Times are sad.
When I got to know all the other exchange students here, I knew these are aquaintances that I will be spending half a year with here, and then they would be just friends over-seas. We all knew we're not going to be in Singapore for ever, so as far as a few days back actually, I didn't think it would be so hard to say good-byes.
But now, I see people leaving, all around me and all the time. I might not see some of them ever again in my life and I also have to say good-bye to some people who have become very close friends. But on the other hand I am pretty sure that with the best friends we will definitely see some day again, especially with the ones living in Europe.
Well, luckily not all of my friends are leaving, some of them are here for a whole year as well. Looking forward to see you again next Sem!!! :)
Times are gooooood as well!
I have finished my exams and I'm leaving Singapore for travelling. So excited!! I'm going to Bangkok first (today!) with Erkka and Lin, and tomorrow Pivra will come there too. Pivra is from Bangkok, so he can show us places on Tuesday. On Tuesday evening we will take a night train to Laos and travel to Luang Prabang. They are all really nice guys, so I know we will have awsome time!
After a couple of days there, they will continue to Chiang Rai and I will return to Bangkok, where I will meet my boyfriend Kalle (YEY!!!). We will be travelling together with him in sothern Thailand for ten days. After that...
21.12 -> Bangkok-Puerto Princessa (That's in Palawan island in the Philippines)
28.12-> Puerto Princessa - Manila (we go see north Luzon)
31.12 -> Manila - Singapore
In Singapore Kalle will have about 5 days before leaving back to Mexico. I will still have almost a week, to meet new exchange students an stuff, before the next Semester and hiding in the library starts.
I'll try to update as soon as I can, don't know when or where will that be!
5. joulukuuta 2010
20. marraskuuta 2010
Special edition - Summa summarum on Bali
Okey, here's the deal.
We spent 9 days really full of activities in Bali. And I'm bad at keeping things short. So, if you look at the texts "Recess week - Part 1, 2 and 3" and find them too long, here are a few alternative options. =)
Option 1: If you are happy with just looking at the pictures, let me remind you about my Picasa album and Facebook (includes names of the places). Or, you can just scroll though the pictures here, of course!
Option 2: Read the "summa summarum" below about the things we did in Bali.
Option 3: If you really want to hear, what did I think was interesting/good/bad/funny in those places we visited and what did we do there, you are naturally welcome to read the whole "Recess week". (Or if your exam books are even more boring, or you just have way too much time in your hands!) Anyway, it's there for you already!
So, in short, here's what we did:
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Same in Finnish/Samma på Finska:
http://translate.google.com/#en|fi| ;P
Jos nyt joku kuitenkin edelleen haluaa tämän lyhennelmän käännettävän suomeksi, eikä google translatekaan auta (eihän se juuri koskaan), niin ottakoon yhteyttä! ;)
Kaikessa lyhykäisyydessään: aivan mahtava matka!
-----
Do comment! :)
We spent 9 days really full of activities in Bali. And I'm bad at keeping things short. So, if you look at the texts "Recess week - Part 1, 2 and 3" and find them too long, here are a few alternative options. =)
Option 1: If you are happy with just looking at the pictures, let me remind you about my Picasa album and Facebook (includes names of the places). Or, you can just scroll though the pictures here, of course!
Option 2: Read the "summa summarum" below about the things we did in Bali.
- If something sounds especially interesting, you can scroll down to the texts Recess week - Part 1, 2 or 3, and try to find the part telling about it. (The list is about in the same order as the text, if it helps.)
Option 3: If you really want to hear, what did I think was interesting/good/bad/funny in those places we visited and what did we do there, you are naturally welcome to read the whole "Recess week". (Or if your exam books are even more boring, or you just have way too much time in your hands!) Anyway, it's there for you already!
So, in short, here's what we did:
- lay on the beach in Legian
- saw Kecak dance in Ulu Watu
- visited a whooole lot of temples (my favourite: The Holy Spring Temple)
- had a chillaxed time in Ubud (nice, especially for being in the middle of even nicer places around it
- saw hundreds of monkeys in Monkey Forest (in Ubud)
- drank Kopi Luwak - made of fox poo
- petted an elephant kid and hugged a honey bear
- checked out the black lawa-sand beach of Lovina
- almost saw dolphins
- got aqcuainted with geckos and bats
- climbed Mount Batur - totally awsome!
