so, after all the trials and tribulations that included, but were not limited to, dealing with american airlines to reroute my flight from singapore to home through china, and the process of both saying "the Consulate of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China" five times fast as well as applying for/picking up my Chinese visa, i've made it. i'm in china, and its nothing short of unbelievable to have made it here. me and my family had entertained the idea before we had bought my ticket four months ago, but we decided it would be too much trouble so we didnt do it. then, some 4 weeks ago, since my aunt moved to her new job/house in the Shanghai city area, mom said that it would be "appropriate" for me to come here for a week on my way home, so we put the wheels in motion for getting me here. and now i'm here!
theres quite a bit for me to be happy about being here. first of all, i'm in china! i really didnt think that i'd end up coming here for at least another five years or so, after medical school perhaps on a short vacation or something, so thats nice. secondly, i'm with my family which i havent seen in some years now, almost 6, so thats always nice. they're amazing people, and i certainly do miss seeing them quite a bit, esp when we talk on the phone every once in a while. and the two kids, now 14 and 8, i hadnt seen in 6 years, and as you can imagine, they've grown up quite a bit since we last met. it was a pleasant surprise to see them both, and we're having a great time here together. last but not least, the weather is a HUGE break from the stupid humid hot singapore weather. for the first time since i left, i felt cold while standing outside in jeans and a tshirt, and it was an incredible feeling. also, for the first time in 4 months, i've had to use lotion to keep my hands from drying up since the atmosphere didnt keep my skin moisturized simply by being outside. i'd say of all these, the weather is a close second to being with the family, its that amazing. its the spring weather that i know that i've been looking forward to for SO long. thank god i'm here :D
its not really all that different from any other big city in the world that i've been too, in asia or otherwise..it is the financial center of the entire country, so its a pretty important city in the grand scheme of things, but no bigger or more crowded than new york city at the worst. except that everything looks like chinese to me, but im sure you can understand how that situation might arise. been here for about two days now, since friday afternoon, it being sunday afternoon now, and i tell you, i've had a wonderful time. i'm here with my mom's sister and the fam, so i've got excellent accomodations and plenty of love from the family to come along with it; they're taking good care of me. have had a couple wonderful days and nights so far. friday, we went out for dinner at an AMAZING middle eastern restaurant with some of the best kebabs that i've ever had, as well as a few belly dancers that werent *too bad* either :) after dinner, me and my uncle, since we were in the nightlife district for dinner anyway, decided to do a little club hopping for a few hours, which turned out to me majorr fun, despite the fact i was with my uncle. he's so chill, we just had a few drinks here and there, he met some his work buddies and i met a couple girls from the US and britain, had a good time for the night, which was helped by some good music at one of the joints we spent a large part of the night at. got home around 330AM and slept like a baby in the nice cool, dry house, cuddled up in my blanket for the first time in mooonths.
the next day, saturday, left the house around noon and roamed around the city and the surrounding cities getting some errands done then heading towards their old hometown for some dinner, drinks, and evening entertainment, which included an absolutely fantabulous light and sound fountain show, accompanied by some surprise fireworks as part of the finale. today has basically just begun..we'll be going out to do a little shopping and taking a little look around the city, and then letting the rest of the evening play out as it may. definitely looking forward to spending the rest of the week here with these guys, they're tons of fun and its just awesome to be with family that i havent seen in so long....my sister is soooo jealous haha :) will be writing soon!
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
ummm packing?!
soooo today is monday, which is basically over as far as i'm concerned. i'm leaving on thursday, which gives me, at midnight tonight, a total of 72 more hours in the country. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! just like that, the semester ended on the 18th of april, and here i stand, the 5th of may with my departure looming ahead of me, threatening to bring me back to the grim reality that is my summer "vacation". this, however, is not before my week-long visit to my aunt and the fam living in china, which is kinda cool if you ask me. im crazy excited to visit them, as i havent seen these guys in about 5 and a half years....and im gonna be in china!! never thought i'd end up there either, so it should be really fun. plus, they just moved from the outskirts of Shanghai to the metro area, so it'll be a lot easier to actually go to the city area and do things there.
given all this impending excitement and fun, the mood has changed from anticipating the inevitable goodbyes and flowing emotion to the 5 stages of grief (wiki). at this point, i'd say most people have moved on to either the depression mode or, if they're particularly skilled in handling emotions, then the final stage of acceptance. many of my friends have already left, with some leaving today and the rest establishing a consistent flow of exchange students leaving the country in the remaining days. its so weird, thinking you may or may not see any of these people again, the people that you've seen so often for four months, hung out with, had good times with. just, up and leaving, its an...interesting experience, to say the least. and its funny, its not like i have a super strong desire to stay, im not mad that i'm leaving singapore, im upset that the experience as a whole is ending...and even then, not all at once. piece by piece, with people slowly filtering out of the country, like sand in an hourglass. i think this would be easier to deal with if everyone left at once, that way we'd all receive a little shock, but wouldnt have to go through the agonizing experience that is everything you want to stay in your life being dismembered piece by piece, person by person. either way, perhaps i'll be happier when im actually home with some solid emotional footing, i sure hope so anyway.
in other news, last weekend i finally got around to attending the Formula Drift event in singapore, which actually turned out to be really cool. however, a little emotional rollercoaster getting there. got to the expo center, was told they were out of tickets, but decided to take the $5 shuttle bus to the actual venue to see if i could scalp some somewhere. got there, talked to a guy, said no more tickets. talked to an event staff member, said the same. however, with my luck, two guys overheard me and said they had one extra ticket! what luck! bought it off them, nearly hugged these strangers because i was SO happy that i actually was able to go, since i had been looking forward to this for the last two weeks. got in, and then stumbled upon Anna, who i had no idea would be there. basically, the day turned around from one HUGE disappointment to a rather good day with some good company..included a couple pictures below for your viewing pleasure.
Me and Anna, apparently looking "too much like a couple" in her words haha
Me and the banner
Probably the best picture that i got of actual drifting action. SIck.
Me humping a Maserati. I bet you've never done this.
the next few days will be wrapping up some odds and ends..little laundry action, few last souvenirs that i've got to get, packing up by wednesday night, and a little studying here and there so i dont end up bombing my exam on thursday (hopefully). this may well be my last post from singapore, we'll see if that ends up being true or not. until next time!
given all this impending excitement and fun, the mood has changed from anticipating the inevitable goodbyes and flowing emotion to the 5 stages of grief (wiki). at this point, i'd say most people have moved on to either the depression mode or, if they're particularly skilled in handling emotions, then the final stage of acceptance. many of my friends have already left, with some leaving today and the rest establishing a consistent flow of exchange students leaving the country in the remaining days. its so weird, thinking you may or may not see any of these people again, the people that you've seen so often for four months, hung out with, had good times with. just, up and leaving, its an...interesting experience, to say the least. and its funny, its not like i have a super strong desire to stay, im not mad that i'm leaving singapore, im upset that the experience as a whole is ending...and even then, not all at once. piece by piece, with people slowly filtering out of the country, like sand in an hourglass. i think this would be easier to deal with if everyone left at once, that way we'd all receive a little shock, but wouldnt have to go through the agonizing experience that is everything you want to stay in your life being dismembered piece by piece, person by person. either way, perhaps i'll be happier when im actually home with some solid emotional footing, i sure hope so anyway.
in other news, last weekend i finally got around to attending the Formula Drift event in singapore, which actually turned out to be really cool. however, a little emotional rollercoaster getting there. got to the expo center, was told they were out of tickets, but decided to take the $5 shuttle bus to the actual venue to see if i could scalp some somewhere. got there, talked to a guy, said no more tickets. talked to an event staff member, said the same. however, with my luck, two guys overheard me and said they had one extra ticket! what luck! bought it off them, nearly hugged these strangers because i was SO happy that i actually was able to go, since i had been looking forward to this for the last two weeks. got in, and then stumbled upon Anna, who i had no idea would be there. basically, the day turned around from one HUGE disappointment to a rather good day with some good company..included a couple pictures below for your viewing pleasure.
Me and Anna, apparently looking "too much like a couple" in her words haha
Me and the banner
Probably the best picture that i got of actual drifting action. SIck.
Me humping a Maserati. I bet you've never done this.the next few days will be wrapping up some odds and ends..little laundry action, few last souvenirs that i've got to get, packing up by wednesday night, and a little studying here and there so i dont end up bombing my exam on thursday (hopefully). this may well be my last post from singapore, we'll see if that ends up being true or not. until next time!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
surf's up! but you'll have to take my word for it
new pictures!!
so, rumor has it that i went to bali about a week ago, and rumor also has that i surfed. however, theres no evidence of the latter, so youre going to have to believe me when i said that i've actually ridden a wave on a surfboard. now, lets not jump to conclusions. i didnt ride a wave like you probably first imagined. it was more like riding a wave (notice the girl yawning in the background), but cmon, is there really a difference?
EDIT: turns out jerry had some pictures that do, in fact, confirm the surfing myth. shown below. :D
i flew in friday night and met all the waterloo kids and a few others at their hotel...they had left thursday, but i had two presentations to do in class on friday so i hung back a day. flew in, met up around 1130 PM, so not much of the day left at all. grabbed a quick bite before the festivities started for the night...we just ended up sitting around in the hotel room with a few drinks and had a grand old time the UConn way haha.
saturday morning, we decided to give our hand at surfing. while at any legitimate surfing venue, you might be charged inordinate amounts of money to rent a surfboard, we ended up getting boards and a little instruction lesson from a couple locals for a total of $4 per person for 5 hours of use...awesome. the beach was beautiful..nice sand, sweet waves, but lots of old ladies selling stuff. and these ladies had no qualms walking right up to you and asking you to buy stuff. again. and again. and again. and again. i think their tactic was to make people buy stuff to get them to go away, but who am i to say? i just bought two tank tops, and they stopped bugging me. D'oh! either way, the waves were the nicest of any of the beaches i had been to in Southeast Asia, for sure, but still not big enough to eat major shit if you didnt happen to catch a wave properly. i think many of us took comfort in that fact and may have been a little more aggresive with the surfing than we would have been otherwise. a good day, indeed. ended up eating dinner at the hard rock cafe, which me and jerry returned to later at around midnight for some live music. after we got tired of that, we decided to lay on the beach for a little while. a little small talk ensued, then we fell asleep. i woke up to my watch reading 3AM, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel.
the next day was spent mostly doing a little tour of the island, away from the beaches. highlights included some rice fields (quite a scenic view), a temple of some sort (wooo?), place where they grow and make their own coffee (with free samples that were delicious), a somewhat ritualistic hindu dance (the balinese hindu take on the ramayana; the island of bali is almost 95% hindu), and i think all of our favorite, a monkey sanctuary. basically, just a preserved foresty area with loads of monkeys, nothing less. you could buy bananas at the entrance for a couple bucks, and feed them to the monkeys. simple as that sounds, its actually kind of fun...until the monkeys get mean. a girl tried to kick a banana on the ground over to a monkey, but almost kicked the monkey in the face. doesnt take a genius to figure out the monkey probably took offense...it bared its teeth and actually started chasing this little girl that would have probably lost a fight with the monkey, she couldnt have been past 8 or 9. she ran away, screaming, and the monkey gave chase until the mother stepped in and basically just made loud noises at the monkey, which diverted it enough so it lost interest in the girl. scary though, never seen that happen. either way, it was just funny to see monkeys and bananas. for it being such a stereotype, i dont think we see it nearly enough. i've graciously included a picture below, for those that may never get to experience this phenomenon in their lives.
the night ended with an unsuccessful visit to the CHICHIS (mad good mexican restaurant in the states) as it was closed, but a very successful (and delicious) substitute of baba ghanoush, hummus, and kebabs. decided to save the mexican food for a later time...
monday was our do your own thing day, so we all basically just spent it lounging around, doing what we saw fit. some went surfing again, some went shopping, a few of us got together had a very mature lunch at an italian restaurant of sorts. below is a very mature picture at said restaurant, the food was actually really good...good enough that some of us actually wanted to go back.
