurants that had frogs in the aquariums waiting to be cooked.
The next trip was to Jakarta. The flight took only 80 minutes and it was enough to fly over an equator from the north part of the Earth to the south. After paying the entrance visa fee we left the airport in order to find some kind of hostel (we didn’t book any beforehand because the cheapest one we found in the Internet was 18 Euro, while the one we stayed at cost around 1.50 Euro!). The hostel did not look very tempting, but since it was suggested in Lonely Planet – we gave it a chance.
Jakarta is a crazy city – 20 million people, dirt, poverty, lots of trash on the streets, no rules, crazy traffic (I called my friend to have a dinner with him in 30 minutes but due to the traffic it took us over 3 hours to meet up!). What is more, even though Jakarta is a capital, the people are still not used to the white faces. They would not leave us alone: taking pictures, yelling after us, touching, trying to have conversations while the only English sentence they knew was “Hello Mister”. I have to admit that Jakarta was the first culture shock I have ever had.
For the last day of our travel around Java we decided to take a ferry to Thousand Islands. During the 3 hours travel we met a person who offered us a room in his house. We were so lucky! The guy was very nice (the only English speaking person in the whole island!), took us snorkeling around the islands, and invited us to the BBQ with the locals (it was amazing to listen to this people talking, singing, playing guitar). I feel like I have learned a lot during the travel. I met up with many locals, got to know their culture and different habits.
These were the main trips I had so far. I am leaving for the next one to Hong Kong in a few days and there is a reces week in the end of September during which we are planning to go to Vietnam. I am looking forward to it :) This is not to say that there is nothing to do in Singapore – on the contrary – there is so many possibilities that it is impossible to be bored. I will describe all the Singaporean leisure activities in the next post. Until then - take care.
Joanna
My first major travel was to Kuala Lumpur. We decided to take a bus since the capital of Malaysia is only 5 hours away from Singapore, and the price for a return ticket was only 25 Euros. The double-decker bus was a great choice – big, comfortable sits with a massage options were better than the business class in an airplane.
What to see in KL? One definitely cannot miss the Petronas Twin Towers (remember to be there no later than 7 AM because the number of entrance tickets issued daily is very limited), Batu Caves (huge caves with a temple inside which is just an hour away from the city), the Bird Park (where the birds are flying freely around you. At some point the parrot sat on my arm!). The only thing I would not recommend is the elephant sanctuary – very expensive and very touristic. Overall, KL is a big city that seems to be very Western. The main things that distinguished KL from Singapore are: trash on the streets, crazy traffic rules, and the restaurants that had frogs in the aquariums waiting to be cooked.
The next trip was to Jakarta. The flight took only 80 minutes and it was enough to fly over an equator from the north part of the Earth to the south. After paying the entrance visa fee we left the airport in order to find some kind of hostel (we didn’t book any beforehand because the cheapest one we found in the Internet was 18 Euro, while the one we stayed at cost around 1.50 Euro!). The hostel did not look very tempting, but since it was suggested in Lonely Planet – we gave it a chance.
Jakarta is a crazy city – 20 million people, dirt, poverty, lots of trash on the streets, no rules, crazy traffic (I called my friend to have a dinner with him in 30 minutes but due to the traffic it took us over 3 hours to meet up!). What is more, even though Jakarta is a capital, the people are still not used to the white faces. They would not leave us alone: taking pictures, yelling after us, touching, trying to have conversations while the only English sentence they knew was “Hello Mister”. I have to admit that Jakarta was the first culture shock I have ever had.
For the last day of our travel around Java we decided to take a ferry to Thousand Islands. During the 3 hours travel we met a person who offered us a room in his house. We were so lucky! The guy was very nice (the only English speaking person in the whole island!), took us snorkeling around the islands, and invited us to the BBQ with the locals (it was amazing to listen to this people talking, singing, playing guitar). I feel like I have learned a lot during the travel. I met up with many locals, got to know their culture and different habits.
These were the main trips I had so far. I am leaving for the next one to Hong Kong in a few days and there is a reces week in the end of September during which we are planning to go to Vietnam. I am looking forward to it :) This is not to say that there is nothing to do in Singapore – on the contrary – there is so many possibilities that it is impossible to be bored. I will describe all the Singaporean leisure activities in the next post. Until then - take care.
Joanna
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