- visited Changgu
- had a food poisoning - totally not awsome!
------
Same in Finnish/Samma på Finska:
http://translate.google.com/#en|fi| ;P
Jos nyt joku kuitenkin edelleen haluaa tämän lyhennelmän käännettävän suomeksi, eikä google translatekaan auta (eihän se juuri koskaan), niin ottakoon yhteyttä! ;)
Kaikessa lyhykäisyydessään: aivan mahtava matka!
-----
Do comment! :)
Recess week - Part 3
Okey, where were we...
Day 6
Wednesday - this was the day when the trip of three blond European girls around Bali began! ;)
We hired a car again and took direction to north. First stop: Elephant Park! We would have loved a tour sitting on elephant's back, but it was sooo expensive, we decided not to pay that much to get our asses sore but to pay only for the entrance instead. We saw a lot of those big elephants carrying people on their backs, but a closer look we got take on a little 6-year old elephant, Helen. She was chained from two of her legs :,( but since she was still in the middle of her training, that was necessary if we wanted to get so close to her. Her trainer had to calm her down every once in a while, not to get too exited. We got to pet her and take pictures with her. It was so funny! And I didn't know that elephants are so hairy!!! :)
What we didn't know was that there was also another animal we could go and make friends with - a honey bear. She was 3 years old, but still, quite heavy! So much fun, I never thought I could hug a bear or hold a bear in my lap, let a lone kiss a bear! :D
The trip continued towards our destination, Lovina on the north coast of Bali. On the way we had a good chance to see the beautiful mountaineous views and ricepads.
I know, as if we hadn't seen enough temples yet :P but we still made another stop on the way to see a temple by the side of a lake and mountains. I don't remember the name if the place, though, but it was very beautiful. We also saw a bride there, they were taking pictures to her wedding picture book. We didn't ask where was she from, maybe Taiwan...? ;)
Finally we got to Lovina. It is famous for it's black sand beach, so after quicly finding ourselves a hotel, we went to the beach. The hotel was pretty crappy; no bed sheets, not a good bathroom, but it was cheep. And anyways, we could easily sleep under our sharongs - it wasn't very cold, you know, without air-con! :)
We saw interesting art in the sand - made of eggs, garlic and clili! But the weather wasn't on our side, and after walking aroung on the beach for a short time, it started to rain.
So that day we just relaxed in cafeterias and restaurants, went walking around Lovina getting to know the basically only three interesting streets besides the beach, ;) booked a set of tours in a tourist agency, wached a show of balinese dance, and had some mojitos!
Day 7
On Thursday we woke up really early, because one of the things we had booked last day, was a boat ride on the sea, to see dolphins. That's another thing that Lovina is famous for. So this time we saw the sunrise from a boat! :)
Too bad that was the only thing we, or the other about 40 boats, saw. People had told us that we could see dozens of dolphins jumping around our boat... Well not that day we didn't. After two hours of waiting and circling around, we only had a very short glanse of the backs of three dolphins. Our boat captain said it was propably because it had rained the last night, so the water was too dirty for the dolphins.
For least that say we had better luck with weather, so we could hit he beach. I have to say, even though the beach was pretty nice, I actually liked Legian beach more. I think it was maybe cleaner, and actually the water in Lovina was quite dirty as well. Just the idea of swimming in the same water, where the yahts and other boats were so close to you, was pretty discusting to begin with. I could really understand those dolphins when I went I tried the water myself.
Well, the day was pretty relaxed, enjoying the quietness of the town, having some desserts, writing postcards, having some more desserts... ;) We were going to leave Legian at two o'clock in the night, to drive to the starting point of our climb to Mount Batur! We decided not to take a hotel for that night at all. Instead we returned to the place we had made a good deal about mojitos last night, having in mind those comphy, sofa-like seats they had. A perfect place to enjoy our last evening in Lovina, with food, coffee and mojitos, while trying to rest for the night ahead!
Special thanks to the waiter, who kept us entertained! It was nice to get to know a balinese person, and to hear about the lives of locals. Well, also a lot of love stories! :D But for least we didn't get bored!
