A Week with Mother

Two weeks ago, Elisa Biondi finally touched down in Asia! It was long overdue, and I was very happy to see her!

We had a day in Singapore, then 3 in Bangkok, then 3 more in Singapore to end her trip.

Day 1: After picking her up at 7:00am, we checked her into her hotel and then headed to NTU. I showed her around my dorm and the academic facilities, and she even met Teh Bing! Well, she didn't get to meet him but we saw him sleeping from afar. From there we headed back to her hotel, and then went to Marina Bay at night. We saw the light show at Gardens by the Bay, looked at a lot of stores we couldn't afford to shop at in the mall, and then walked around the waterfront. 

Days 2-4: Bangkok! I hadn't gone earlier in the semester with the other students, so it was completely new to me. Our hotel was awesome, but in some district that I assume is affiliated with Japan (based on the stores and restaurants located around it). Although it was essentially Little Japan, we found some unreal pad thai to eat. 

I think Wat Pho was one of the cooler temples I've seen this semester. Our tour guide was hilarious, and I learned a lot about Buddhism that I definitely did not know before. He even gave Stephen Hawking a few years ago!

I also witnessed my mom's first tuk-tuk experience! These ones were a bit safer than the ones in Cambodia, but still dangerous nonetheless. We were taken around to two more temples, one of which we climbed to the top of to get a great view of Bangkok. It was called Wat Saket!

There was some down time in which we didn't know what to do, so we relaxed at the rooftop pool at our hotel. Also, I ate the dinner buffet at the hotel like an absolute champion. Seriously, I had like 8 plates of food. It was gross.

Days 4-7: Back in Singapore! I had class all day on Wednesday, but we met up for dinner! I wanted to take my mom to a place called Din Tai Fung which is famous for its dumplings, but when we got there it was closed....the only day of the year where it's closed....just my luck. We walked around a small trendy shopping area, and called it an early night.

On Thursday we went to Din Tai Fung! After that we headed to the Tiger Beer Brewery for a tour, which was not very eventful because a lot of the plant was shut down that day for "routine maintenance." Just my luck again, but the beer tasting at the end was fun! After that we headed to the National Museum, which i probably should have visited earlier in the semester to learn about where I was living but I hadn't gone yet. Better late than never!

On Friday I showed her Haji Lane and Arab street, we got a famous Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel ($31 cocktail), and had dinner by the bay. At the bay we took a 45 minute boat tour that went around some of the keys, another thing I probably should have done sooner but oh well. We didn't eat meat on Friday! Go us!

I had lots of fun with Elisa B that week, I just wish she could've stayed a little bit longer! I love you, Mother!

Vietnam

For my recess week (spring break) I traveled to Northern Vietnam with three other students! We went from Hanoi, to Sapa, back to Hanoi, to Ha Long Bay, and finally back to Hanoi again.

The trip spanned 10 days, and it was by far the most fun I’ve had in Asia so far!

Hanoi - Hanoi is an interesting place. We stayed in the Old Quarter, which seemed to me like an up and coming area. Our hostel is widely known, and it included everything from a full restaurant to laundry services, etc. This hostel was really the most I’ve been engulfed in backpacker culture as well. We met a lot of other travelers, some traveling for two weeks, some for two months, and even some for two years!

The Old Quarter is filled with shops, both old and new, and trendy/artsy areas while still upholding its history. We toured several museums covering things from the war to the place of women in Vietnam’s history, as well as just walked around. Our hostel was just blocks away from a small lake that was always filled with activity, so at times I would just put my headphones on and walk around and people watch!

Funny enough, one of my good friends from U of I contacted me and told me that her father was in Hanoi on a business trip. I ended up getting dinner with him and 10 of his Vietnamese co-workers! It was an awesome experience!

