finally, the asia that i've been expecting...

tuesday 25 august

first off, having class at 8am at william & mary is no fun either, but it's so much worse when you're in a school 5 times the size and in a foreign country. the class itself wasn't bad (except for the fact that the teacher assumes i'm from singapore and assumes that i'm knowledgeable of all things singapore...), but aiyaaa i had to wake up at 615am to even have a chance to eat breakfast and get to class on time. thankfully i remembered that my social work tutorial doesn't start til next week, so from 10am onwards i was home free! (except i've just remembered that i have two chapters of psycholinguistics reading that i have yet to do for tomorrow...oops!)

anyways, all of my other friends rejected me because they had class today, so it was just michal & i that ended up going to bugis. oh, bugis. bugis is the asia that we all know and love. whenever i think asia, i think open air markets with really cheap clothes, food, and fake designer bags, so far, nothing that i've really seen in singapore, but bugis did not disappoint!

on our way to bugis during the above ground portion of the green line mrt

lunch of kimbap and ddukbugi at bugis junction (different from bugis street) from a korean stall! the nice korean lady made her daughter give me the jar of coveted pepper paste for cheaper than the usual price! hehe

a picture of the entrance to bugis

the juice stand at the entrance to bugis street selling lots of colorful drinks

although there was tons of cheap stuff in bugis and lots of clothes, i didn't buy anything except for lunch because well, there was just so much stuff that it was overwhelming. just look at the place!

in addition, pretty much none of the stalls have space to try on clothes and refunds are non-existent. how are you supposed to shop for these things if you don't know what fits? AND, i have to say, some of the clothes were a little... uh... far out for me.

example 1: like these ugly, ugly, lacy, polka-dotted shoes...

after looking around bugis and getting lost within its walls multiple times, we ventured out to the surrounding area and aimed for sim lim square--- the most ridiculous electronics shopping complex ever.

some pictures of the walk to sim lim square

we walked through some mall on our way to sim lim square that seemed to only attract locals. we were pretty much the only tourists in there & everyone jumped at the chance to try and get a foreigner into their store. one lady actually ran out the door of her massage place to try and convince us to get a massage...

the mall wasn't all that exciting and mainly sold ginormous buddhist statues. literally. see below.

and then we finally made it to sim lim square! sim lim square is like a tj student paradise. its 6 stories of pure electronics ranging from SLR cameras to laptops to ipods to usb ports shaped like a mouse.

sim lim square in all its glory

although not too exciting, i was glad to see that they have a lenovo just in case anything happens to my loving laptop during my stay here in singapore...

a little while later, we left sim lim square and headed out to the street and followed signs to a buddhist and hindu temple. i wanted to go in, but also didn't want to get yelled at, so we mostly teetered around the outside of the buildings.

the buddhist temple

the hindu temple

the square where the temples are located

tomorrow, cat's singaporean friend is taking us out to chinatown for dinner (what is it with eating in chinatown?)... i most likely won't be taking pictures of anything new & exciting... but we'll see. now i'm off to read for my classes tomorrow, yikes!

more cooking adventures & an afternoon in clementi...

i promised there would be more updates on my culinary escapades and here they are!

bibimbap from the other day ... always easy to fall back on:

i must have inherited my dad's perfect egg-making skills so admired by those cousins of mine... hehe
and my sad attempt at making soup with fake chinese brand "hot broad bean paste." the soup wasn't bad... just kind of bland. i should have added salt. or more soy sauce. i don't know. either way, it was korean-tasting enough that i enjoyed it... :)

additionally, one of my canadian friends, jonas, gave me a tasty treat on sunday... contraband gum from malaysia!

note the obsession with keeping the ground gum-free ^

anywhose, today i didn't have class so i spent the afternoon in clementi. clementi is the nearest city to campus and is a big jumble of residence areas, hawker centers, and stores selling everything from mattresses to plastic toys to gold jewelry.

picture of the poster enforcing the ban of the infamous durian from the public bus system:

here are some of the residences in the clementi area:
in singapore, i suppose like in a lot of other asian countries, people usely live in apartments. while singapore is one of the 20 smallest countries in the world, it's also one of the top 5 most densely populated.