after lunch, we went off to some shopping, browsed around a little bit. i finally bought one of the ever-popular bintang beer tank tops. you can get your butt you'll see me walking around campus with it on, thats a fact. after a little recoup time back at the hotel, we went out to dinner to chichi's, where the service was worse than any service you could possibly imagine, but the food was decent. surely an overall disappointment, but we got our food eventually, and most of us left full. that night, we all decided to test the nightlife again (some of us went out a couple nights before and were thoroughly disappointed), but this time it turned out to be okay. hit a couple clubs, had some good times. me and AD chatted up a couple balinese girls, but one turned out not to dance (the one i was conversing with) and the one AD was talking to turned out to be a guy. no, jk, but she was definitely a little weird. we'll never know what was up, and im not even mad about that. i'd like to take a second to mention that vanilla ice's "ice ice baby" just started playing on my itunes. w0rd.
tuesday, our last day on the island, turned out to be quite fun. in the morning, a few of us rented a driver for half a day and went to a different beach. The beach, for starters, was called Dreamland, so naturally our expectations were high. Frankly, i think they were met. the beach was really small, not nearly as big as any of the other beaches we had been to, and it was largely uncommercialized. no big buildings, no hotels, no restaurants even. just beach chairs, and the people renting them essentially. the sand was white and soft, and the water was blue. blue water at a beach is a relatively hot commodity as far as beaches are concerned, and we had it. finally. i'd say the thing that really sealed the deal about this beach would be the waves. 12 feet, or just short of 4 metres for you weirdos out there. HUGE. big enough that when they broke, even if the water was just knee high, it could easily take (and did take) your legs out of under you, rendering you as helpless as a worm heading towards a sewer in a downpour. this was the first time in my life i had truly felt the power and relentless thrashing of the ocean. however, it did make for a decent photo op, so we put AD to work. take a look at my FB pics for some more, but one's below.
upon returning, we all meandered about the town for a little bit, then had a quick mickey D's dinner and headed to the airport. all in all, a solid trip. a bit pricey--for the whole trip, excluding airfare, about $230US was spent, plus the $280US for airfare, over $500 for about four days. but i have to say, every dollar was worth it. finally got to spend some quality time with the waterloo crowd who i'd vowed to travel with so many times but never got around to doing. today, i leave you with a picture of what my hugely infected eye looked like in the middle of the trip. enjoy!
so, rumor has it that i went to bali about a week ago, and rumor also has that i surfed. however, theres no evidence of the latter, so youre going to have to believe me when i said that i've actually ridden a wave on a surfboard. now, lets not jump to conclusions. i didnt ride a wave like you probably first imagined. it was more like riding a wave (notice the girl yawning in the background), but cmon, is there really a difference?
EDIT: turns out jerry had some pictures that do, in fact, confirm the surfing myth. shown below. :D
i flew in friday night and met all the waterloo kids and a few others at their hotel...they had left thursday, but i had two presentations to do in class on friday so i hung back a day. flew in, met up around 1130 PM, so not much of the day left at all. grabbed a quick bite before the festivities started for the night...we just ended up sitting around in the hotel room with a few drinks and had a grand old time the UConn way haha.
saturday morning, we decided to give our hand at surfing. while at any legitimate surfing venue, you might be charged inordinate amounts of money to rent a surfboard, we ended up getting boards and a little instruction lesson from a couple locals for a total of $4 per person for 5 hours of use...awesome. the beach was beautiful..nice sand, sweet waves, but lots of old ladies selling stuff. and these ladies had no qualms walking right up to you and asking you to buy stuff. again. and again. and again. and again. i think their tactic was to make people buy stuff to get them to go away, but who am i to say? i just bought two tank tops, and they stopped bugging me. D'oh! either way, the waves were the nicest of any of the beaches i had been to in Southeast Asia, for sure, but still not big enough to eat major shit if you didnt happen to catch a wave properly. i think many of us took comfort in that fact and may have been a little more aggresive with the surfing than we would have been otherwise. a good day, indeed. ended up eating dinner at the hard rock cafe, which me and jerry returned to later at around midnight for some live music. after we got tired of that, we decided to lay on the beach for a little while. a little small talk ensued, then we fell asleep. i woke up to my watch reading 3AM, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel.
the next day was spent mostly doing a little tour of the island, away from the beaches. highlights included some rice fields (quite a scenic view), a temple of some sort (wooo?), place where they grow and make their own coffee (with free samples that were delicious), a somewhat ritualistic hindu dance (the balinese hindu take on the ramayana; the island of bali is almost 95% hindu), and i think all of our favorite, a monkey sanctuary. basically, just a preserved foresty area with loads of monkeys, nothing less. you could buy bananas at the entrance for a couple bucks, and feed them to the monkeys. simple as that sounds, its actually kind of fun...until the monkeys get mean. a girl tried to kick a banana on the ground over to a monkey, but almost kicked the monkey in the face. doesnt take a genius to figure out the monkey probably took offense...it bared its teeth and actually started chasing this little girl that would have probably lost a fight with the monkey, she couldnt have been past 8 or 9. she ran away, screaming, and the monkey gave chase until the mother stepped in and basically just made loud noises at the monkey, which diverted it enough so it lost interest in the girl. scary though, never seen that happen. either way, it was just funny to see monkeys and bananas. for it being such a stereotype, i dont think we see it nearly enough. i've graciously included a picture below, for those that may never get to experience this phenomenon in their lives.
the night ended with an unsuccessful visit to the CHICHIS (mad good mexican restaurant in the states) as it was closed, but a very successful (and delicious) substitute of baba ghanoush, hummus, and kebabs. decided to save the mexican food for a later time...
monday was our do your own thing day, so we all basically just spent it lounging around, doing what we saw fit. some went surfing again, some went shopping, a few of us got together had a very mature lunch at an italian restaurant of sorts. below is a very mature picture at said restaurant, the food was actually really good...good enough that some of us actually wanted to go back.
after lunch, we went off to some shopping, browsed around a little bit. i finally bought one of the ever-popular bintang beer tank tops. you can get your butt you'll see me walking around campus with it on, thats a fact. after a little recoup time back at the hotel, we went out to dinner to chichi's, where the service was worse than any service you could possibly imagine, but the food was decent. surely an overall disappointment, but we got our food eventually, and most of us left full. that night, we all decided to test the nightlife again (some of us went out a couple nights before and were thoroughly disappointed), but this time it turned out to be okay. hit a couple clubs, had some good times. me and AD chatted up a couple balinese girls, but one turned out not to dance (the one i was conversing with) and the one AD was talking to turned out to be a guy. no, jk, but she was definitely a little weird. we'll never know what was up, and im not even mad about that. i'd like to take a second to mention that vanilla ice's "ice ice baby" just started playing on my itunes. w0rd.
tuesday, our last day on the island, turned out to be quite fun. in the morning, a few of us rented a driver for half a day and went to a different beach. The beach, for starters, was called Dreamland, so naturally our expectations were high. Frankly, i think they were met. the beach was really small, not nearly as big as any of the other beaches we had been to, and it was largely uncommercialized. no big buildings, no hotels, no restaurants even. just beach chairs, and the people renting them essentially. the sand was white and soft, and the water was blue. blue water at a beach is a relatively hot commodity as far as beaches are concerned, and we had it. finally. i'd say the thing that really sealed the deal about this beach would be the waves. 12 feet, or just short of 4 metres for you weirdos out there. HUGE. big enough that when they broke, even if the water was just knee high, it could easily take (and did take) your legs out of under you, rendering you as helpless as a worm heading towards a sewer in a downpour. this was the first time in my life i had truly felt the power and relentless thrashing of the ocean. however, it did make for a decent photo op, so we put AD to work. take a look at my FB pics for some more, but one's below.
upon returning, we all meandered about the town for a little bit, then had a quick mickey D's dinner and headed to the airport. all in all, a solid trip. a bit pricey--for the whole trip, excluding airfare, about $230US was spent, plus the $280US for airfare, over $500 for about four days. but i have to say, every dollar was worth it. finally got to spend some quality time with the waterloo crowd who i'd vowed to travel with so many times but never got around to doing. today, i leave you with a picture of what my hugely infected eye looked like in the middle of the trip. enjoy!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Grail
Today, i went to Taco Bell. I had a burrito supreme and a regular burrito, then i got three burritos to go and took them back to school. It was amazing, and totally deserves its own post, so here it is. I've had Taco Bell halfway around the world...sweetness.
Monday, April 7, 2008
to think that i was in a jungle just 10 days ago...
boy, time has been moving slowwwww. last week, at this time, i was recovering from a weekend in the highlands of central malaysia, and it feels like forever ago. dont know whether thats a good thing or not, but its the fact of the matter. well, now that i've said it, i'll tell you about it as well.
so two weeks ago on thursday, tim and i departed from singapore on an overnight bus to the Cameron Highlands, in Malaysia (wiki). we figured we could use a slightly different little trip than the ones that we've been doing, which are normally either big cities, beaches, or a clever combination of both in some form. as can be seen from the wiki article above, it's a natural area with some low mountains and plenty of forest/jungle in the area. we thought that it would be nice to go to a place that would afford us some hiking/trekking, nice views, and most importantly, tea plantations. we certainly got what we went for, thats for sure.
thursday night was spent travelling, so we got there on friday morning, semi-rested from the not so comfortable bus ride. also annoying was the fact that we couldnt really fall asleep for quite a while since we had to wake up twice for customs, exiting singapore and then entering malaysia. either way, we got there around 8AM and went to our hostel (not to be confused with hotel heh). turns out we were too early to get the room we booked, so we left our stuff there and decided to go on a little hike on our own in the area, on what we were told would be fairly well marked trails. after about 45 minutes of hunting, we finally found the entrance to the trail and in the process got a good look at the little towny area we were in. we then entered the wilderness...
it was basically a jungle, theres no other way to say it really. at first, the path was lined with bricks, so it didnt feel too too much like a totally natural atmosphere, but after a couple hours of walking, the path progressively got less and less well defined and harder to travel. needless to say, i was a little freaked out at the prospects of being stuck in the woods with no idea where i am. tim was slightly comforting in that situation, which i suppose was all i needed. we saw a pretty cool waterfall on the way...but more impressive was the fact that we were completely surrounded by nature. this, mind you, is something that we havent experienced in quite a while, considering we're very close to some of the awesomest rainforests in the world in malaysia.
anyway, after being in the woods for a while, which by the end we wish we had a machete, we ended up on a farm. this, weird as it sounds, was certianly welcome haha. we found a road nearby that had a sign that pointed to a tea plantation visitors center, and we had some time, so we decided to make the walk. it said about 2km, which isnt bad at all. too bad it was all uphill. and, oh yeah, the sign lied..about 4 or 5km later, we ended up at this random tea plantation, but it was totally worth it. the scenery was absolutely gorgeous, and we ended our hike with a couple cups of locally grown tea and some strawberry and apple pie :)
by the time we got back to the hostel, oli and thuy had made it to the highlands. they were traveling a different part of malaysia and planned to meet up with us here. we moved into the room we booked and then proceeded to spend the rest of the night with a group of 4 or 5 other random travelers that we met there at the hostel. cool bunch of people, from all over the world. thats the beauty of traveling internationally and staying at hostels wherever you go. theres always such a crazy mix of people from everywhere that you get to meet, it really becomes not only an experience of the culture you're in, but you get the chance to learn about so much more at the same time. we all went out to dinner that night and then got a few drinks at the bar behind the hostel, which also had a bonfire..the night ended well for sure.
the next day, we all signed up for a little tour around the area, which took us to another tea plantation, flower garden, butterfly garden, strawberry farm, honeybee farm, and perhaps a couple other places i dont remember, but it was a good way to see the area, even if most of the things that we saw really werent that amazing. the nice thing was the tour guide was a really cool guy, quite knowledgeable. his father had worked for the tea plantation that dominated this region for 30 years, and he had been born and raised in the cameron highlands...how awesome is that? we met a few other people that were the same, it must have been such a different life for them. completely out in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles from any big city, up in the mountains. i cant even being to imagine what his life must have been like, but surely it was quite different from anything else i've known.
that night, me and tim took a bus to Kuala Lumpur, saw the petronas towers (me for the second time, tim's first), then caught a night bus back to singapore. back by sunday morning, we got to get a little bit of work done during sunday, but mostly just to rest up for the week.
i dont know why the week went by so slow, really. i suppose nothing big really happened. i worked for mon-wed, went out wednesday to a bar then a club, and thursday and friday pretty much just went through the motions. went to class a little, worked a little. but on friday, my weekend started off wonderfully. in the evening, me and a rather large group of friends decided to go out to a place called Max Brenners. apparently, he's an australian guy that started this chocolate restaurant chain in this area, so theres one in singapore. it was absolutely delicious! everybody ordered something different, so we all got a taste of some good stuff. one example (probably the weirdest, and best one) would be the mexican hot chocolate, which literally was seasoned with red chili among other spices. it was sooooo good! couldnt believe it...i was definitely a skeptic at the beginning, but it was DAMN good. i'd order it if i ever saw it anywhere for sure. we then proceeded to just walk around singapore, which was fun. we hit some of the more popular areas within walking distance, didnt do anything in particular, but with the group of us there, we definitely had a blast. the night ended with a nice little skype chat with a few friends at home, which felt great. it was good to see and hear them again :)
saturday, me and oli decided to have a little adventure around singapore, again. we went out for the whole day, from the morning to late evening. in the process, we saw the Merlion (wiki), one of the more popular icons of Singapore,
we saw an independent film that was part of the Singapore international film festival, and visited an exhibit at the National Library (a beautiful place, btw) about India's influence on the development and culture of southeast asia, which is much more far reaching than i ever imagined! to finish it off, we had a fantastic dinner at one of the most famous hawker centers in Singapore, the La Pau Sat center, which has probably over 50 stalls of just food, as well as an entire section for all satay...goddamn delicious meal. needless to say, i would have slept like a baby that night, except i got around 6 hrs of sleep, because the next day...