Day 8
So, at two o'clock we hopped on a car and after two hours of driving and trying to sleep on very uncomfortabe seats in a cold car, we arrived to our destination. Our mountain guide gave us torches, and off we went. Even though the mountain is easy to climb/hike without any special experience of mountain climbing or what ever, the pace of hiking (and higher rather almost really climbing) was quite fast. So, we were all huffing and puffing. Yes, don't have to remind me about all the desserts we had just had... Nor about the lack of physical exercise... We made three small stops on the way, and the guide ask us: OK? We answered: OK! :D We thought, that this it the pace we have to keep up in order to make it to the top before the sunrise.
Well, we got there in 1,5 hours, so we had plenty of time left on the top before the sun came up. It was really cold there, but luckily there was a small hut where it was warm inside. We had perfectly time to have our breakfast in 1700 m above sea level, while waiting!
I know that the words "beautiful view" have been quite common in my blog updates concerning Bali - that's because Bali is a very beautiful place. But these views that we saw, when the sun strated to rise and the land below us constantly showed new sides of it when the light changed - these views there something amazing, something you can't describe in words. I knew then, that this was one of the best things I have ever had the chance to do! Those 1,5 hours of swet were really a small price to pay for that scene, and we were all really really happy we had done that!
Just a few attempts to capture the awsomeness:
We took another way down than we came up, this time seeing the cold lawa from the time of the last eruption 10 years ago. For me, going down was a very painful experience, because both(!) of my feet started to cramp pretty badly when we were on the top. Trying to avoid falling with rocks sliding under those feet was... challenging. But with some support, we got safely down. (Every one else was not so lucky and ambulace was needed.)
Still, worth the experience!
I guess Changgu would have been a great place for surfing, although for us the waves were way too big. Also, the weather didn't favour us again. While tryng to find an ATM (my God, how hard can it be?!?) we ended up walking all the way to Seminyak!!! Thanks, locals, for the good instuctions! Anyway, while in there, we had a lovely dinner and massages.
Needless to say, when we got back to our homes, although not so sick anymore, we were pretty "dead". Oh, how good it was to return to the civilized country of working MRT system and self-flushing toilets!
Day 6
Wednesday - this was the day when the trip of three blond European girls around Bali began! ;)
We hired a car again and took direction to north. First stop: Elephant Park! We would have loved a tour sitting on elephant's back, but it was sooo expensive, we decided not to pay that much to get our asses sore but to pay only for the entrance instead. We saw a lot of those big elephants carrying people on their backs, but a closer look we got take on a little 6-year old elephant, Helen. She was chained from two of her legs :,( but since she was still in the middle of her training, that was necessary if we wanted to get so close to her. Her trainer had to calm her down every once in a while, not to get too exited. We got to pet her and take pictures with her. It was so funny! And I didn't know that elephants are so hairy!!! :)
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| Helen |
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| Elephant riders from the window of our car |
I know, as if we hadn't seen enough temples yet :P but we still made another stop on the way to see a temple by the side of a lake and mountains. I don't remember the name if the place, though, but it was very beautiful. We also saw a bride there, they were taking pictures to her wedding picture book. We didn't ask where was she from, maybe Taiwan...? ;)
Finally we got to Lovina. It is famous for it's black sand beach, so after quicly finding ourselves a hotel, we went to the beach. The hotel was pretty crappy; no bed sheets, not a good bathroom, but it was cheep. And anyways, we could easily sleep under our sharongs - it wasn't very cold, you know, without air-con! :)
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| Lovina |
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| beach art |
We saw interesting art in the sand - made of eggs, garlic and clili! But the weather wasn't on our side, and after walking aroung on the beach for a short time, it started to rain.
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| Orcestra and... a monkey? |
So that day we just relaxed in cafeterias and restaurants, went walking around Lovina getting to know the basically only three interesting streets besides the beach, ;) booked a set of tours in a tourist agency, wached a show of balinese dance, and had some mojitos!
Day 7
On Thursday we woke up really early, because one of the things we had booked last day, was a boat ride on the sea, to see dolphins. That's another thing that Lovina is famous for. So this time we saw the sunrise from a boat! :)
Too bad that was the only thing we, or the other about 40 boats, saw. People had told us that we could see dozens of dolphins jumping around our boat... Well not that day we didn't. After two hours of waiting and circling around, we only had a very short glanse of the backs of three dolphins. Our boat captain said it was propably because it had rained the last night, so the water was too dirty for the dolphins.
