So here I am, mid-afternoon my second day in Singapore, thinking about how it’s 2 in the morning back home. I must be far, far away from home, as evidenced by the 21-hour journey that brought me here.
Long-haul flights offer an excellent opportunity, as so many know, for watching good movies. We watched Megamind, Salt, and most of Eat, Pray, Love. My opinions mostly line up, as usual, with the general consensus of the raters on imdb. Megamind was excellent. I enjoyed the character designs and the super-hero banter very much. Salt was good but not great. I found myself thinking that was too much straight action. This is not a common thought in my mind, but there it was. More exposition and story-telling would have helped. Eat, Pray, Love, though, I did not think quite deserved the dismal rating on imdb that it possesses. I enjoyed watching it, at least.
Then again, I was on a 15-hour plane ride with nothing better to do.
Fifteen hours is a long time to sit on a plane, but those fifteen hours passed at pretty much their usual rate, as time seems to do. And we got to Hong Kong. The coolest part about going through Hong Kong was flying over the city as we departed for Singapore. The giant skyscrapers literally rose above a misty shroud. Mountains loomed behind. Really lovely.
And a measly four hours later, we landed in Singapore, where the sun is never a lie (humid, mid-80s is a good bet most of the time). We got to Nanyang with little trouble, and check-in went smoothly. I got to my dorm room, and I met my roommate, who is really very nice, and she answered some of my questions and gave me a lot of excellent information.
Then, I took a shower. Remember those 21 hours of travel? Yes. This was among the greatest showers ever. Cool, refreshing water gently removing hours upon hours of built-up disgusting! What joy! What bliss!
Now, by this time, I was very tired. Somehow, my night had taken about twice as long as it should have, and when morning came, there was a day missing. Turns out your body takes even longer than your mind to figure out how that works. And I was clean. It would have been an excellent time to sleep and replenish my energy had it not been only 5 in the afternoon.
Determined to stave off our weariness and thus more quickly adjust to day being when the night should be, and vice-versa, Jason and I set off to have dinner. Our schools food offerings consist of a bunch of food-courts with reasonably priced choices. Jason and I split a fried-egg and vegetable meal with rice for S$8.20. It was absolutely amazing. Filling and delicious.
Then we walked about the campus. As Jason has described, NTU is truly beautiful. Yesterday evening, however, I didn’t really care that much about how it looked. Or about anything much, really. I was tired, the weather was a little too warm and humid, and the accommodations weren’t as good as Olin’s. I had to leave my room just to get water and use the restrooms, for goodness sakes.
I kept myself awake until 9pm, at which point I felt like I had stayed up all night. Remember the goodness of the shower? Yeah, sleeping horizontally again was good like that, too. I felt a lot better in the morning.
I woke up and played WoW. Waking up at around 7 conveniently means that my mother has just gotten home from work, and pretty much everyone in the guild is on. This I may do many more times J
Then, Jason and I ventured out to a place called Jurong Point to acquire some needed living items, such as hangers and laundry detergent. A Swedish exchange student we met at a delicious breakfast suggested the place, and he said you could buy “whatever you want” there.
He did not exaggerate. Jurong Point puts all other malls I have ever been to shame. At first, we went around the first accessible level of the mall, perusing some stores and finding most of the things we needed. We noticed a lot of places to eat delicious food, as well. This seemed normal enough for a mall, about the right size and scope. Then, we found escalators to the second level. This level was just as large as the last! And then there was another floor, and another! Yes, it was a very large mall. Needless to say, we found everything on our list, and we ate yet more delicious food.
Oh, and we ended up getting Singapore telephones for a total of S$58 with prepaid cards included. Turns out having a phone number is actually important for some things, even if you don’t use it very much. And it has an alarm, the time, and provides a nice sense of security J
I am comfortable now, with my shopping needs satisfied and at least a bit of familiarity with my new home for the next four months. I am ready, I think, for the next adventure.
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