FREE HUGS!! the singapore kindness movement (an organization in singapore) was having an event where volunteers banded together and walked down Orchard Rd, one of the busiest areas in singapore, with one goal in mind: to be nice. about 80 volunteers showed up, including myself, Oli, and two other friends, Kristina and Kiana, to go about this. they had balloons and pins to give out, tshirts for all the volunteers to wear..they even had a couple of mascots, little tigers that they had a young teen and someone even smaller get into to go out there and make people smile. it was the most good clean fun i've had in quite a while, we had an absolute blast. our personal goal was to hug as many people as we possibly could, aided by an 11x17 sheet of paper that had "FREE HUGS" printed out on it. the process was as follows:
1.) Yell "FREE HUGS" to all surrounding people.
2.) Show the "FREE HUGS" sign to people passing by
3.) Hold your arms wide open and anticipate the forthcoming love
I dont even remember how many people i hugged, it must have been in the 70s or 80s. it was real funny, because the singaporeans who volunteered were all real shy, but the four north americans (me and Kiana being american, Oli and Kristina canadian) were so much more outgoing and, well, i suppose rowdy about the whole thing, we stuck out like a sore thumb. we all had a multitude of people asking us who we were, where we were from, and if we'd join their next event for their organization because of our enthusiasm and fantastic participation. it was such a great day though, we put smiles on so many faces walking down Orchard Rd, and people of all kinds. Singaporeans and travellers, shoppers and tenders, children and adults, even old ice cream men that didnt know english ("yong pau" or something like it is chinese for "hug" haha). it was great to be able to have such a positive effect on SO many people, and still have a great time doing it :D
the rest of the day went to the asian civilizations museum, which was incredible i personally feel. it was basically a primer on all the cultures visible in singapore and the surrounding areas, with fantastic exhibits and artifacts from all over the region. a very educational experience overall.
and thus ends my weekend. today went by kinda fast, i guess. had only one class, did a little work otherwise. the rest of my year is pretty much done. i only have one class out of the four of my computer science lectures remaining that has any examinable material, i've got a presentation in both CS classes (one of which is already created), a little report writing for my final project in artificial intelligence, and an exam in my gen ed. all in all, nothing at all really. most of the work is either thought out or done already, i just have to worry about exams....but not until after i go to BALIIIII whaaaaat 4days/4nights in a surfing paradise. leaving next friday (18th April), back on the 22nd night. gonna have a BLAST. im travelling with all the boys from Waterloo in canada...i wanted to travel with them all year, and finally we found a way to go somewhere together...cost me a pretty penny though, $280USD for the round trip ticket :0 cheap by US standards, for an international round trip ticket, but thats the most i've paid for one ticket so far in all my travelling that i've done here. boo to that.
the mix of emotions among all the exchange students is getting more and more tangible as time goes on...people look a lot more somber than they did a week ago or so, and the topic of the end of the semester coming quickly and going home should almost be considered a taboo subject. its not to say that people arent excited about going home, they most definitely are, but the impending thoughts of leaving singapore and more importantly, all the amazing people we've met here is unsettling, to say the least. this trend will continue until the day we all actually leave, when we'll probably be an emotional puzzle, and perhaps you might even catch someone with half their face smiling, the other half frowning, despite the fact that its physically impossble. we'll see how things actually end up...i know i absolutely fall into this group of people...
a few points to the good though:
so two weeks ago on thursday, tim and i departed from singapore on an overnight bus to the Cameron Highlands, in Malaysia (wiki). we figured we could use a slightly different little trip than the ones that we've been doing, which are normally either big cities, beaches, or a clever combination of both in some form. as can be seen from the wiki article above, it's a natural area with some low mountains and plenty of forest/jungle in the area. we thought that it would be nice to go to a place that would afford us some hiking/trekking, nice views, and most importantly, tea plantations. we certainly got what we went for, thats for sure.
thursday night was spent travelling, so we got there on friday morning, semi-rested from the not so comfortable bus ride. also annoying was the fact that we couldnt really fall asleep for quite a while since we had to wake up twice for customs, exiting singapore and then entering malaysia. either way, we got there around 8AM and went to our hostel (not to be confused with hotel heh). turns out we were too early to get the room we booked, so we left our stuff there and decided to go on a little hike on our own in the area, on what we were told would be fairly well marked trails. after about 45 minutes of hunting, we finally found the entrance to the trail and in the process got a good look at the little towny area we were in. we then entered the wilderness...
it was basically a jungle, theres no other way to say it really. at first, the path was lined with bricks, so it didnt feel too too much like a totally natural atmosphere, but after a couple hours of walking, the path progressively got less and less well defined and harder to travel. needless to say, i was a little freaked out at the prospects of being stuck in the woods with no idea where i am. tim was slightly comforting in that situation, which i suppose was all i needed. we saw a pretty cool waterfall on the way...but more impressive was the fact that we were completely surrounded by nature. this, mind you, is something that we havent experienced in quite a while, considering we're very close to some of the awesomest rainforests in the world in malaysia.
anyway, after being in the woods for a while, which by the end we wish we had a machete, we ended up on a farm. this, weird as it sounds, was certianly welcome haha. we found a road nearby that had a sign that pointed to a tea plantation visitors center, and we had some time, so we decided to make the walk. it said about 2km, which isnt bad at all. too bad it was all uphill. and, oh yeah, the sign lied..about 4 or 5km later, we ended up at this random tea plantation, but it was totally worth it. the scenery was absolutely gorgeous, and we ended our hike with a couple cups of locally grown tea and some strawberry and apple pie :)
by the time we got back to the hostel, oli and thuy had made it to the highlands. they were traveling a different part of malaysia and planned to meet up with us here. we moved into the room we booked and then proceeded to spend the rest of the night with a group of 4 or 5 other random travelers that we met there at the hostel. cool bunch of people, from all over the world. thats the beauty of traveling internationally and staying at hostels wherever you go. theres always such a crazy mix of people from everywhere that you get to meet, it really becomes not only an experience of the culture you're in, but you get the chance to learn about so much more at the same time. we all went out to dinner that night and then got a few drinks at the bar behind the hostel, which also had a bonfire..the night ended well for sure.
the next day, we all signed up for a little tour around the area, which took us to another tea plantation, flower garden, butterfly garden, strawberry farm, honeybee farm, and perhaps a couple other places i dont remember, but it was a good way to see the area, even if most of the things that we saw really werent that amazing. the nice thing was the tour guide was a really cool guy, quite knowledgeable. his father had worked for the tea plantation that dominated this region for 30 years, and he had been born and raised in the cameron highlands...how awesome is that? we met a few other people that were the same, it must have been such a different life for them. completely out in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles from any big city, up in the mountains. i cant even being to imagine what his life must have been like, but surely it was quite different from anything else i've known.
that night, me and tim took a bus to Kuala Lumpur, saw the petronas towers (me for the second time, tim's first), then caught a night bus back to singapore. back by sunday morning, we got to get a little bit of work done during sunday, but mostly just to rest up for the week.
i dont know why the week went by so slow, really. i suppose nothing big really happened. i worked for mon-wed, went out wednesday to a bar then a club, and thursday and friday pretty much just went through the motions. went to class a little, worked a little. but on friday, my weekend started off wonderfully. in the evening, me and a rather large group of friends decided to go out to a place called Max Brenners. apparently, he's an australian guy that started this chocolate restaurant chain in this area, so theres one in singapore. it was absolutely delicious! everybody ordered something different, so we all got a taste of some good stuff. one example (probably the weirdest, and best one) would be the mexican hot chocolate, which literally was seasoned with red chili among other spices. it was sooooo good! couldnt believe it...i was definitely a skeptic at the beginning, but it was DAMN good. i'd order it if i ever saw it anywhere for sure. we then proceeded to just walk around singapore, which was fun. we hit some of the more popular areas within walking distance, didnt do anything in particular, but with the group of us there, we definitely had a blast. the night ended with a nice little skype chat with a few friends at home, which felt great. it was good to see and hear them again :)
saturday, me and oli decided to have a little adventure around singapore, again. we went out for the whole day, from the morning to late evening. in the process, we saw the Merlion (wiki), one of the more popular icons of Singapore,
we saw an independent film that was part of the Singapore international film festival, and visited an exhibit at the National Library (a beautiful place, btw) about India's influence on the development and culture of southeast asia, which is much more far reaching than i ever imagined! to finish it off, we had a fantastic dinner at one of the most famous hawker centers in Singapore, the La Pau Sat center, which has probably over 50 stalls of just food, as well as an entire section for all satay...goddamn delicious meal. needless to say, i would have slept like a baby that night, except i got around 6 hrs of sleep, because the next day...
FREE HUGS!! the singapore kindness movement (an organization in singapore) was having an event where volunteers banded together and walked down Orchard Rd, one of the busiest areas in singapore, with one goal in mind: to be nice. about 80 volunteers showed up, including myself, Oli, and two other friends, Kristina and Kiana, to go about this. they had balloons and pins to give out, tshirts for all the volunteers to wear..they even had a couple of mascots, little tigers that they had a young teen and someone even smaller get into to go out there and make people smile. it was the most good clean fun i've had in quite a while, we had an absolute blast. our personal goal was to hug as many people as we possibly could, aided by an 11x17 sheet of paper that had "FREE HUGS" printed out on it. the process was as follows:
1.) Yell "FREE HUGS" to all surrounding people.