For least that say we had better luck with weather, so we could hit he beach. I have to say, even though the beach was pretty nice, I actually liked Legian beach more. I think it was maybe cleaner, and actually the water in Lovina was quite dirty as well. Just the idea of swimming in the same water, where the yahts and other boats were so close to you, was pretty discusting to begin with. I could really understand those dolphins when I went I tried the water myself.
Well, the day was pretty relaxed, enjoying the quietness of the town, having some desserts, writing postcards, having some more desserts... ;) We were going to leave Legian at two o'clock in the night, to drive to the starting point of our climb to Mount Batur! We decided not to take a hotel for that night at all. Instead we returned to the place we had made a good deal about mojitos last night, having in mind those comphy, sofa-like seats they had. A perfect place to enjoy our last evening in Lovina, with food, coffee and mojitos, while trying to rest for the night ahead!
Special thanks to the waiter, who kept us entertained! It was nice to get to know a balinese person, and to hear about the lives of locals. Well, also a lot of love stories! :D But for least we didn't get bored!
The place close and we still had a couple of hours to spend. We thought to actually realize the plan of sleeping on a beach, which once in a while pops up as a joke when travelling without booking hotels in advance. (Edit: No, not including the part of "and waking up without kidney". Like a gecko. ;) ) Well, we almost did it, but not quite.
We noticed a restaurant/hotel on the beach with a small pool area. Pool chairs, tempting. And no people or any fencing... So we went, to "relax and look at the full moon, and the bats flying above us" = trying to sleep. Well, it was quite fine until two guards came. They didn't ask us, if we were living in this hotel or not, nor they asked us to leave. They just came to chat with us (ruining the last chance to rest), probably because their night shift would have been too boring otherwise. Well, let's look at the bright side again, for least we were protected agains anything making a sound ...
Day 8
So, at two o'clock we hopped on a car and after two hours of driving and trying to sleep on very uncomfortabe seats in a cold car, we arrived to our destination. Our mountain guide gave us torches, and off we went. Even though the mountain is easy to climb/hike without any special experience of mountain climbing or what ever, the pace of hiking (and higher rather almost really climbing) was quite fast. So, we were all huffing and puffing. Yes, don't have to remind me about all the desserts we had just had... Nor about the lack of physical exercise... We made three small stops on the way, and the guide ask us: OK? We answered: OK! :D We thought, that this it the pace we have to keep up in order to make it to the top before the sunrise.Well, we got there in 1,5 hours, so we had plenty of time left on the top before the sun came up. It was really cold there, but luckily there was a small hut where it was warm inside. We had perfectly time to have our breakfast in 1700 m above sea level, while waiting!
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| Cold but happy |
Just a few attempts to capture the awsomeness:
 | |
| wohooo! |
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| Building a new temple - old one got under lawa |
We took another way down than we came up, this time seeing the cold lawa from the time of the last eruption 10 years ago. For me, going down was a very painful experience, because both(!) of my feet started to cramp pretty badly when we were on the top. Trying to avoid falling with rocks sliding under those feet was... challenging. But with some support, we got safely down. (Every one else was not so lucky and ambulace was needed.)
Still, worth the experience!
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| We were there! |
Our car took us to Changgu, where we luckily had a hotel booked, so we could finally have a proper sleep.
I guess Changgu would have been a great place for surfing, although for us the waves were way too big. Also, the weather didn't favour us again. While tryng to find an ATM (my God, how hard can it be?!?) we ended up walking all the way to Seminyak!!! Thanks, locals, for the good instuctions! Anyway, while in there, we had a lovely dinner and massages. Then, a lesson #1 to be learned: ask your hotel's address before you leave, since the name might not be enough for the taxi driver, if it starts to rain and you have walked too far.
And a lesson #2 to be learned: don't eat Mexican food in Bali. ...Let me explain this one...
When we finally got back to our hotel (which was really nice, btw) we sat on our huge bed and watched a movie that we had selected out of the massive selection of DVD's in our room, from our TV. Then, all the sudden, the other Finnish girl started to feel sick and went puking. And it wasn't long after, that I started too.
I'm guessing our third friend, the Lithuanian girl, didn't have very much fun sleeping in the middle, while the both of us were running to the bathroom every once in a while for the whooooole night looooong. Terrible.
We concluded it must have been the salad or avocado (or both) that the two of us had in our foods; the tortillas with guacamole and avocado-shrimp salad. Stick with the local food like our wise friend did!
