Tourist Week, part deux

Monday, 30 Jan

Monday was the second of the 3 main days of Chinese New Year. The actual New Year lasts for something like 17 days, I’m not exactly sure. But those three days are when the major celebrations occur. For the New Year, Chinese people are supposed to visit the homes of family and friends. Since the population of Singapore is about 70% Chinese, the city was quite slow as most of those people went to China for a few days for home visits. So on Monday, since everything was closed for the New Year, we did the Hippo Tour. It was 6 different bus tours around the city. That was a lot of fun. I didn’t realize the layout of the city until I took the tour. Now I know how close together things really are in this city. It was nice getting to sit in the wind and see things without having to walk around in the heat. That night, we went to the River Hongbao, which was a little festival celebrating Chinese New Year. We tried to go there during the day, but it was completely dead. As soon as we walked in after dark, it was insane. Sooo many people. We watched a group of Chinese senior citizens do a weird dance. We couldn’t understand what they were saying because it was in Chinese. But it was interesting, anyway.

Tuesday, 31 Jan

We went to Sentosa Island, which is an island full of tourist attractions just a bit off the main island. We took a cable car over there, which was pretty cool. From that high up, we could see the main port and we could even see just a bit of Indonesia. We got a lot of cool pictures from that high up. Our first stop was the Underwater World. We saw lots of fish, sharks, crabs, and Asians. It was still Chinese New Year, so it was extremely crowded because of the holiday. There was also a glass tunnel you could go through that had fish swimming beside and above you. That was pretty cool – sharks and stingrays and giant fish were swimming all around us. I took my glasses off so Dad could take a picture of me with a giant fish behind me, but another giant fish swam towards me really fast, and I freaked out since I couldn’t see it clearly. So we have lots of blurry aquarium pictures. We took a Ben and Jerry’s break and then moved on to the Butterfly Garden. There were butterflies everywhere. I told Dad that I wanted to go somewhere away from all the people and stand really still so a butterfly would land on me. Two minutes later, one landed on my head, and a whole bunch of tourists were laughing at me and taking pictures of me. Fun stuff. We walked around there some more while I took tons of pictures trying to figure out my digital camera. We missed the dolphin show because we took the wrong bus and then didn’t want to wait to take another bus back – the line was about 2 hours long. So we just walked around, looking at the cool stuff, like the giant merlion statue. And then we got back on the cable car and headed back to the hotel.

Wednesday, 1 Feb

So I had to go back to school for class. I don’t know what they’re thinking. I’m an exchange student, I don’t do work. But I headed back anyway. I got back to campus with about 15 minutes to grab a quick lunch before class (I had been shopping with Mom and Grandma that morning, so I was running a bit late). So I order something I don’t really want because it had a short line. I run into some friends who are about to leave but say they will hang out with me for the next 10 minutes I have to inhale my food. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to do so because I fell down the stairs and deposited my food all over my legs rather than in my stomach. I was extremely embarrassed, shaking all over, covered in rice and brown sauce, and in pain. I didn’t have time to order a new meal, so I ate Bailey’s leftovers. So I removed the food from my NEW shoes and headed off to class. Not too bad for an abnormal psychology tutorial.But anyway, I’m rambling. I met up with everyone and we went to Pizza Hut for dinner because Mom decided she was already tired of Asian food. Yeah, try living here and having a small budget. And as a side note, some of the pizzas here don’t have tomato sauce. Instead, they have lime-mayonnaise sauce. Gross. After dinner, the server started asking us questions about where we were from, what we were doing in Singapore, the things we had seen here. We ended up talking to her for an hour about Singapore and the US. It was very interesting to talk to a native Singaporean and compare the two countries… she told us a lot about Singapore, and we told her about home. And Dad tried to explain to her what a Yankee is. That was funny. And then we headed down to Little India. Pretty cool, not bad. Mom haggled with a guy over cologne for Dad, but then just walked out of the store when the salesman pissed her off and tried to overcharge her. She had to learn: that’s what it’s like for Whities over here. Trust me, you will always get a better price if you ask a Chinese dude to haggle for you in Chinatown and an Indian to haggle for you in Little India. Take note.