2.) Show the "FREE HUGS" sign to people passing by
3.) Hold your arms wide open and anticipate the forthcoming love
I dont even remember how many people i hugged, it must have been in the 70s or 80s. it was real funny, because the singaporeans who volunteered were all real shy, but the four north americans (me and Kiana being american, Oli and Kristina canadian) were so much more outgoing and, well, i suppose rowdy about the whole thing, we stuck out like a sore thumb. we all had a multitude of people asking us who we were, where we were from, and if we'd join their next event for their organization because of our enthusiasm and fantastic participation. it was such a great day though, we put smiles on so many faces walking down Orchard Rd, and people of all kinds. Singaporeans and travellers, shoppers and tenders, children and adults, even old ice cream men that didnt know english ("yong pau" or something like it is chinese for "hug" haha). it was great to be able to have such a positive effect on SO many people, and still have a great time doing it :D
the rest of the day went to the asian civilizations museum, which was incredible i personally feel. it was basically a primer on all the cultures visible in singapore and the surrounding areas, with fantastic exhibits and artifacts from all over the region. a very educational experience overall.
and thus ends my weekend. today went by kinda fast, i guess. had only one class, did a little work otherwise. the rest of my year is pretty much done. i only have one class out of the four of my computer science lectures remaining that has any examinable material, i've got a presentation in both CS classes (one of which is already created), a little report writing for my final project in artificial intelligence, and an exam in my gen ed. all in all, nothing at all really. most of the work is either thought out or done already, i just have to worry about exams....but not until after i go to BALIIIII whaaaaat 4days/4nights in a surfing paradise. leaving next friday (18th April), back on the 22nd night. gonna have a BLAST. im travelling with all the boys from Waterloo in canada...i wanted to travel with them all year, and finally we found a way to go somewhere together...cost me a pretty penny though, $280USD for the round trip ticket :0 cheap by US standards, for an international round trip ticket, but thats the most i've paid for one ticket so far in all my travelling that i've done here. boo to that.
the mix of emotions among all the exchange students is getting more and more tangible as time goes on...people look a lot more somber than they did a week ago or so, and the topic of the end of the semester coming quickly and going home should almost be considered a taboo subject. its not to say that people arent excited about going home, they most definitely are, but the impending thoughts of leaving singapore and more importantly, all the amazing people we've met here is unsettling, to say the least. this trend will continue until the day we all actually leave, when we'll probably be an emotional puzzle, and perhaps you might even catch someone with half their face smiling, the other half frowning, despite the fact that its physically impossble. we'll see how things actually end up...i know i absolutely fall into this group of people...
a few points to the good though:
- i've regained all the weight that i had lost
- i've got a LOAD of food that i need to finish thats sitting in my room, which includes mexican food and microwavable indian food, which means i dont have to eat other asian food haha
- i got my ticket to china settled! i'll be leaving singapore on 8th May and going to Shanghai before i leave for home on the 15th May :D :D
Sunday, March 23, 2008
overall, a great weekend, indeed.
the time i've been spending actually IN singapore, as opposed to around it, has been getting better and better as time goes on...this weekend is probably living proof. it all started on friday night...
i decided that this weekend wasn't going to be devoted to doing absurd amounts of work, or to worrying about what absurd amounts of work i'd have to do at some point. it was going to be all about enjoying myself, doing what i wanted (instead of what i felt i had to do) for once, and to the general idea of enjoying myself.
it began with Good Friday. me, oli, and tim decided to go to a nice little island just north of singapore, between it and malaysia. Called Pulau Ubin (literally translated, Granite Island), its an island no more than a few miles across which is known for its trails through its semi-inhabited land. we decided at the beginning of the day that the weather looked nice enough that we'd go out and rent some bikes for the day. it turns out that the weather was gorgeous and the island is a lot cooler than i expected. it was exactly what we thought it would be: some paved paths, others not so much, snaking through woods and fields. it was a great retreat from the concrete jungle of singapore, and all three of us had a great time. it was quite a workout though--our best estimates put our total distance biked at around 5 or 6 miles, about half of that actual paved areas, and all hills. good times.
saturday was a significantly more relaxed day. most of it was spent in anticipation of going to our family friend's home in singapore. i decided that to battle the fleeting feelings of homesickness, i'd spend an evening with my aunt here, and i have to say that it was a great decision. however, i thought i'd be going over a good deal earlier than when i did, so i spent a lot of the day just sitting around not doing much at school. at around 5, i left school and arrived at their place at 6 or so, and spent the rest of the evening there. i took a backpack with some clothes, just in case i ended up staying over, which is what ended up happening. it was just me and my aunt, so not a big crowd of people at all, so we just spent the evening together, chatting, eating, did a little shopping and dinner in little india (which was within walking distance of her home). we got back from our outing around 11 or so, so i brought out my laptop and i showed her pictures of my trips that i've taken so far over some strawberries and whipped cream. all in all, a spectacular night, i really appreciated having somewhere/one to turn to in the face of my homesickness :)
the next morning, we woke up and had a late breakfast, and she went on her way to the spa for an appointment she had made some time ago. i wandered around the area around their house for a bit while Tim was on his way from school to meet me. we then proceeded to go to the National Singapore Museum, basically just the national history museum, but it turned out to be spectacular. we spent about five hours inside the museum, which is quite a bit if you think about it. for five bucks, you cant go wrong. and it was really interesting too! learned about the history of singapore from beginning to end, and its quite a story...makes me want to pick up a book about it and learn more! after we finished up the museum, we walked around for a bit, mostly looking for food and a subway to get back home, and ended up home shortly afterwards. on the way, we passed through the campus of the SMU, Singapore Management University, and i have to say, i was quite impressed. the area even outside the university was absolutely beautiful, the buildings were painted nice bright colors, a very clean area, i think it would be a really pleasant area to be studying in. it kind of reminded me of the area around BU, just in terms of how well it was kept and the old-town feel it gave me.
so ended my weekend, and what a weekend it was. im really glad that i got to go around singapore some, because with time dwindling down at an alarming rate, its a legitimate fear to think that we may not get to explore singapore before we leave! its cool, im on it now and by the end, i dont think i'll have forgotten anything.
i decided that this weekend wasn't going to be devoted to doing absurd amounts of work, or to worrying about what absurd amounts of work i'd have to do at some point. it was going to be all about enjoying myself, doing what i wanted (instead of what i felt i had to do) for once, and to the general idea of enjoying myself.
it began with Good Friday. me, oli, and tim decided to go to a nice little island just north of singapore, between it and malaysia. Called Pulau Ubin (literally translated, Granite Island), its an island no more than a few miles across which is known for its trails through its semi-inhabited land. we decided at the beginning of the day that the weather looked nice enough that we'd go out and rent some bikes for the day. it turns out that the weather was gorgeous and the island is a lot cooler than i expected. it was exactly what we thought it would be: some paved paths, others not so much, snaking through woods and fields. it was a great retreat from the concrete jungle of singapore, and all three of us had a great time. it was quite a workout though--our best estimates put our total distance biked at around 5 or 6 miles, about half of that actual paved areas, and all hills. good times.
saturday was a significantly more relaxed day. most of it was spent in anticipation of going to our family friend's home in singapore. i decided that to battle the fleeting feelings of homesickness, i'd spend an evening with my aunt here, and i have to say that it was a great decision. however, i thought i'd be going over a good deal earlier than when i did, so i spent a lot of the day just sitting around not doing much at school. at around 5, i left school and arrived at their place at 6 or so, and spent the rest of the evening there. i took a backpack with some clothes, just in case i ended up staying over, which is what ended up happening. it was just me and my aunt, so not a big crowd of people at all, so we just spent the evening together, chatting, eating, did a little shopping and dinner in little india (which was within walking distance of her home). we got back from our outing around 11 or so, so i brought out my laptop and i showed her pictures of my trips that i've taken so far over some strawberries and whipped cream. all in all, a spectacular night, i really appreciated having somewhere/one to turn to in the face of my homesickness :)
the next morning, we woke up and had a late breakfast, and she went on her way to the spa for an appointment she had made some time ago. i wandered around the area around their house for a bit while Tim was on his way from school to meet me. we then proceeded to go to the National Singapore Museum, basically just the national history museum, but it turned out to be spectacular. we spent about five hours inside the museum, which is quite a bit if you think about it. for five bucks, you cant go wrong. and it was really interesting too! learned about the history of singapore from beginning to end, and its quite a story...makes me want to pick up a book about it and learn more! after we finished up the museum, we walked around for a bit, mostly looking for food and a subway to get back home, and ended up home shortly afterwards. on the way, we passed through the campus of the SMU, Singapore Management University, and i have to say, i was quite impressed. the area even outside the university was absolutely beautiful, the buildings were painted nice bright colors, a very clean area, i think it would be a really pleasant area to be studying in. it kind of reminded me of the area around BU, just in terms of how well it was kept and the old-town feel it gave me.
so ended my weekend, and what a weekend it was. im really glad that i got to go around singapore some, because with time dwindling down at an alarming rate, its a legitimate fear to think that we may not get to explore singapore before we leave! its cool, im on it now and by the end, i dont think i'll have forgotten anything.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
arriba! fiesta!
havent written in a while, thought i'd spill some of whats on my mind to all the three loyal readers of this blog haha its been a pretty slow two weeks since i last wrote. so slow, in fact, that i cant believe its only been two weeks since i wrote last. it feels like an eternity has passed, but in all reality, no time at all. i dont even know what i've done in the past couple weeks though, i dont feel very accomplished. i suppose i've just been chipping away at some of the stuff that i have to do for some classes, working hard i guess. however, after the dreadful period of a couple weeks that i went through, i'm much more relaxed now, so ive found some time to relax and enjoy myself lately, which is definitely good. i just hope that i dont slip into a rhythm that'll end up putting me back in that horrible state of mind where theres just too much on my plate and i feel ridiculously overwhelmed. i'll have to keep an eye on that.
other than that, i've mostly just been hanging out with people around singapore for the most part. spent a couple nights out at bars/clubs, danced some, saw a couple live bands that were good. i had mexican food this weekend!! for the second time so far this semester, at the same place too...its actually very tolerable. and they give unlimited chips and salsa, just like on the border. and their portions are actually very sizable...all in all, very impressive outing, i'd say. went with 6 other friends, and we all stuffed our faces completely, it was sooooo good haha. i've also got the address and location of the ONLY TACO BELL IN SINGAPORE mapped out...i've gotta make a trip there before i leave, bc honestly, its been way too long since i've had it, and its killing me inside.
on the upside, i got a package from my family today!! my sister had been telling me about it for days now, and i finally got it! they sent it out the 6th of march, and it took 11 days to get here..but considering it was a box vs envelope, thats understandable. soooo as im walking back from the management office where i picked it up, i'm turning the box over reading things on it to see what it could possibly be, and lo and behold, on the shipping label is written: Food items. instantly, a smile broke out on my face...i knew what it had to be, or at least what it had in it---mexican food. i got back and opened it up, and living up to my expectations was two packets of tortillas, two cans of refried beans, and a jar of salsa! ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS?! my family sent me mexican food!!! i couldnt believe it...i was sooooo happy hahah. included was also a pack of butterfingers (my favorite chocolate bar), a pack of Ghirardelli chocolates (beautiful chocolates btw) , a dispenser of dentyne ice (which is interesting, bc its gum, which isnt looked upon highly in singapore lol) and finally, a box of microwavable indian dishes! not the frozen kind--they come in packets that you empty out into a bowl, but they're vacuum sealed or preserved or something so they dont go bad. but how awesome is this? this is easily the best care package that my family couldve sent me...i love you guys!!!
countering that point of light to begin my week would be the viral fever i've been nursing for the past 24 hours...yeah, not cool. its been drifting up and down around 101.5, peaking at about 103.5, but it hasnt been that high since yesterday, which is good. it was at around 101.5 all day today, and whats weirder is that the tylenol the student health services prescribed me didnt do jack to keep it down...what has been working is the advil my mom packed for me before i came here, so i figure i'll just stay on that for a few days until the fever goes away on its own. its really crappy being sick with nobody around...its not even like its back at uconn where i always have one of my beloved roommates around to keep me company. if i wasnt careful about it, i could rot away alone in my room, sick and wallowing in self pity. luckily, Timothy Spenser Dobbs came to the rescue..honestly, he's pretty much been my saving grace ever since we started hanging out. its really good to have company when youre in a place like this, because otherwise its really easy to feel reallly alone, and since at UConn i've always got great company, its tough to live without it. Fortunately, not only is Tim company, he's great company...we get along incredibly well, and he's just a great guy in general. definitely makes me feel a lot more comfortable in a foreign environment, knowing that he's there to tough it out with me. and tonight, at my request, he kept me company for a couple hours while i wasnt feeling well, which definitely helps to bring up the morale and keep my mind in good spirits, which translates to a healthier physical state as well. i def owe him for coming to my rescue tonight, for sure.
welp, its getting kind of late, and i figure i should be getting as much rest as possible, so i bid you all farewell. I'm Rishi Kothari, you stay classy, San Diego.
other than that, i've mostly just been hanging out with people around singapore for the most part. spent a couple nights out at bars/clubs, danced some, saw a couple live bands that were good. i had mexican food this weekend!! for the second time so far this semester, at the same place too...its actually very tolerable. and they give unlimited chips and salsa, just like on the border. and their portions are actually very sizable...all in all, very impressive outing, i'd say. went with 6 other friends, and we all stuffed our faces completely, it was sooooo good haha. i've also got the address and location of the ONLY TACO BELL IN SINGAPORE mapped out...i've gotta make a trip there before i leave, bc honestly, its been way too long since i've had it, and its killing me inside.