Day 9
Unfortunately our Lithuanian friend had her flight already in the morning, leaving us to survive alone. Our hostess of the hotel was very kind though, and let us stay in the hotel for a few extra hours, and for free. That was good, because we weren't even able to walk at the check-out time.
Yeap, missed the horse rides and surffing we had planned for the day...
At some point we had to leave, and we stuggeled to get ourselves some food, took a taxi to the airport and met the other exchange students there.
Needless to say, when we got back to our homes, although not so sick anymore, we were pretty "dead". Oh, how good it was to return to the civilized country of working MRT system and self-flushing toilets!18. marraskuuta 2010
Recess week - Part 2
Nimen hao!
Okey, this time I will fly my thoughts back to the lovely island of Bali!
Last time we had gotten until Ubud, central Bali. Looking at my pictures, I just have to say a couple of words about the animals living in our hotel. Shortly after arriving to the hotel, we had a guest on the wall of our balcony/lounge area. This is her picture. :)
Because that gecko was so big, I admit, I did get a little frightened at first. But for some reason, I have always liked small geckos and viviparous lizards, maybe because I know they are not going to do anything to you. So after seeing it's quite calm, it was a welcomed pet. A friend named it Daisy! :D
This is another reason why I quite like geckos:
Geckos eat bugs. I had never seen SUCH a BIG cockroach like we had in our bathroom. Well, I'm not sure if geckos even eat cockroaches, though, since this one was there too.
The geckos is Bali made a very interestind sound, it sounded like "gec-ko...gec-ko". That night, one of the friends in our group told us, that they make this sound when they need to renew their kidneys. "It lays down, starting to make this sound, which attracts a worm to come and eat its kidney, because they cannot renew their kindneys themselves." Well... :D :D I tried to look from the Internet, whether this could be true, and supprisingly enough, I didn't find any information implying to that. Wikipedia says, this is just their mating sound. If anyone has any other information, please tell me! Nevertheless, after that it was a common joke among us, when ever we heard (or some one made) the "gec-ko" sound. :D
Day 4
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| Looking upwords to the temple area |
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| Looking downwords to the temple area |
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| For Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva |
In the innermost circle of gardens, there was the most important "altar" (can't remember how did they call the places for worshiping): for Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer.
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| People going to the temple |
After the Mother Temple we headed back towards Ubud, but we stopped on our way in a resautant, where we could see a very beautiful view on ricepads. The restaurant had no wall on that side of the building, so while we were eating, we could enjoy the beautiful view all the time.
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| 100 times more stunning in real life... |
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| A huge bat outside the restaurant |
Day 5
On Tuesday morning we went to the Monkey sanctuary, or Monkey Forest, which was really close to our hostel. Sooo many cute monkeys! And of course, like anywhere in an island of thousands of temples, a couple of temples.
Later that day we went outside Ubud, to a plantation, where they grew all sorts of plants, including coffee and cacao. They gave us a variety of different kinds of teas and coffees to taste.
But actually the reason why we went there was that they also made Kopi Luwak - a balinese coffee, which is one of the most expensive coffees in the world. I'll tell you why. It is made by this little cute animal:
Yes, so... The fox eats coffee beans, and while going throuhg its digesting system, the beans ripen. After that, the fox "gently deposits" the coffee beans (as it said on the package :D) on the ground, and people clean them and roast them. And tha-daa, ready to make coffee out of them.At first I thought, I would never ever try that coffee! But then... I don't know what happened... and I did. It tasted really good!!! Soft, I would say.
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| A cup of Kopi Luwak and the beans that it's made of |
Later in the evening we went to the Ubud market and then just chilled in a nice cafeteria/restaurant. It was a really good place where we had had a dessert before as well, namely a piece of cake called "Death by Choc". I just have to tell you about this, because it was soooo gooood! And that name really describes it well, because it was so rich! It was the most chocolaty cake I have ever tasted, really, those two mouthfulls I tasted were already enough!
That night it was again time for some good-byes. One friend left back to Singapore the next morning, and two friends left in the night to Denpasar, to fly to Yogyakarta in the morning. They met my roommate and his boyfriend there. I also planned to go with them at first, to see Borobudur and Prambanan, but then I decided not to go, because it would have been quite expensive and there was still a lot to see in Bali as well.
