Singapore

My friend Adam came and visited me for about a week. We met in Singapore, stayed there for a few days, took the overnight bus to Penang and stayed here for a few days, and then went to KL for one night, from where he went back to Singapore to fly home to Michigan.

Singapore is kind of a strange place...almost 1984ish. There are tons of laws and fines for everything from gum chewing, to eating on the train, to spitting. The city is impeccably clean, well-organized, efficient, and safe (the police do not wear uniforms). It is very westernized and differs little from US cities, except it is cleaner, safer, and more convenient!

We went to two museums there - the Asian Civilizations Museum and the Singapore Art Museum. They were both great, very well put together. The art museum had mostly modern Asian art, which I really enjoyed. It is a very interesting mix of modern and western influence, yet is also very rooted in traditional Asian art. I would love to study it more, some of the works we saw were great. We also took a tour of the Battle Box, an underground shelter where the British were during WWII when the Japanese invaded. We spent some time walking around Chinatown, Little India, the the downtown area as well, and just exploring the city.

The food there is very similar to the food in Malaysia, but of course more expensive. Adam and I had some good meals though. We spent quite a while searching for Taco Bell one afternoon (we don't have those in Malaysia and I miss it!), which turned out to be rather unappetizing (who would have thought?).

One night, we went on a night safari at the zoo, which was pretty cool. They had a lot of animals and we got to see them very up close. We went around on a little train and there were several stops where we could get out and walk through various exhibits. Some of them had helpful warning signs like: "Flying squirrels are harmless unless provoked. If flying squirrels frighten you, you may not wish to enter." They also had a what looked to be exciting animal show, but ours got rained out :(

Our time in Penang was spent doing the usual touristy things which I have written about before. Our Thanksgiving was spent eating delicious Thai food on a hill overlooking the island with a gorgeous sunset, with a few good friends and parents who were visiting. Not the traditional method of celebrating, but great nonetheless.

In KL we went up the Petronas towers, saw the national mosque, went to an orchid garden, and had a very delicious Middle Eastern meal to say bye. I also met up with some of my Penang friends there and said bye as they flew home to their countries. The remaining chunk of my friends leave this week. It will definitely be strange to no longer be able to run up a few flight of stairs to other apartments and visit people whenever I want. But this will leave me with a few days of alone time and time to catch up with some local friends, and then my mom and Alice come on December 9th!!! These next few weeks will definitely be a strange transition period of saying goodbye, meeting new exchange students, and having family here to travel with.