singapore is also still developing heavily. they're only 44 years old so i guess that's suspected. everywhere you go there are new developments and construction going on -- generally in the form of very tall buildings.

and now to my favorite part of clementi: the food & shopping! clementi has multiple food areas to choose from. here are a couple pictures of the hawker centers that i'm always talking about:

because everything is outdoors, they have fans everywhere. you have to choose where you sit wisely, otherwise a fan will never reach you -- that would be pretty horrible when sitting out in the hot & humid singapore weather eating a hot plate of food...

a fruit stand in clementi located next to a bakery, yummy!

the downside to the fruit stands and grocery stores is that the smell of durian is EVERYWHERE. really, there's no escape from the putrid smell of the king of fruits.

strolling around in singapore makes you thirsty all the time and leaves you craving for anything cold or drinkable... today i chose to get ice cream from one of the wall's carts! wall's is the name of the ice cream cart that you see everywhere here in singapore. while you can get ice cream in a cup, the more exciting, singaporean way is getting the ice cream man/lady to cut you a slab of ice cream from a rectangular block and sticking it between two wafers. yay! even though this is your regular mint chocolate chip, there are other exciting flavors of ice cream including sweet corn, yam, red bean, and durian.

while going around the back alleys of clementi i stumbled upon this open area for shows that i didn't even know existed! they were playing fobby chinese music and looked like they were celebrating some festival or another...

like i said, clementi has lots of stores to look around in and sells pretty much everything, except for clothes, for cheap. here is what your typical sidewalk in clementi looks like.

stores sell socks, underwear, luggage cases, shoes, jewelry, notebooks, hair accessories... everywhere i walk people yell at me in chinese to buy their merchandise! apparently i look chinese, but still definitely have that touristy look to me...

anyhow, while i rummaged through what the stores had to offer, the highlight of my day was buying these:

adorable, no? even though clothes are expensive here, shoes seem to be fairly cheap. these cute little flats were only 9.90$ SD which is equivalent to around 7$ in the US. hooray!

tomorrow after my dreaded 8 am indonesian tutorial, my friends and i plan on going to bugis --- the largest bargain shopping area in singapore! yay!

i still smell like hot pot...

as promised, i went to eat chinese hotpot today with josh & his friends lei lei from china and christopher from sweden.

i also thought i would start taking more pictures of everyday singapore.

these two pictures were taken on my 2 minute walk to the bus stop.

and this one i took from the bus, just because i thought it was a cute construction sign. note how we are on the wrong side of the road.

i really wanted to take a picture of the no durian sign plastered on nearly every bus in singapore, but the bus was really crowded & i figured that would be the ultimate giveaway that screams "I AM A FOREIGNER HERE." which may actually have been a good thing... i pass for a local, or at least chinese, quite well. everywhere i go people speak to me in mandarin and get confused when i just stare and awkwardly smile instead. today, someone actually asked me for directions. uh...

so anyways, here is a picture of what your typical mrt (their subway system) looks like. kind of like

on every door they have these odd public announcements with the scary man in the afro saying things in english that don't really make sense... if you're lucky enough, you can catch him on the mrt tv singing a little (or rather long...) jingle about mrt etiquette.

so here we are at the chinese hotpot restaurant that lei lei took us to. for 20$ a person, you could literally just stay in the restaurant the whole day and eat and eat without anyone saying anything to you. they just keep refilling your broth for you over and over again...

basically you get a pot full of boiling broth (one side is spicy, the other side mild) and you just dump things into the pot to your heart's content. vegetables, shellfish, meat, noodles, fishcakes...

then you create a dipping sauce with ingredients of your choice from things like chili paste, capsicum oil, sesame oil, salt, powdered msg.... -_-

of the three meat options, we chose to have mutton and beef.

a prayer table outside the restaurant...

afterwards, josh was determined to try durian so we settled on getting durian pancakes for dessert. basically a durian pancake is a pancake with a lump of durian inside.

note the skepticism on our faces as we document the first bite...

each time i try durian or durian flavored things, i tell myself that one day i might like it... but i really don't. in fact, 5 hours later, the taste is still lingering in my mouth... gross.

durian cakes found later in the day...

the rest of the night was spent walking around chinatown amusing ourselves with souvenirs...