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I think I will cut the story here again, for it not to be too long (I also have to go studying...) and I will continue to tell about our last Bali-days soon! :)
15. marraskuuta 2010
Last school week of first semester
Hey all!
Time has gone by so fast! Some of the exchange students are already starting to leave, to their home countires or to travelling around before going back home. So sad!
I decided to write an intervening text about my last week before continuing about Bali. Something in time, for once, yay!!! ;)
Last week was our final week of lectures and tutorials. Because of that, I had dead lines for two lab reports, a Chisese exam, a Chinese oral exam and a quiz in one of my bioengineering modules. So, I had quite a busy week.
But luckily, starting from last Monday, the central library at campus is also open 24/7! ;) It's a really funny consept actually, so Singaporean! The higest floor of the library is open all night during the last week of semester (last week), the reading week (this week) and the two exam weeks (next two weeks). Also in spring during the exams. This idea has been proposed by NUS Student Union.
Oh, by the way, when ever the library is closing, they are starting to play classical music 15 min before, to get people out of there! It does work in that sence, but I think it's also quite nice actually, and it's nice to do people watching at that time: students are ending their readings, starting to chat with friends a bit, and look relieved that the day's work is over. That small "buzz" added to the classical music gives it sort of an "academic" atmosphere, which to me is pretty inspiring - best time to figure out how to write those last sentences. ;)
So, on Tuesday I decided to try the nightowl thing, to see what is the atmosphere like in the library at night! :) Firstly, it's a procedure: The highest floor, sixth floor, closes 9:30, so half an hour before the rest of the library. I guess it's for cleaning purposes. Everybody have to move to lower floors for the meantime, before it opens again. Then, when the other floors of the library close at 10pm, you have to leave the library through the main doors, go upstrairs using a staircase outside and enter the sixth floor again though another door.
The entrance to other floors is closed and there are a couple of students from the Student Union as supervisors. Already on Tuesday there were quite a lot of students, not too many though, but I can only imagine how crowded it can get closer to the exams! I think I really have to do a "night in the library" then. Just for the experience! The atmosphere was nice but nothing very different from a normal library. Although, I was there only for two hours.
Before I start sounding TOO nerdy (:P) let's move on. After all the weeks work, on Friday a few friends and I went to the hawker center near our house. There is a drink stall called Polar Cafe that has - for some reason - become very popular among exchange students. Maybe it's because of the nice owner, maybe because some of them arranged a Singtoberfest there. Anyway, we went there as our usual way to eat and have a couple of well earned polar beers ;).
Some of us decided to continue to a club, where Expat Connection had arranged a party. Expat Connection is a facebook group, which - as the name says - arranges all kind of happenings to expats in Singapore. It was a kinda fancy club, downstairs of a hotel. As expected, there were a looot of western people! It is always SO funny and weird in some way, to see so many white people in a same place in Singapore. (I get the same funny feeling when I go to Coldstorage, a grocery store where you can find imported food, i.e. everything you miss from your country, includind rye bread! :D) Well, the advertising of free flow had attracted quite a lot of exchange student there as well, and we had a really great time!
On Saturday evening my friend Kati and I went to the Botanic Garden with a Singaporean lady that we know. She is really nice and previously we have been to a couple of concerts in NUS Conservatory with her, for example. This time we went to the Botanic Garden to have a picnic while listening to an open air piano concert. The Botanic Gargen is a really beautiful place, (I might tell you some more about it later) and the concert was also good. There was an Italian pianist Julian Gargiulo playing Copin's and his own pieces. The bad part was that it started to rain, but we were lucky - it didn't rain so much we couldn't have been there under our umbrellas, and the lightenings were also actually quite beautiul in the backround of the stage! Another distracting thing: In botanic Garden you can see a lot of families (and especially expat families, so I got another overdose of white people!!!) and so the audience also consisted mainly of them. Althoug it was nice to see kids running around you again, the voice level in the audience was sometimes quite high in order to just enjoy the music.
After the concert Kati and I returned home and watched Yes man. On Sunday I had planned to go swimmig, but when my alarm clock rang, I heard it was lightening again. So, no use of getting up, right? After sleeping long, I pretty much did nothing special. It was rainig, so I was just inside in front of my computer. In the evening we went with friends to a hawker center in Clementi (a few MRT stops away) to have chili crab. It's a Singaporean dish, a whole crab in a chili-tomato sauce. I hadn't had it before, so it was about the time. It was really good and so were the other seafoods we had.