In order: Old Quarter Lake, Hostel Street, Hao Lo Prison, Vietnam Women's Museum

Sapa - We took a night bus from Hanoi to Sapa, arriving around 3:30am. They were nice enough to let us sleep on the bus until about 7:00, but after that we were whisked inside a small cafe for breakfast. We were greeted by our trek-guide Mao, a 4-foot, sassy, happy Vietnamese lady. After trekking for nearly 7 hours, 15ish miles, and what seemed like an eternity of going up and down hills, we arrived at her family’s home. We stayed there with around 8 other travelers, eating a home cooked meal, and bonding with her Vietnamese friends and family. There were two lightbulbs in her house, no working electronics, and we were all in bed by 9:00pm.

The next day, we woke up to a big breakfast prepared by Mao and her family, and then hiked back halfway and took a ride back to Sapa.

The point of Sapa is to see the rice fields, but we unfortunately encountered some poor weather. We could see virtually nothing the first day, but as we made the return trek it started to clear up just a bit. Here’s some of the best photos that I got:

Ha Long Bay - We took an organized trip through our hostel to Ha Long Bay. With about 35 other travelers, we took a bus, then a boat, then a bus, then a boat to our private island owned by our hostel. We had all meals provided, slept in bungalows, and had sand in every nook and cranny for 3 straight days. The island offered tubing, wake boarding, rock climbing (I got halfway up!), and a cruise on day 2. It was awesome to meet and hang out with all of the travelers, some of who were also exchange students at NTU!

After returning from Ha Long Bay towards the end of the week, we met up with a mutual friend of one of the people I was traveling with who happened to be living in Hanoi for over 7 months. The meal we shared with him was delicious, but unfortunately it upset my stomach. While the girls I was traveling with went to ride motorbikes around Vietnam the last day, I stayed in the hostel and watched some soccer. It’s alright though, I needed the break.

Hopefully someday I’ll get to return to Vietnam!

Siem Reap, Cambodia

My apologies for taking a while to post about my trip to Cambodia! The past week and a half have been a bit hectic with interviews and schoolwork. And…..I’m lazy.

The first of our four days in Cambodia was spent in Siem Reap. Well, almost a day. We took a night bus from Phnom Penh that left at midnight and arrived at 5:00am. From there, we bought our tickets to go see the 3 big temples of Siem Reap ($37 USD, pretty expensive actually but well worth it).

Temple #1: Angkor Wat

Oh my, it was so cool! It’s the largest religious monument in the world. By 6:00am there were at least 1,000+ people, probably more, gathered there to watch the sun rise over the temple. I took some pretty sweet pictures of it, which you can see below:

*Disclaimer* All photos past Angkor Wat were taken on my phone. I forgot to charge my camera before leaving for Cambodia. Classic Peter move, am I right?

Temple #2: Ta Prohm

Another cool temple! This temple was far smaller, and far less intact than Angkor Wat. There were crumbling rocks everywhere, as well as trees within and without the temple. It was actually really cool, but by this time we were exhausted from the lack of sleep on the night bus and immediately going straight to sight seeing. Here are some pictures:

Temple #3: Bayon

I feel like Lara Croft! One of the Tomb Raider movies was filmed at Bayon, which I think is pretty cool! Bayon was less intact than Angkor Wat, but more than Ta Prohm. Here, I came across a girl traveling alone, and I could tell she wanted me to take a picture of her but she didn’t know how to communicate. She tried speaking in 3 or 4 different languages before she spoke some words in French. I was excited to speak a little French, and we agreed to take a photo of each other! Here are some pictures of Bayon:

It was a short day in Siem Reap. We were only there for 7 hours, and we took a day bus back to Phnom Penh. I tried to fall asleep but occasionally a beetle would fly out of the air conditioning above my head and so I decided I wanted to stay awake. Good times!

Stay-cation

This past weekend was dedicated to re-exploring the downtown area of Singapore! Most of the students I know were in Thailand, but luckily there were a few here to come on a few city excursions.