on the upside, i got a package from my family today!! my sister had been telling me about it for days now, and i finally got it! they sent it out the 6th of march, and it took 11 days to get here..but considering it was a box vs envelope, thats understandable. soooo as im walking back from the management office where i picked it up, i'm turning the box over reading things on it to see what it could possibly be, and lo and behold, on the shipping label is written: Food items. instantly, a smile broke out on my face...i knew what it had to be, or at least what it had in it---mexican food. i got back and opened it up, and living up to my expectations was two packets of tortillas, two cans of refried beans, and a jar of salsa! ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS?! my family sent me mexican food!!! i couldnt believe it...i was sooooo happy hahah. included was also a pack of butterfingers (my favorite chocolate bar), a pack of Ghirardelli chocolates (beautiful chocolates btw) , a dispenser of dentyne ice (which is interesting, bc its gum, which isnt looked upon highly in singapore lol) and finally, a box of microwavable indian dishes! not the frozen kind--they come in packets that you empty out into a bowl, but they're vacuum sealed or preserved or something so they dont go bad. but how awesome is this? this is easily the best care package that my family couldve sent me...i love you guys!!!
countering that point of light to begin my week would be the viral fever i've been nursing for the past 24 hours...yeah, not cool. its been drifting up and down around 101.5, peaking at about 103.5, but it hasnt been that high since yesterday, which is good. it was at around 101.5 all day today, and whats weirder is that the tylenol the student health services prescribed me didnt do jack to keep it down...what has been working is the advil my mom packed for me before i came here, so i figure i'll just stay on that for a few days until the fever goes away on its own. its really crappy being sick with nobody around...its not even like its back at uconn where i always have one of my beloved roommates around to keep me company. if i wasnt careful about it, i could rot away alone in my room, sick and wallowing in self pity. luckily, Timothy Spenser Dobbs came to the rescue..honestly, he's pretty much been my saving grace ever since we started hanging out. its really good to have company when youre in a place like this, because otherwise its really easy to feel reallly alone, and since at UConn i've always got great company, its tough to live without it. Fortunately, not only is Tim company, he's great company...we get along incredibly well, and he's just a great guy in general. definitely makes me feel a lot more comfortable in a foreign environment, knowing that he's there to tough it out with me. and tonight, at my request, he kept me company for a couple hours while i wasnt feeling well, which definitely helps to bring up the morale and keep my mind in good spirits, which translates to a healthier physical state as well. i def owe him for coming to my rescue tonight, for sure.
welp, its getting kind of late, and i figure i should be getting as much rest as possible, so i bid you all farewell. I'm Rishi Kothari, you stay classy, San Diego.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
some xanax would have been nice
since sunday, i'd say i've been the most anxious i've ever been, for a prolonged period of time anyway. this even surpassed the feeling that i got before i took the MCATs last summer, and believe me, that was definitely a nerve racking experience. this time of year, its standard procedure for exchange students at NUS to realize exactly whats going on with their lives, and every story is pretty much the same:
- we havent gone to too many classes (which i'm not guilty of at all, surprsingly. i've missed two classes, and that was before i added the class, so as far as i'm concerned im batting 1.000)
- we havent studied for classes outside the bare minimum to take exams or do assignments (guilty as charged)
- we've done WAY too much travelling, which is more or less responsible for the above problems (true that)
as a result, most of the exchange students you'll meet nowadays are significantly more stressed than they would like to be, and i can personally attest to this feeling. its more or less the same feeling as it is at home when you realize youre behind on things, but then theres all the added pressure of everything else thats going on in our lives, such as being far away from home, and not only that but in a place where we dont fit in, dont feel comfortable, and everything is done differently. expectations for discipline and self-control are at an all time high, not only from yourself, but from those around you, and all these things can easily combine to make one hell of a physically and emotionally dissheveled exchange student. those of you that have talked to me in the past week will know exactly how i feel, as i've probably told you about it at least once or twelve times. however, in the past few days, i thank those who have talked me through it and helped me realize the real situation, that things will be okay, things will get done, and before i know it, i'll be able to enjoy myself again, be it here or back at home. you all know who you are, and your efforts have not gone unnoticed, trust me. i'll be going to our family friend's house here in singapore on saturday evening to get a little taste of home and for a little comfort i suppose...i think that'll put me at east, i hope anyway.
things otherwise are going alright. the rest of the semester will be work-based, with a project for a class here and a research project for a professor at home being the two main goals. on the upside, classes here end april 18th, so any of the work for NUS will be done then, with only two exams to study for after that. perhaps i'll take the days before my first exam (april 18th to may 2) to travel somewhere, not sure where or with who and what have you, but i should look into that soon. vietnam is a possibility, perhaps cambodia or laos along with it. even if i dont, i dont think i'll regret it. i've been to malaysia, thailand and indonesia while i've been in singapore, and i'll be making a surprise pitstop in shanghai, china, on my way back to the US for five days, so i dont feel that i've come all this way and not traveled. we'll see, im sure it'll turn out okay. welp, back to studying. more or less counting the days till i get home :) cant wait to see you guys!
- we havent gone to too many classes (which i'm not guilty of at all, surprsingly. i've missed two classes, and that was before i added the class, so as far as i'm concerned im batting 1.000)
- we havent studied for classes outside the bare minimum to take exams or do assignments (guilty as charged)
- we've done WAY too much travelling, which is more or less responsible for the above problems (true that)
as a result, most of the exchange students you'll meet nowadays are significantly more stressed than they would like to be, and i can personally attest to this feeling. its more or less the same feeling as it is at home when you realize youre behind on things, but then theres all the added pressure of everything else thats going on in our lives, such as being far away from home, and not only that but in a place where we dont fit in, dont feel comfortable, and everything is done differently. expectations for discipline and self-control are at an all time high, not only from yourself, but from those around you, and all these things can easily combine to make one hell of a physically and emotionally dissheveled exchange student. those of you that have talked to me in the past week will know exactly how i feel, as i've probably told you about it at least once or twelve times. however, in the past few days, i thank those who have talked me through it and helped me realize the real situation, that things will be okay, things will get done, and before i know it, i'll be able to enjoy myself again, be it here or back at home. you all know who you are, and your efforts have not gone unnoticed, trust me. i'll be going to our family friend's house here in singapore on saturday evening to get a little taste of home and for a little comfort i suppose...i think that'll put me at east, i hope anyway.
things otherwise are going alright. the rest of the semester will be work-based, with a project for a class here and a research project for a professor at home being the two main goals. on the upside, classes here end april 18th, so any of the work for NUS will be done then, with only two exams to study for after that. perhaps i'll take the days before my first exam (april 18th to may 2) to travel somewhere, not sure where or with who and what have you, but i should look into that soon. vietnam is a possibility, perhaps cambodia or laos along with it. even if i dont, i dont think i'll regret it. i've been to malaysia, thailand and indonesia while i've been in singapore, and i'll be making a surprise pitstop in shanghai, china, on my way back to the US for five days, so i dont feel that i've come all this way and not traveled. we'll see, im sure it'll turn out okay. welp, back to studying. more or less counting the days till i get home :) cant wait to see you guys!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
little points of light
a short list of some things that i've either realized or accomplished in the time i've been in this part of the world:
- i've eaten mcdonalds in every country i've been in so far, which is 4 here, and a total of like 7 or 8
- i'm more proficient with two forks than with a fork and knife
- ive done some of the best snorkeling in the world off the western coast of thailand
- ive witnessed someone i know getting arrested
- three of my closest friends here are an egyptian-canadian, a french-canadian and a french-belgian
- today, i said that over break "I only went to Bangkok and Phuket, nothing big", as if i took a "routine" trip to Thailand
- i've officially climbed a volcano and seen its crater
- i've hung out with native Laotians, in Thailand, and couldnt communicate a word with them
just some random things that have crossed my mind at some point in the recent past. now that i've wasted two minutes of your time, you may go back to doing whatever it was that was wasting your time.
- i've eaten mcdonalds in every country i've been in so far, which is 4 here, and a total of like 7 or 8
- i'm more proficient with two forks than with a fork and knife
- ive done some of the best snorkeling in the world off the western coast of thailand
- ive witnessed someone i know getting arrested
- three of my closest friends here are an egyptian-canadian, a french-canadian and a french-belgian
- today, i said that over break "I only went to Bangkok and Phuket, nothing big", as if i took a "routine" trip to Thailand
- i've officially climbed a volcano and seen its crater
- i've hung out with native Laotians, in Thailand, and couldnt communicate a word with them
just some random things that have crossed my mind at some point in the recent past. now that i've wasted two minutes of your time, you may go back to doing whatever it was that was wasting your time.
Monday, March 3, 2008
the title of this blog still holds true
still STDfrEE after thailand <-- new pictures!! as i sit here with my fresh bag of crispy Spicy Curry flavored Chachos, i cant help but revel in the glory of the fact that i am, still, free of STDs, as the name of my blog states. and this too, after returning from a week in Thailand, where i saw more prostitutes than you can possibly count. not that i'm particularly proud of this, as if anything less were expected, but i'll probably get a free screening back at uconn, just to be safe... so last saturday we left for bangkok from singapore for a week...what we were hoping would be 5 or 6 people was whittled down to two people, myself and Thuy, for a weeklong trip to Thailand. to be honest, despite the setbacks in the planning stages and Noura not being able to come, we still managed to make it a great trip, which im quite happy about. saturday night we arrived in bangkok after quite a flight. we flew Tiger Airways, and both me and Thuy swore we'd never fly it again. when in reality, it wasnt the pilot's fault, the turbulence during the entire flight made it feel like we were basically on our way down right from the start. every time the intercom came on, me and Thuy looked at each other and listened for the "you're all going to die", but instead it usually turned out to be "we're ok, you can take off your seat belts now". needless to say, the flight was definitely a bit scary, but we made it through. i suppose we were warned when our flight left from a different terminal than the rest of the airport... 
upon arriving in bangkok, we took a taxi to khao san, the backpackers' street, and hung around our hostel for the night. what is a running trend im finding in a lot of southeastern asian cities is the development of an area geared towards backpackers, like ourselves. often, a street or even two will be full of hostels and a market-type atmosphere with lots of people day and night, and its pretty much awesome. It makes it really easy to find a place to stay and its definitely got a good vibe. and, of course, its cheap and a great value for the prices you pay for places to stay. saturday night was spent here, browsing some of the shops and stalls, and of course, eating. everywhere you looked on this street was a pad thai cart, which was incredible (and cheap, 60 cents a heaping serving :)
sunday and monday, we roamed around bangkok quite a bit. sunday was spent at the famous Chatuchak weekend market, which is renowned to be one of the biggest ever. estimates put the market at or around 10000 stalls...needless to say, we didnt get around to seeing them all. however, i did do some of the requisite souvenir shopping here and, stupidly, was forced to lug it all around for the ensuing 7 days. the rest of the day was spent walking around another part of bangkok and ending up at a beeeaauuttiiiffuulll park (Lumphini park) where we took a rowboat out onto the lake they had there, ate some cotton candy, and listened to the outdoor orchestra play for a while. simply stunning to see such a beautiful place in the middle of bangkok, totally unexpected.