Thursday, 2 Feb

So the first part of the day we shopped. That was cool. Mom bought me more shirts and a really nice dress. (I wore it on Valentine’s Day and I felt pretty.) And we chilled for a little while on Orchard Road while we waited for Dad to get off work. Orchard Road is simultaneously the most expensive part of town and the most western part of town. Go figure. This is where we stayed the first three nights in Singapore. This is where Mom said, “Wow, there’s so many westerners in Singapore,” and I had to clarify that “there’s so many westerners on Orchard.” Anyway. When Daddy got back, we headed off to the zoo. After 7pm, they have a Night Safari, which pretty much rocks. First we ate overpriced fish and chips, but it was western food that didn’t include a slab of meat and mushy, cold “French fries,” so I was happy. While we ate, we watched a mini show that was supposed to be like the original tribal peoples of Singapore and Borneo (which, by the way, there are none left of). They did a lot of cool stuff, like shoot blow darts at people and breath fire and stand on a human pyramid while shooting blow darts and throw flaming things around. Also, a peacock was walking around freely while we were eating. I continue to be bothered by the free-roaming birds around my meals when the BIRD FLU is currently killing people in Asia. Maybe I’m overreacting. Anyway, we moved away from the free show and settled down to the not-free show. Second row seats – we’re classy. The show was true Singaporean style… everything was a lesson, everything was Something You Should Not Do. It was cute, though. Some otters showed us how to recycle. And this guy lost his “Magee,” and the bad American actor who I think went to drama school in Kansas was trying to figure out what a Magee was. He finally figured out the guy was talking about a 10-foot PYTHON, which he lifted from a box in the seat directly behind Dad and Grandma. That ranks on the list of the Funniest Things I’ve Ever Seen. They were both up and out of their seats when he lifted that snake out. Highly amusing. Good show. So after, we got on the tram and rode around the zoo. The Singapore Zoo uses very few actual cages. Most of the animals just roam around and are divided by natural barriers rather than steel. When we drove through the deer and antelope and various other hoofed beasts, we could have reached out and touched them we were so close. Not to worry, though… they did have the big, bad animals in cages. Like the leopards. Very pretty creatures, but not somebody I’d want to meet in a dark alley. Or in a dark zoo. The other animals were cool too, but you’ve been to a zoo before. I’ll spare you the details.

Friday, 3 Feb

Friday was our shopping day. Yeah, I know, most days were our shopping days. But I got cool shoes, so I was happy. And we went to dinner at a really nice Indian restaurant. By the way, Indian food = delicious. Especially North Indian food. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend finding it. And eating it. So we had good food while a live band entertained us. I mean “band” in the loosest sense of the word. I also mean “entertained” in the loosest sense of the word. But it was nice. And delicious. Did I mention that?

Saturday, 4 Feb

Well, first I had to go to class. Completely bogus to have class on a Saturday. I don’t understand why Singaporeans have holidays because then they just make up the missed lectures at the most inopportune times, for example, on a Saturday, or during midterm break. So after a boring lecture on the various international security dilemmas during and after the Cold War, I met up with everyone at the hotel again. We went to Chinatown because Mom wanted to go back there to pick up a couple things before she left. I didn’t buy much. It started raining. Let me tell you, they were lucky. When I arrived, it rained 5 times a day every day for 3 weeks. When they got here, it rained ONCE. Not once per day, but once the entire time. Lame. Then we went to the giant mall only for electronics. I find it pretty boring, but I know a few guys who would enjoy it, one of whom is my dad. We ate more western food at Surf N Turf, so that was cool. Then we said sad goodbyes so I could go back to school because they left sooo early in the morning.