Marina Bay: Marina Bay is exactly what it sounds like, a bay. It is surrounded by luxurious hotels, namely Marina Bay Sands, high end shopping, and eating. On Friday nights there is a water show in front of the hotel. The show is about 30 minutes long, where clips are projected on 50-foot walls of water being sprayed in the bay. There was music to accompany it, along with a few hundred people of all ages.

Gardens By The Bay: I really could not put what the Gardens are into words. These massive, glowing figures that look like trees span the whole garden. Again, there was a light and music show on Friday night which I think was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. The 15 minute session consisted of numerous pieces from all around Asia, with the lights on the tree figures adjusting to the beat and rhythm of each piece. It had poured just before we arrived, so nobody was really sitting, but the a few hundred people standing still and looking straight up was still quite the sight to see.

Skyline: There is a lot of debate in the US centered upon which city has the prettiest skyline. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, to name a few. I don’t care. Singapore is cooler. The buildings are smaller, but I think it’s cooler.

Marina Bay Sands:

Gardens By The Bay:

Skyline w/ Model:

Skyline w/o Model:

Disclaimer: Some of the pictures are just a little blurry. I'm still practicing with my camera, and I will get better!

What's Next: Feb. 10-13th I will be traveling to both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodia. 

Malaysia #2

Trip #2 to Malaysia, just one week after my first trip, did not go nearly as smoothly. Two other guys from U of I and I went on a 3 day trip that was organized through a local company. The company had organized it for students from the 3 main SG Universities that were here on exchange.

It was incredibly unorganized, the “beautiful” hotel that they had put us up in was quite gross, and everything took a million years to accomplish because it was Chinese New Year.

On top of all that, I lost my American iPhone.

Short post, I don’t want to talk about this trip!

Malaysia #1

Hello! My apologies for not posting in roughly two weeks. The past two weeks I have been on two different trips to Malaysia. Both trips had their highs and lows, but unfortunately the lows dominated trip #2. Overall, I think I’ve seen enough of Malaysia for this semester, and possibly my lifetime! Here’s a summary:

Trip #1 - I took this trip with some of the U of I students, as well as a new friend from Elon University. It was a five day trip, starting with a flight into Kuala Lumpur immediately followed by a 5 hour bus ride to Cameron Highlands. Cameron Highlands was very interesting, with its 3 different little towns. The only real complaint I have about it was getting there. Our bus took 5 hours to get there, with the driver stopping to eat dinner (not mentioned in the itinerary), but worse things could have happened. We arrived late, and woke up the next morning to take our tour of the area. The tour cost 26 RM which is roughly $5, and included a bunch of stops to local attractions. My favorite was definitely the bee farm that they took us to. We got to try some real honey! Other stops included a strawberry farm, a butterfly/insect/snake/rabbit farm, and the legendary tea plantation. We spent the whole day there, and then hopped back on the bus to Kuala Lumpur arriving late at night once again.

I really enjoyed Kuala Lumpur! We had a jam packed day, starting with the Batu Caves. We climbed the hundreds of stairs, my shirt turning light grey to dark with sweat, and walked into the crumbling temples that remained at the top.

After that, we headed to the central market. This was my first ever experience in a real bargain market. I didn’t really test my true skills, however, when asked to pay 20 RM for a pair of sunglasses, I managed to get it down to 15 ($3 US). Everything was very obviously fake, but I still got a kick out of people selling “Gucci” and “Prada” bags on a street corner.

Finally, my favorite part of the five days. My group met up with a woman named Cynthia Wong in Malaysia. My friend Tricia was put into contact with her through one of the deans in the College of Business! Cynthia was an honors business student at the University of Illinois, and after working for a few years decided to move across the world to Malaysia. She now teaches yoga, which I have learned is incredibly difficult. We went to one of her yoga class events which was on top of a very tall building, in a metal dome. It was very peaceful, and an experience I’d like to try again! After, we went out to dinner with Cynthia and a bunch of her local friends and had some great conversation!

For Everyone, But Mostly Eric Ure

This is more of a shout-out post, but everyone is welcome to read!