Monday we made visits to the temples that were scattered around a small area in bangkok. these were absolutely gorgeous temples, it was weird to see them so close to the rest of the city. Wat Arun, Wat Pho and Wat Phra Koew were their names. this is Wat Pho from a distance.
inside one of the temples lies the famous "reclining buddha". This is a Buddha statue about 150 feet long and about 15 feet high. the angle on the picture just doesn't do it justice...it was amazing..
later that day, we spent some time around the backpacker street again, this time roaming a little further from home and exploring the area. we found a bar that was essentially a Shell gas station, just abandoned and with tables set up everywhere...weird thing was, they left all the stuff still up (although im sure there was no gas actually running through the station, but all the pumps were still up, the canopy and the Shell sign were. certainly an interesting sight, to say the least.
tuesday morning, we took our flight from bangkok to phuket, an island on the southwestern coast of thailand. our intentions were not to stay here however. we immediately found a ferry to take us to the island of koh phi phi, one of the more popular islands off the coast of phuket. we stayed there for three nights. the days were spent either lounging on the beach, going on a boat tour of the area, snorkelling, or sitting inside while it was raining. save the last day, the stay on the island was very enjoyable, especially the food :) the island itself was quite touristy, but we were prepared for that before we got there.
from koh phi phi, we headed back to phuket on friday morning. we stayed on the west coast of the island in an area known as Patong, which is a highly developed area with a nice coastline. the place reminded me of the street we stayed on in bangkok with all the hostels and restaurants/bars and lights at night. This was the place that we saw the most prostitutes, i'd say, although they get around to coming out of their caves around 6 or 7, after dusk. i undertook a mini-mission, to see if i could even attract their attention without being too forward about it..turns out you need to be a middle-aged slightly balding white man to even get them to look at you. a young, not balding indian kid isnt really gonna do the trick. :(
saturday morning came around quite quickly after a long day in patong, and we headed back home. our flight was delayed for about 45 mins, but with the budget airlines, theres never any telling how exactly your trip is going to go. all i know is, im alive now, and i suppose thats better than the alternative.
instead of a funny picture, i leave you with something slightly more impressive this time. on the island, we saw a fire show, which was absolutely spectacular. after fiddling with my camera for about half the show, i managed to get some amazing shots of the performers, and this was one of the better ones. the light exposure basically was just longer, so not only does the fire show nicer, but you can see the person moving inside the ring...i thought this was awesome, personally.
upon arriving in bangkok, we took a taxi to khao san, the backpackers' street, and hung around our hostel for the night. what is a running trend im finding in a lot of southeastern asian cities is the development of an area geared towards backpackers, like ourselves. often, a street or even two will be full of hostels and a market-type atmosphere with lots of people day and night, and its pretty much awesome. It makes it really easy to find a place to stay and its definitely got a good vibe. and, of course, its cheap and a great value for the prices you pay for places to stay. saturday night was spent here, browsing some of the shops and stalls, and of course, eating. everywhere you looked on this street was a pad thai cart, which was incredible (and cheap, 60 cents a heaping serving :)
sunday and monday, we roamed around bangkok quite a bit. sunday was spent at the famous Chatuchak weekend market, which is renowned to be one of the biggest ever. estimates put the market at or around 10000 stalls...needless to say, we didnt get around to seeing them all. however, i did do some of the requisite souvenir shopping here and, stupidly, was forced to lug it all around for the ensuing 7 days. the rest of the day was spent walking around another part of bangkok and ending up at a beeeaauuttiiiffuulll park (Lumphini park) where we took a rowboat out onto the lake they had there, ate some cotton candy, and listened to the outdoor orchestra play for a while. simply stunning to see such a beautiful place in the middle of bangkok, totally unexpected.
Monday we made visits to the temples that were scattered around a small area in bangkok. these were absolutely gorgeous temples, it was weird to see them so close to the rest of the city. Wat Arun, Wat Pho and Wat Phra Koew were their names. this is Wat Pho from a distance.
inside one of the temples lies the famous "reclining buddha". This is a Buddha statue about 150 feet long and about 15 feet high. the angle on the picture just doesn't do it justice...it was amazing..
later that day, we spent some time around the backpacker street again, this time roaming a little further from home and exploring the area. we found a bar that was essentially a Shell gas station, just abandoned and with tables set up everywhere...weird thing was, they left all the stuff still up (although im sure there was no gas actually running through the station, but all the pumps were still up, the canopy and the Shell sign were. certainly an interesting sight, to say the least.
tuesday morning, we took our flight from bangkok to phuket, an island on the southwestern coast of thailand. our intentions were not to stay here however. we immediately found a ferry to take us to the island of koh phi phi, one of the more popular islands off the coast of phuket. we stayed there for three nights. the days were spent either lounging on the beach, going on a boat tour of the area, snorkelling, or sitting inside while it was raining. save the last day, the stay on the island was very enjoyable, especially the food :) the island itself was quite touristy, but we were prepared for that before we got there.
from koh phi phi, we headed back to phuket on friday morning. we stayed on the west coast of the island in an area known as Patong, which is a highly developed area with a nice coastline. the place reminded me of the street we stayed on in bangkok with all the hostels and restaurants/bars and lights at night. This was the place that we saw the most prostitutes, i'd say, although they get around to coming out of their caves around 6 or 7, after dusk. i undertook a mini-mission, to see if i could even attract their attention without being too forward about it..turns out you need to be a middle-aged slightly balding white man to even get them to look at you. a young, not balding indian kid isnt really gonna do the trick. :(
saturday morning came around quite quickly after a long day in patong, and we headed back home. our flight was delayed for about 45 mins, but with the budget airlines, theres never any telling how exactly your trip is going to go. all i know is, im alive now, and i suppose thats better than the alternative.
instead of a funny picture, i leave you with something slightly more impressive this time. on the island, we saw a fire show, which was absolutely spectacular. after fiddling with my camera for about half the show, i managed to get some amazing shots of the performers, and this was one of the better ones. the light exposure basically was just longer, so not only does the fire show nicer, but you can see the person moving inside the ring...i thought this was awesome, personally.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
all i need is a fire station now...
in visiting what i've been consistently referring to over the past 24 hours as the holy trinity of public safety establishments (police station, fire station, hospital), i've officially gone 2/3 in singapore...im pretty sure i havent even done this in my hometown, much less my own state or country. if you remember reading an earlier article, i've already visited a police station to bail a buddy of mine out of prison (feels so cool to be able to say that lol). yesterday, took a friend to the hospital after he took a digger and sliced open his ankle...i'd totally have pictures, but unfortunately didnt have a camera with me. boo to inopportune timing of bloody accidents.
either way, i spent an hour or so in the waiting room, watching the mummy on HBO on the tv they had without sound, but i did have the handy chinese subtitles. needless to say, it was as good as me reading a book...i just looked at the pictures. however, among the vending machines was a sandwich machine. yes you heard me, a sandwich vending machine which spits out piping hot sandwiches for a couple bucks. now, seeing as i've come here to have as many new experiences as possible (within moral reason, you sickos) i decided it was imperative i try a sandwich. having discovered pepperoni recently, i decided to go with the pepperoni-mozzarella sandwich over the chicken-cheese sandwich, having discovered pepperoni quite recently and falling in love with it. though in reality it was pepperoni-flavored chicken slices, i can honestly say that i enjoyed the sandwich somehow. i can now officially add "ate sandwich out of vending machine" to my list of firsts in singapore.
the last week has been quite hectic with me leaving for thailand on next saturday. have got some things to get done, as well as...uhh, school? is that what its called? ive done zilch for any classes aside from my research project with a UConn professor since i've been here, and to be honest, even though im stressing quite a bit right now, it really couldnt possibly be any better. we got assigned stuff kinda late, and ive been going to class so its not that i'm behind on acquiring information. the stuff i have to do before i leave just kinda came up late. either way, at times i feel like im legitimately freaking out, esp with one of my comp sci assignments...we'll see how that goes.
i talked with my parents for an hour and a half today, the longest continuous conversation that i've had with them since i've been here, and it definitely felt good to take a break from the work and to have them on the phone/skype. yeah, the homesickness is hitting, finally...it might be a little worse when i get back from thailand. however, homesickness does not equal regrets of any kind, dont get the wrong impression. i knew full well what it would be like and how i'd probably end up feeling, and so far its gone according to plan more or less. i just hope that in the end, this turns out to be as much character building and maturing episode in my life as i hoped it would be.
okay, its quite late...and this was a completely useless post, i'm aware. i leave you with a slice of paradise, yet another beautiful photo taken by yours truly. in the words of the wise Nas, "you can hate me now, but i wont stop now." cheers!
either way, i spent an hour or so in the waiting room, watching the mummy on HBO on the tv they had without sound, but i did have the handy chinese subtitles. needless to say, it was as good as me reading a book...i just looked at the pictures. however, among the vending machines was a sandwich machine. yes you heard me, a sandwich vending machine which spits out piping hot sandwiches for a couple bucks. now, seeing as i've come here to have as many new experiences as possible (within moral reason, you sickos) i decided it was imperative i try a sandwich. having discovered pepperoni recently, i decided to go with the pepperoni-mozzarella sandwich over the chicken-cheese sandwich, having discovered pepperoni quite recently and falling in love with it. though in reality it was pepperoni-flavored chicken slices, i can honestly say that i enjoyed the sandwich somehow. i can now officially add "ate sandwich out of vending machine" to my list of firsts in singapore.
the last week has been quite hectic with me leaving for thailand on next saturday. have got some things to get done, as well as...uhh, school? is that what its called? ive done zilch for any classes aside from my research project with a UConn professor since i've been here, and to be honest, even though im stressing quite a bit right now, it really couldnt possibly be any better. we got assigned stuff kinda late, and ive been going to class so its not that i'm behind on acquiring information. the stuff i have to do before i leave just kinda came up late. either way, at times i feel like im legitimately freaking out, esp with one of my comp sci assignments...we'll see how that goes.
i talked with my parents for an hour and a half today, the longest continuous conversation that i've had with them since i've been here, and it definitely felt good to take a break from the work and to have them on the phone/skype. yeah, the homesickness is hitting, finally...it might be a little worse when i get back from thailand. however, homesickness does not equal regrets of any kind, dont get the wrong impression. i knew full well what it would be like and how i'd probably end up feeling, and so far its gone according to plan more or less. i just hope that in the end, this turns out to be as much character building and maturing episode in my life as i hoped it would be.
okay, its quite late...and this was a completely useless post, i'm aware. i leave you with a slice of paradise, yet another beautiful photo taken by yours truly. in the words of the wise Nas, "you can hate me now, but i wont stop now." cheers!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
i didnt really need those malaria pills
new facebook albums!! in dough knees yah, in dough knees yah too
greetings from the texas chicken mascot! but one of the many awesome western-esque encounters i had in indonesia during my trip last week. as the title of this post says, the malaria pills were useless, but i guess it was better safe than sorry...turns out on my trip to indonesia, which i will detail in a minute, we were more or less in very safe areas in terms of mosquito populations. with a very minimal application of bug spray (twice i can remember, and even those, in cities), i came out with zero mosquito bites. good deal, if you ask me.
okay, so onto the actual adventure. didnt start out on a great note, as our first flight got delayed, which pushed into the timeslot for the second flight...long story short, a little deliberation and a very costly 45-minute phone call to air asia later, we had things settled, but the best solution cut into our trip time by about four or five hours. it was okay though, at least we were still going!
the first day we spent travelling quite a bit. we took a ferry to the island of batam (part of indonesia). from there, a flight to Jakarta, the capital of indonesia. from there, another flight to surabaya, another big city in indonesia. our eventual first real destination was the city of malang, so after an overnight stay in the seemingly dead surabaya, we got to malang in the midafternoon and found a hotel for about $6 or $7 US, which is more or less an average price for hotels in these types of countries. these are more or less fully furnished rooms, mind you, with two beds and a bathroom and some furniture. dumped our stuff there and decided to explore the area a little bit, just to see what was around. we found another quite upscale hotel (with rooms starting around $70US) and spoke to the clerk for a little while. turns out she was quite instrumental in arranging the first part of our trip...i had actually called this hotel for some information before coming to indonesia and they were real helpful in finding ways to get around the area and finding hotels nearby. either way, after talking to her we booked a tour bus to take the six of us that went on the trip to Mount Bromo, an active volcano in the area. We had a grand dinner at that same hotel at night with some drinks, which ended up with oli getting on stage with the live band that was playing (for our group and another table of three lol) and singing "i feel good" along with him. we finished up, went back to the hotel to freshen up a bit, then embarked on our journey to Mount Bromo around 1AM. The drive there took a while, but we wanted to get there for a sunrise we would never see on account of the fog. after our 4AM arrival, we waited for nothing for a while then eventually got around to climbing the volcano itself, but im so glad we did. The view was simply *spectacular*. After we climbed it and looked into the smoking crater, our driver took us to the other side of the valley on another ledge to get a view of the actual volcano itself, and there i took the most breathtaking picture of the entire trip.
from there, we had the driver drive us 9 hours or so to the city of Yogyakarta, another major city in the south-central region of the island of Java. on the way, we stopped at an absolutely stunning waterfall...it literally was in the middle of nowhere, but somehow our driver knew exactly where it was lol. it was a gorgeous area, all natural. it had a small group of food stalls and a makeshift souvenir shop, but other than that, desolate all around.
on to yogyakarta! here, we stayed 2 nights. the first day, we visited two temples nearby, both of them very well known. The first one was the buddhist temple of Borobudur (wiki) and the second the hindu temple of Prambanan (wiki). both were equally grand in their own ways. they both are quite old, its incredible that they're still standing after so much time, braving the elements and whatever mother nature has to throw at them.
