Singapore Trip

Singapore Trip

On the evening of the 10th of May I met up with my brother Scott at the Changi International Airport after a rather tedious flight in which my nose was dripping like a leaky faucet from a cold I caught while hiking around in the rain in Japan, and our journey together began. We checked in to our hostel's cave-like dorm room and quickly set out to see the new Star Trek movie at a nearby mall, because it was completely necessary to do so. We stopped at a convenience store for some tissues, grabbed a quick bite to eat at a hawker center (a congregation of small restaurants) and then headed into the mall. It was a different kind of mall than I was used to in America. The movie theater spanned four or five levels, and we went to three different floors before we found the place (level 9) where we could buy our tickets and see our film. I guess the mall was kind of like a hip Dayton's. One thing to know about Singapore is that there are malls everywhere. Each new mall tries to outdo the rest, like casinos in Las Vegas. And there is always a new one being built. In fact, I was astounded by the amount of construction and development going on in Singapore. The movie was sweet by the way. And by sweet I mean totally awesome.

Scott showed me around the NUS campus, which was very large and impressive. Instead of giant oak trees like at the U of M, there were strange, beautiful tropical trees whose trunks were coated with moss and small plants. We later hiked up to the top of Bukit Timah hill and through some dense jungle trails. My first jungle experience was very enjoyable. There were so many crazy sounds coming from every direction, both from the wildlife and the helicopters flying around overhead. The wildlife was elusive, and I only saw a few movements out of the corner of my eye, save for a stray dog and some kind of squirrel near the picnic area. One trail we took was pretty rugged, with huge rocks and vines you could use to clamber down them. We then went to the night safari, and I got to see plenty of wildlife, albeit in a semi-controlled environment. It was a very full day.

The next day we toured the city some more, saw some more malls, and toured the National Museum. I learned a lot about Singapore's history through a well-done audio tour of a labyrinthine exhibition hall. I heard all kinds of interesting stories, and I began to understand a bit about how things got to be the way they are now.

On our final day in Singapore, we walked through more malls, tooled around the island of Sentosa on some crappy bikes, and watched the crappy yet enjoyable X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Sentosa is a tourist destination with a lot of resorts and missable attractions, which we skipped. It was still a lot of fun, though. [edit] I have posted a photo gallery for the Singapore trip with some pictures from all the main places I mentioned. [/edit] We took the train back to Changi, caught our flight to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia that evening and said goodbye to Singapore. We were both a little bit relieved, and excited to be heading towards Mt. Kinabalu.