Eric,

I am writing this to you because you studied civil engineering, and I think you would really be fascinated by NTU. It has a renowned civil engineering program, and it’s especially cool because the program is small, and the students get to work on real projects on campus.

The roads here are very interesting. The entire campus is located on an enormous hill. Looking at a map, I cannot see any logic to how the roads fit into each other, but somehow they do. Every road is curved, I don’t think there’s a single road here on campus that is a straightaway for more than 100m. Also, the roads are all connected through roundabouts. They obviously exist, but I have seen more roundabouts on just this campus than I have seen in the US in total. I don’t think taking pictures of some of the streets would be that valuable, so here’s a campus map:

I know it’s not your specific area, but I would assume irrigation systems would fall under civil engineering too, right? Walking around campus, I feel as if I’m in one big Chamber of Secrets. There are drains everywhere you look, and all of the sides of the hills are cut into with concrete filtering the water to the bottom of campus. Unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned before, the bottom of campus is where Hall 7 is located. I guess this is vital, as it rains rather frequently here.

Anyways, I just thought you’d be interested! Feel free to google image search the campus a little more. I think you would enjoy it here!

Teh Bing

Making friends here with other exchange students is incredibly easy. That unfortunately does not hold true for some of the local students. Only having class on Wednesday and Thursday does not make it any easier. Most of the full time students will only speak English when speaking with a native English speaker, but I will not let that stop me.

I have managed to make one friend in Hall 7, and his name is Teh Bing. He doesn’t speak any English, is always sitting around the Hall 7 common room, and I honestly am not sure if he is enrolled in any class. We first met in the common room, and since then I see him every day at Hall 7. We usually just acknowledge each other with eye contact, but I am going to try to get to know him better as the semester goes on. Unfortunately, he does not have a visa. I only mention this because a lot of people create stronger connections through travel, but Teh Bing will not be able to tag along with us.

I will be providing updates about my friendship with Teh Bing throughout the semester. I want to try and get close with at least one local!

Pulau Ubin

On January 14th, I was given the opportunity to go to a small island off of the coast of Singapore called Pulau Ubin. The island was originally inhabited by a few thousand people around 60 years ago, but most moved away once all of the granite had been cleaned out of the quarries. We were told that only a few hundred locals live there today, and that seems correct with what we saw.

The program was through NTU, and it was only for exchange students. We were broken into groups which helped me get to meet some other awesome students. I met some students from Pittsburgh, Maryland, Toronto, South Korea, and more. We were led by two NTU students who were also Singapore natives.

The island is not that large, in fact, I’m pretty sure we walked most of it in the 4(ish) hours that we were touring it. It’s mostly very dense forest, but there are some paths that are built into the water. We weaved in and out different parts of the island until we could barely walk anymore. The hills took a toll on everyone, but the scenery was great enough that we kept the complaining in our head.

Here are some photos that I took:

Hall 7

Before reading this, cue the song ‘The Way I Live’ by Baby Boy Da Prince just to get you in the mood for what you are about to read.

To preface my housing situation, I will explain NTU’s housing application to you. When I clicked on the student housing tab of the exchange portal, I was prompted with a question: “Do you want to be considered for on-campus housing?” Upon confirming, another box popped up that said simply this: “Thank you. You will receive your decision on December 1st.”

The day eventually came around, and within our UIUC group message we figured out that we had all been placed in different halls around campus. I was placed in Hall 7. Pictured below: an actual screenshot of the message that came in the UIUC group message just minutes after I posted that I was to be set up in Hall 7.

How bad could it really be? I will tell you, it is bad. Hall 7 is actually made up of a few buildings, mine being Block 38. The room, pictured below, is essentially a concrete box.

