Singapore bound!
It’s been a beautiful 2 days so far in Singapore.
While, yes although I’ve been here before, there’s a whole new sense of thrill and excitement when you know you’re going to stay for 2 months in a foreign city.
Like the last time, my first sight at Singapore was one of awe and excitement. It was extremely convenient that the flight landed early morning Singapore time and thus, I could have my first aerial view of Singapore. Honestly, I did not bother with pictures, because such pictures wouldn’t justify the pretty sights and I wanted to ‘see’ it rather than ‘see a picture’ of it. Of course, the most striking thing I saw was a lush green golf course and the sea around it.
My first experience with the Singaporean accent was at the airport, where the person who sends you to taxis asked if I had wanted a limousine. But no, that’s not what I heard the first 3 times (it sounded oddly like ‘imsen’ and I had no clue what that was); and he gestured another gent to tell me what he was saying – About 50$ for a Limo. Of course not! I’m just a poor student!
The taxi driver was quite a helpful old guy, with a smile helping me lug my suitcases into the boot of the car and chitchatting about the oddities and beauty of Singapore. Destination arrived, money handed out, he waved a goodbye and told me to enjoy my day there. I reached Clementi where I was staying with some grad students and after introductions and early morning shopping for essentials – I crashed. Yep. Staying awake pretty much the entire airtime is tiring. Needless to stay, after I woke up, I did not remember anything about which direction I needed to go to look around.
And after a quick fix of lunch etc., my friend (who is quite awesome) came over with her friend. And we spoke after a long while and she took me around Clarke Quay at night. It’s a colourful party zone by the river and there are so many food places just about every next inch! It was quite a sight to take in – really. Perhaps a little overwhelming for my first day here. But it’s most definitely a wonderful place. And we had dinner at a nice little Indian restaurant that night which served great lassi!
Today, I headed to uni on one of their blue and orange shuttle buses — and like all buses here, they’re AC’ed. It’s a pretty (and quite big) campus and well, I knew just enough on how to get to lab. It looks so much nicer than what we have and the lab folk seem pretty nice. And, well, the canteen was a bit disappointing especially considering the fact that I’m a vegetarian and most stalls had some form of meat or the other. And the stall where I got my food from (the Indian stall), well, it served some yellow rice as Biryani and it wasn’t what I expected. I’ll have to make do, I guess. Oddly, my stomach seems stuck in Indian time – I feel hungry as per my eating time back at Chennai.
Anyway, here’s hoping for a good summer. 🙂
Jumping Gene 
Well, brings back a lot of memories! 🙂 By the way which department were you working at? I was with the Acoustic Research Laboratory of NUS!
LikeLike
I was in the structural biology labs. It was an amazing two months!
LikeLike
Ohk cool! My work was focussed on autonomous underwater vehicles as I was majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Great to have bumped into a fellow intern. Definitely wordpress and blogs bring in people together, bridging gaps and sharing stories.
LikeLike
I agree. Thanks to new age media.
LikeLike