The Borobudur Temple
The Prambanan Temple
the next morning, after our second night in Yogyakarta, we took a drive to the nearby city of Solo to catch a flight back to Jakarta to wind up our trip. stayed in jakarta for the night, then flew home the day after. all in all, an amazing few days! its crazy how much you learn about the people youre travelling with, bc they're the only people you have sustained contact with for the entire time...this can be a good and bad thing, but by the time its over, youre just more informed, which is never a bad thing.
last but not least, the humorous tidbit for the trip...im sure there was more than this check my facebook pics for a few more, but honestly, i'd say this was the best one. i think the photo is pretty self explanatory. cheers!
greetings from the texas chicken mascot! but one of the many awesome western-esque encounters i had in indonesia during my trip last week. as the title of this post says, the malaria pills were useless, but i guess it was better safe than sorry...turns out on my trip to indonesia, which i will detail in a minute, we were more or less in very safe areas in terms of mosquito populations. with a very minimal application of bug spray (twice i can remember, and even those, in cities), i came out with zero mosquito bites. good deal, if you ask me.
okay, so onto the actual adventure. didnt start out on a great note, as our first flight got delayed, which pushed into the timeslot for the second flight...long story short, a little deliberation and a very costly 45-minute phone call to air asia later, we had things settled, but the best solution cut into our trip time by about four or five hours. it was okay though, at least we were still going!
the first day we spent travelling quite a bit. we took a ferry to the island of batam (part of indonesia). from there, a flight to Jakarta, the capital of indonesia. from there, another flight to surabaya, another big city in indonesia. our eventual first real destination was the city of malang, so after an overnight stay in the seemingly dead surabaya, we got to malang in the midafternoon and found a hotel for about $6 or $7 US, which is more or less an average price for hotels in these types of countries. these are more or less fully furnished rooms, mind you, with two beds and a bathroom and some furniture. dumped our stuff there and decided to explore the area a little bit, just to see what was around. we found another quite upscale hotel (with rooms starting around $70US) and spoke to the clerk for a little while. turns out she was quite instrumental in arranging the first part of our trip...i had actually called this hotel for some information before coming to indonesia and they were real helpful in finding ways to get around the area and finding hotels nearby. either way, after talking to her we booked a tour bus to take the six of us that went on the trip to Mount Bromo, an active volcano in the area. We had a grand dinner at that same hotel at night with some drinks, which ended up with oli getting on stage with the live band that was playing (for our group and another table of three lol) and singing "i feel good" along with him. we finished up, went back to the hotel to freshen up a bit, then embarked on our journey to Mount Bromo around 1AM. The drive there took a while, but we wanted to get there for a sunrise we would never see on account of the fog. after our 4AM arrival, we waited for nothing for a while then eventually got around to climbing the volcano itself, but im so glad we did. The view was simply *spectacular*. After we climbed it and looked into the smoking crater, our driver took us to the other side of the valley on another ledge to get a view of the actual volcano itself, and there i took the most breathtaking picture of the entire trip.
from there, we had the driver drive us 9 hours or so to the city of Yogyakarta, another major city in the south-central region of the island of Java. on the way, we stopped at an absolutely stunning waterfall...it literally was in the middle of nowhere, but somehow our driver knew exactly where it was lol. it was a gorgeous area, all natural. it had a small group of food stalls and a makeshift souvenir shop, but other than that, desolate all around.
on to yogyakarta! here, we stayed 2 nights. the first day, we visited two temples nearby, both of them very well known. The first one was the buddhist temple of Borobudur (wiki) and the second the hindu temple of Prambanan (wiki). both were equally grand in their own ways. they both are quite old, its incredible that they're still standing after so much time, braving the elements and whatever mother nature has to throw at them.
The Borobudur Temple
The Prambanan Templelast but not least, the humorous tidbit for the trip...im sure there was more than this check my facebook pics for a few more, but honestly, i'd say this was the best one. i think the photo is pretty self explanatory. cheers!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
my first trip!
more facebook pics!!
Melaka is one of the oldest cities in malaysia, settled circa 1406 by an exiled hindu prince. as a result, its had quite a bit of influence from plenty of different cultures, including indians, portugese and dutch. each of these cultures has their own little area where you can still see some of the historic buildings and things left behind, so we explored those areas a bit. the chinatown was quite interesting--we went during the night market. to our surprise, there was a live performance going on, some four girls and a dude in chick's clothing singing in chinese. either way, good times. we spent some time here, took a tour of the city in a boat that ran on the river through the city, and eventually caught a bus to come back home. at the bus station, i saw something i didnt expect to see at all...a taco bell! i couldnt believe it...i know exactly where it is and how to get there now, so i expect that i'll make a trip DAMN soon haha
so, good times this weekend. we left on friday afternoon, a couple of us skipping a class or two, and took a train to Kuala Lumpur (henceforth referred to as KL), the capital of malaysia. the trip was more or less a spontaneous decision--we'd only thought about it for a few days or so. luckily, there was still space in the hostels that we booked on hostelworld.com (fantastic site if youre looking to travel for cheap, even in the US). either way, we trained it up there which took 10 hours or so (4 more than the purported 6 hour trip it had on our tickets, to our dismay). got there around 1AM and had our first meal -- McDonalds. im just as disappointed as you are, honestly. we go to a foreign country from a foreign country and are greeted by the world's food ambassador as the only place open in the train station that late at night. anyway, we proceed to our hostel, the Pudu Hostel, from there and take a night's sleep.
next morning, three out of the four of us (the fourth hanging back to gather a spare key as she'd locked herself out lol) went to the Petronas Towers (wiki) to get the free tickets they give to take a trip up to the skybridge in the towers (on the 41st floor out of 100+). just as background, these towers were completed in 1996, sponsored by corporate oil giant Petronas Oil, and they are the tallest twin towers in the world and among the tallest buildings as well. either way, i've been dreaming of coming here for ages now...when i was younger, a friend had a book about skyscrapers and these were easily the two coolest looking buildings in the book and im SO happy i finally got to see them.
next morning, three out of the four of us (the fourth hanging back to gather a spare key as she'd locked herself out lol) went to the Petronas Towers (wiki) to get the free tickets they give to take a trip up to the skybridge in the towers (on the 41st floor out of 100+). just as background, these towers were completed in 1996, sponsored by corporate oil giant Petronas Oil, and they are the tallest twin towers in the world and among the tallest buildings as well. either way, i've been dreaming of coming here for ages now...when i was younger, a friend had a book about skyscrapers and these were easily the two coolest looking buildings in the book and im SO happy i finally got to see them.
anyway, after getting the tickets we collected our fourth member and headed off to the Batu Caves (wiki). these were def cool. took quite a few pictures. the caves were beautiful, and a couple were decked out in indian statues and paintings. its apparently a really big hindu attraction, drawing quite a large religious crowd. the caves themselves were beautiful, but there was definitely some questionable material....
we ate some lunch there (south indian food--dosa!! shown below) and took the half hour cab ride back to KL to see the towers before we caught our bus and headed to Melaka, anothr city in malaysia.
Melaka is one of the oldest cities in malaysia, settled circa 1406 by an exiled hindu prince. as a result, its had quite a bit of influence from plenty of different cultures, including indians, portugese and dutch. each of these cultures has their own little area where you can still see some of the historic buildings and things left behind, so we explored those areas a bit. the chinatown was quite interesting--we went during the night market. to our surprise, there was a live performance going on, some four girls and a dude in chick's clothing singing in chinese. either way, good times. we spent some time here, took a tour of the city in a boat that ran on the river through the city, and eventually caught a bus to come back home. at the bus station, i saw something i didnt expect to see at all...a taco bell! i couldnt believe it...i know exactly where it is and how to get there now, so i expect that i'll make a trip DAMN soon haha
i figure nows as good a time as any to introduce my friends, or a few of them anyway. below, from left to right: Thuy (belgian french speaker), Raymond (the dude who owned the hostel in Melaka), Noura (canadian egyptian), Olivier (or Oli as i call him, french canadian), and me. likely you'll see some more pictures of these guys if you keep up with the blog or my facebook photo albums.
all in all, the following picture pretty much sums up the entire weekend.
off to indonesia until next monday tonight!! will definitely have a good story by the end of this week :D
Thursday, January 31, 2008
what you dont know you know
you'll miss it when its gone. old is gold. distance makes the heart grow fonder. you've all heard these phrases on so many occasions, many of them in the cheesiest of situations from very cheesy people (quite possibly me) but unless you've been in a situation like this, its impossible to know exactly how true these sayings really are. right, you go on a one week vacation and dont see your girlfriend for 9 days, great. you miss her, you think about her all the time, but its cool, you see her when you get back. in the meantime, you've got plenty to occupy you, family/other friends, activities etc. but when it comes to actually being isolated from all that you know, its a different ballgame. today is the first day/night that i've actually felt legitimately homesick, and boy, did it hit hard. i miss everything. i miss the days waking up to breakfast with heeeren and ricky back at school. i miss the weekend nights fucking around south with the whole crew. i miss ordering wings for sunday night football. i miss ranking on vishal for his flat jump shot. i miss seeing chris once every week with a stupid new story to tell me. i miss saying goodnight to brian every night. i miss it all, and you cant possibly know this until you've been put this far outside of your own comfort zone. most of all, everyone has someone that they can count on for almost anything, and when you dont have that person around, everything else becomes that much worse. for those of you that know me, i'm all about new experiences, about exploring the boundaries of my own experiences and expanding them as far as i can. however, it appears that i've got limits, just like any other human being, and ive realized exactly what the comforts of my own life back home mean to me. it makes getting up in the morning more difficult, it makes getting about my day that much more laborious, and definitely makes the nights, in the end, lonelier. for your own sake, you all, please dont take for granted what you experience on a daily basis. make an effort to realize exactly what your family, what your friends, and your own daily routines mean you to. they're mean more to you than you can possibly imagine. goodnight...
Friday, January 25, 2008
all hail peoplesoft?!
first and foremost, i finally put up a picture album on facebook. go see it!
As we all, as students at UConn know, there are few things in life more frustrating than peoplesoft, its a well known fact. Richa, this goes out to you in particular, who rarely even schedules her own classes. however, one thing even MORE frustrating seems to be, get this, not having peoplesoft around. go figure. this past week has been a shitshow with me registering for classes with this incredibly convoluted system that is supposed to
(taken directly out of a POWERPOINT PRESENTATION that they have to put up because the system is so goddamn confusing. not only this, but said powerpoint is only for the system that the resident students use...theres a different system altogether for exchange students! little do we know this, and the professors here know only marginally more than we do, which basically means they know nothing more or less. for starters, students here BID for classes with points they are all given at the beginning of the semester. moreover, there are round for bidding, between which nothing can be done. retarded. the exchange student system is basically like peoplesoft's add/drop...but wait, it cant be that simple. we follow the "round" system, which is inherently retarded. not to mention, when you "add" a class, it takes the registrar's office 3-5 days to actually get back to you and let you know if you get the class or not. due to this, students are regularly attending 5 to 7 classes in the first couple weeks just in case they actually get registered in any of them. needless to day, peoplesoft's one shot deal with adding/dropping classes is MUCH preferred to this supposedly "responsibility building" but realistically chaotic system.
on the upside, apparently people here dont really know what a work week is, pretty much party 4 nights a week...during the week. so far, im on a streak of going out two nights starting wednesday, and have a feeling that may not end for another couple days. i dont know how much of this im gonna be able to handle or for how much longer..it def gets tiring after a little while. but at least at this point its a good way to go out and meet people. for the most part, people have found people they like to hang out with, and most have even started taking trips to places around here. me and a few friends were SUPPOSED to take a trip to Kukup, a nice little fishing town basically just over the Malaysian border, this weekend, but some douchebags decided it'd be fun to leave all of us off the list, so turns out we're singapore-bound this weekend. but it should still be okay...we havent explored at lot of the things do to around here, so im kind of excited to go to a couple museums they have on the island, a birdpark (which should probably have a lot of really nice tropical varieties) among other things. either way, i should probably get on looking for travel opportunities very soon. things are already pretty much sold out for chinese new year (which we get two days off for in the first week of feb hehe) but we get a week of for "spring" break and then another week before finals and another week before most of us leave after we're done with all our finals. good times.
in conclusion, i was waiting at a bus stop after class with about four other people. as soon as the bus came down the road towards us, two things came quickly along with it: a mob of people to take the bus, and the unmistakable odor of singaporeans...its really quite unfortunate to have to be subjected to this, but i'll put it under the category of occupational hazard by studying here. Cheers!