Upon arriving, I opened my door to see half eaten bowls of soup, scattered homework with Chinese writing all over it, and a lot of bugs. The Hall 7 staff that was helping me with my luggage apologized profusely and had me wait in a common room while his staff cleaned the room. I was off to a great start! To add on to the poor quality of the dorm, it is in the corner of campus hidden away from everything, including all 9 UIUC students who live at the other end. It’s also situated at the bottom of the massive hill that campus sits on top of, which makes commuting miserable. In the street photo below, I am standing at the top of the hill, and Hall 7 is at the bottom about 1 mile in the distance.

Not to put any images in anyone’s head, but I sleep in nothing but my underwear and a very thin sheet. I have never not had the luxury of air conditioning, and it truly is hard. I can barely handle waking up sweaty every morning, which really puts into perspective how lucky I am to come from where I do. It has taken me just 10 days in Hall 7 to notice an evident change in culture. That’s what studying abroad is supposed to be about, right?

For those keen enough to spot the second bed in the photo, I do have a roommate. His name is Tristan, and he is another business student from France! He’s awesome, and it will give me a chance to test whether or not I’ve retained anything from my 7 years of studying the language.

While I do complain about Hall 7, it’s alright. I am really only ever here to sleep and shower. I’m out all day, everyday, and that’s how it is back in Champaign as well.

If you’ve been reading the blog, be sure to let me know. I’m curious as to who might be!

My Newest Friend: Rice

Being the melting pot that Singapore is, there are so many different cuisines available for me to eat daily. The canteens (A.K.A dining halls) are typically made up of a few different windows with different menus and cuisines. I have tried a lot of them, and plan to try all of them by the end of the semester.

One recurring meal so far has come from one of the thai food windows in Canteen 2. I usually order the steamed meat dumplings with chili oil! Most meals are typically S$5 (the S denotes Singapore dollars), which equates to roughly $3.50.

We’ve also been eating as a group at a lot of hawker centers, which is basically tons and tons of food stands packed very close together in an eating area. Everything is very cheap, and so far everything has proven to be very good!

I have also learned to love rice. At home, I really did not eat white rice ever, and when I did it would only be because someone did not order chicken fried rice, a travesty, I know. Here, I eat it with every single meal. For breakfast I will usually have a small bowl of white rice and some fruit, and then I’ll have it with meat and vegetables for dinner.

The best meal I have had so far has come from Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle. That is one long restaurant name! The owner, Chan Hong Meng, was the first ever hawker to be awarded a Michelin Star. I was eating a meal cooked in a restaurant that had been awarded the highest of awards, and I had spent the equivalent of $5. I got the Char Siew Rice. It's barbecued pork over rice! Here’s a picture of it:

Updates - 1/8/2017

The first five days in Singapore have been an experience, and quite frankly it feels like it’s been an eternity since I left Highland Park.

After nearly 30 hours of non-stop travel, and very little sleep, we arrived at roughly 6:00am on January 3rd. Jason (another UIUC student), Lauren, and I waited patiently for some other UIUC students to come in on a flight from Shanghai at a Starbucks in the airport. After splitting into cabs, we rode from the airport to NTU.

I will get into specifics of the past 5 days in other shorter posts, but here are some of the culture differences that I’ve written down that I think are cool, funny, or just notable:

• There are campus busses that you have to hail. If you do not put your arm up, they will not stop the bus. I have missed multiple busses so far because I have forgotten. Luckily, they come every 5-8 minutes.
• You have to back into parking spaces in Singapore. You can not turn into a space, you have to put your car into reverse and carefully back it up. I guess this is actually better, as your vision will not be obstructed and there may be less accidents when pulling out of spaces. One time I got really excited because I saw a car pull forward into a space. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I saw the driver only use that as a means to perfectly back into the space opposite him.
• Escalators have two lanes…...that’s right, you read that correctly. The left side of the escalator is for people who want to just stand and be lifted up/down. The right side is for people who don’t have time for the stationary lifestyle, and want to walk up or down while it is moving. They will mercilessly push you out of the way.

I am only now realizing that the differences in culture that I’ve listed are all transportation related. I’m so glad you’re taking the time to read my incredibly diverse writing.