As we all, as students at UConn know, there are few things in life more frustrating than peoplesoft, its a well known fact. Richa, this goes out to you in particular, who rarely even schedules her own classes. however, one thing even MORE frustrating seems to be, get this, not having peoplesoft around. go figure. this past week has been a shitshow with me registering for classes with this incredibly convoluted system that is supposed to
(taken directly out of a POWERPOINT PRESENTATION that they have to put up because the system is so goddamn confusing. not only this, but said powerpoint is only for the system that the resident students use...theres a different system altogether for exchange students! little do we know this, and the professors here know only marginally more than we do, which basically means they know nothing more or less. for starters, students here BID for classes with points they are all given at the beginning of the semester. moreover, there are round for bidding, between which nothing can be done. retarded. the exchange student system is basically like peoplesoft's add/drop...but wait, it cant be that simple. we follow the "round" system, which is inherently retarded. not to mention, when you "add" a class, it takes the registrar's office 3-5 days to actually get back to you and let you know if you get the class or not. due to this, students are regularly attending 5 to 7 classes in the first couple weeks just in case they actually get registered in any of them. needless to day, peoplesoft's one shot deal with adding/dropping classes is MUCH preferred to this supposedly "responsibility building" but realistically chaotic system.
on the upside, apparently people here dont really know what a work week is, pretty much party 4 nights a week...during the week. so far, im on a streak of going out two nights starting wednesday, and have a feeling that may not end for another couple days. i dont know how much of this im gonna be able to handle or for how much longer..it def gets tiring after a little while. but at least at this point its a good way to go out and meet people. for the most part, people have found people they like to hang out with, and most have even started taking trips to places around here. me and a few friends were SUPPOSED to take a trip to Kukup, a nice little fishing town basically just over the Malaysian border, this weekend, but some douchebags decided it'd be fun to leave all of us off the list, so turns out we're singapore-bound this weekend. but it should still be okay...we havent explored at lot of the things do to around here, so im kind of excited to go to a couple museums they have on the island, a birdpark (which should probably have a lot of really nice tropical varieties) among other things. either way, i should probably get on looking for travel opportunities very soon. things are already pretty much sold out for chinese new year (which we get two days off for in the first week of feb hehe) but we get a week of for "spring" break and then another week before finals and another week before most of us leave after we're done with all our finals. good times.
in conclusion, i was waiting at a bus stop after class with about four other people. as soon as the bus came down the road towards us, two things came quickly along with it: a mob of people to take the bus, and the unmistakable odor of singaporeans...its really quite unfortunate to have to be subjected to this, but i'll put it under the category of occupational hazard by studying here. Cheers!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
a few pictures
the best looking ladies i've seen in singapore so far. boooo to asians
i was there for a whole day. its called Sentosa Island, a small island off the coast of the main island of Singapore. beautiful place, really. this was a bit later in the day, but i like the color of the sky in this picture.
this is just a bad joke, really. who the hell names a road "Hindoo Rd"?! sounds like what the police officer from Harold & Kumar would write down...kumar, whats that, four O's and two U's?
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
arrested? damnnn
the last six days have definitely been a blur...with all the orientation stuff going on and classes having started this monday, its definitely been hectic. but, in the middle of all that, i've still managed to explore the island a bit more each day, which im definitely happy about. the more and more i learn about this place, the more it really seems like its a very normal sort of place. not too much different in some aspects than bombay or new york, really. its got its nuances, but then again, what city doesnt? the one thing i did notice is that public transport is definitely big here. the bus and subway systems are really really good, and very well used. not to mention air conditioning in all of it, so if nothing else, its a reprieve from the blazing temperatures during the day.
on a separate note, it took barely a week for one of us exchange students to have a run-in with the law here in singapore...didnt say i didnt see it coming, but this soon? dammmn. sooo we were in a HUGE department store, the size of three or four targets or walmarts, and one of our friends (who will hereby be adressed as P) was looking at some lipstick. all of a sudden, P is taken into the security room on the grounds that she shoplifted. now, nobody that comes into this country is ignorant enough to not know how strict the law is here, so obviously she wasnt actually shoplifting. so, she calls me up, crying frantically about how she scared and doesnt know what to do, which is exactly what i'd do if i got into a situation like this. me and another dude run upstairs to find out what's happening, but they dont let us see her for at least a half hour or so, and not without a significant amount of badgering. eventually we see her, she's in shambles, confused as all hell about her situation. eventually, after an hour or so, some guy comes out and explains whats going on, and it sounds so ridiculous, but what can we do? me and one of our friends wait there for her while the others leave, the officers said they had no clue how long it could possibly go. eventually, a total of two and a half hours into this deal, she comes out in cuffs...and all of a sudden im pissing myself. they actually arrested her, she was arrested in singapore, and put into a cell for about four hours before she calls us from the police station at 1 in the morning saying that she is free to go, but has to go back the next day to find out if they're pressing charges. that was at least a relief, that she didnt have to sit there overnight...and on the eve of classes starting, no less. upon going back, she finds out she was acquitted, and all is well. either way, crazy start to what im sure is going to be a crazy semester. cheers, to Singapore!
on a separate note, it took barely a week for one of us exchange students to have a run-in with the law here in singapore...didnt say i didnt see it coming, but this soon? dammmn. sooo we were in a HUGE department store, the size of three or four targets or walmarts, and one of our friends (who will hereby be adressed as P) was looking at some lipstick. all of a sudden, P is taken into the security room on the grounds that she shoplifted. now, nobody that comes into this country is ignorant enough to not know how strict the law is here, so obviously she wasnt actually shoplifting. so, she calls me up, crying frantically about how she scared and doesnt know what to do, which is exactly what i'd do if i got into a situation like this. me and another dude run upstairs to find out what's happening, but they dont let us see her for at least a half hour or so, and not without a significant amount of badgering. eventually we see her, she's in shambles, confused as all hell about her situation. eventually, after an hour or so, some guy comes out and explains whats going on, and it sounds so ridiculous, but what can we do? me and one of our friends wait there for her while the others leave, the officers said they had no clue how long it could possibly go. eventually, a total of two and a half hours into this deal, she comes out in cuffs...and all of a sudden im pissing myself. they actually arrested her, she was arrested in singapore, and put into a cell for about four hours before she calls us from the police station at 1 in the morning saying that she is free to go, but has to go back the next day to find out if they're pressing charges. that was at least a relief, that she didnt have to sit there overnight...and on the eve of classes starting, no less. upon going back, she finds out she was acquitted, and all is well. either way, crazy start to what im sure is going to be a crazy semester. cheers, to Singapore!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
long night, lazy dayy
yesterday marked what i consider to be the official beginning of the academic festivities on campus. all the exchange students had to go to a registration session where they basically just made sure you werent retarded and could read the instructions on the packet they sent to everyone...good to know they trust us so much. on top of this, tomorrow theres an orientation session where they'll tell us god knows what..hopefully it'll be useful, because its at 10AM...not a friendly time, i'd say.
during the three hour wait until our number was up, me and bieu decided to roam campus a little bit...and its beautiful. theres greenery everywhere! beautiful trees and grass all over the place...easily more green than uconn, which is interesting because uconn's on a farm. the student center there is also quite nice...they've got a food court with a lot of asian food, naturally, and then a subway...great placement, though it does seem to get a lot of business lol. inside, they have another couple sit down restaurants, including a bar on the top floor. this place is getting better and better as time goes on! the buildings all look so new and modern, and the insides are pristine...i gotta give it to these people, they know how to make people comfortable. the sports and recreation center is less than stellar, but then again, the singaporeans arent really known to be world class athletes either lol. its certainly adequate, and the nice thing is that part of the "recreation" is a spanish sports bar -- "Hermanos" -- where i'll end up time and again during the semester, im sure.
then, at night,we decided to go out on the town for a little bit...meeting people was so easy! a lot of people, we met at registration and about 15 of us or so decided to go to a place down by the river called Clark Quey, basically just a center with lots of restaurants, bars, and clubs. wednesday nights are "ladies night" all over singapore where girls get in and drink free almost EVERYWHERE...and theres a min $20 cover for guys along with $14 pints. damn pricey, if you ask me. the girls decided to go off elsewhere, but me and a few other guys decided to find a bar and play some pool for a little while, which was preferable for me. later we joined up and roamed around for a while, then headed home. it was good to just experience what it was like, and im sure that we'll be out again soon...next week, i'll be out with the "natives" hopefully, and they'll actually be able to show me around, which'd be nice.
you've never seen rain unless you've seen it rain here. living in new england our whole lives, we've all seen downpours, but this is about as crazy as they come here. it took literally 30 seconds for it to go from on rain at all to rain falling so hard, the huge raindrops might hurt if you went outside. and the thunder? as loud as a sonic boom, resonating through my entire body--it was frighteningly loud. now it makes sense why they have gutters and little ruts running all over campus--just in case it rains (which it does quite often these times of year). at the bottom of the hill behind my building, they have a drainage trench collect all the rainwater and send it away, and it was like a grand rapid in the heat of the downpour.
in conclusion, i found this above the door on a bus, censored for your viewing pleasure. enjoy.
during the three hour wait until our number was up, me and bieu decided to roam campus a little bit...and its beautiful. theres greenery everywhere! beautiful trees and grass all over the place...easily more green than uconn, which is interesting because uconn's on a farm. the student center there is also quite nice...they've got a food court with a lot of asian food, naturally, and then a subway...great placement, though it does seem to get a lot of business lol. inside, they have another couple sit down restaurants, including a bar on the top floor. this place is getting better and better as time goes on! the buildings all look so new and modern, and the insides are pristine...i gotta give it to these people, they know how to make people comfortable. the sports and recreation center is less than stellar, but then again, the singaporeans arent really known to be world class athletes either lol. its certainly adequate, and the nice thing is that part of the "recreation" is a spanish sports bar -- "Hermanos" -- where i'll end up time and again during the semester, im sure.
then, at night,we decided to go out on the town for a little bit...meeting people was so easy! a lot of people, we met at registration and about 15 of us or so decided to go to a place down by the river called Clark Quey, basically just a center with lots of restaurants, bars, and clubs. wednesday nights are "ladies night" all over singapore where girls get in and drink free almost EVERYWHERE...and theres a min $20 cover for guys along with $14 pints. damn pricey, if you ask me. the girls decided to go off elsewhere, but me and a few other guys decided to find a bar and play some pool for a little while, which was preferable for me. later we joined up and roamed around for a while, then headed home. it was good to just experience what it was like, and im sure that we'll be out again soon...next week, i'll be out with the "natives" hopefully, and they'll actually be able to show me around, which'd be nice.
you've never seen rain unless you've seen it rain here. living in new england our whole lives, we've all seen downpours, but this is about as crazy as they come here. it took literally 30 seconds for it to go from on rain at all to rain falling so hard, the huge raindrops might hurt if you went outside. and the thunder? as loud as a sonic boom, resonating through my entire body--it was frighteningly loud. now it makes sense why they have gutters and little ruts running all over campus--just in case it rains (which it does quite often these times of year). at the bottom of the hill behind my building, they have a drainage trench collect all the rainwater and send it away, and it was like a grand rapid in the heat of the downpour.
in conclusion, i found this above the door on a bus, censored for your viewing pleasure. enjoy.
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