That's about my week! I hope you weren't too bored reading the text without any pictures! Stay tuned for the updates continuing the Bali holiday!
Time has gone by so fast! Some of the exchange students are already starting to leave, to their home countires or to travelling around before going back home. So sad!
I decided to write an intervening text about my last week before continuing about Bali. Something in time, for once, yay!!! ;)
Last week was our final week of lectures and tutorials. Because of that, I had dead lines for two lab reports, a Chisese exam, a Chinese oral exam and a quiz in one of my bioengineering modules. So, I had quite a busy week.
But luckily, starting from last Monday, the central library at campus is also open 24/7! ;) It's a really funny consept actually, so Singaporean! The higest floor of the library is open all night during the last week of semester (last week), the reading week (this week) and the two exam weeks (next two weeks). Also in spring during the exams. This idea has been proposed by NUS Student Union.
Oh, by the way, when ever the library is closing, they are starting to play classical music 15 min before, to get people out of there! It does work in that sence, but I think it's also quite nice actually, and it's nice to do people watching at that time: students are ending their readings, starting to chat with friends a bit, and look relieved that the day's work is over. That small "buzz" added to the classical music gives it sort of an "academic" atmosphere, which to me is pretty inspiring - best time to figure out how to write those last sentences. ;)
So, on Tuesday I decided to try the nightowl thing, to see what is the atmosphere like in the library at night! :) Firstly, it's a procedure: The highest floor, sixth floor, closes 9:30, so half an hour before the rest of the library. I guess it's for cleaning purposes. Everybody have to move to lower floors for the meantime, before it opens again. Then, when the other floors of the library close at 10pm, you have to leave the library through the main doors, go upstrairs using a staircase outside and enter the sixth floor again though another door.
The entrance to other floors is closed and there are a couple of students from the Student Union as supervisors. Already on Tuesday there were quite a lot of students, not too many though, but I can only imagine how crowded it can get closer to the exams! I think I really have to do a "night in the library" then. Just for the experience! The atmosphere was nice but nothing very different from a normal library. Although, I was there only for two hours.
Before I start sounding TOO nerdy (:P) let's move on. After all the weeks work, on Friday a few friends and I went to the hawker center near our house. There is a drink stall called Polar Cafe that has - for some reason - become very popular among exchange students. Maybe it's because of the nice owner, maybe because some of them arranged a Singtoberfest there. Anyway, we went there as our usual way to eat and have a couple of well earned polar beers ;).
Some of us decided to continue to a club, where Expat Connection had arranged a party. Expat Connection is a facebook group, which - as the name says - arranges all kind of happenings to expats in Singapore. It was a kinda fancy club, downstairs of a hotel. As expected, there were a looot of western people! It is always SO funny and weird in some way, to see so many white people in a same place in Singapore. (I get the same funny feeling when I go to Coldstorage, a grocery store where you can find imported food, i.e. everything you miss from your country, includind rye bread! :D) Well, the advertising of free flow had attracted quite a lot of exchange student there as well, and we had a really great time!
On Saturday evening my friend Kati and I went to the Botanic Garden with a Singaporean lady that we know. She is really nice and previously we have been to a couple of concerts in NUS Conservatory with her, for example. This time we went to the Botanic Garden to have a picnic while listening to an open air piano concert. The Botanic Gargen is a really beautiful place, (I might tell you some more about it later) and the concert was also good. There was an Italian pianist Julian Gargiulo playing Copin's and his own pieces. The bad part was that it started to rain, but we were lucky - it didn't rain so much we couldn't have been there under our umbrellas, and the lightenings were also actually quite beautiul in the backround of the stage! Another distracting thing: In botanic Garden you can see a lot of families (and especially expat families, so I got another overdose of white people!!!) and so the audience also consisted mainly of them. Althoug it was nice to see kids running around you again, the voice level in the audience was sometimes quite high in order to just enjoy the music.
After the concert Kati and I returned home and watched Yes man. On Sunday I had planned to go swimmig, but when my alarm clock rang, I heard it was lightening again. So, no use of getting up, right? After sleeping long, I pretty much did nothing special. It was rainig, so I was just inside in front of my computer. In the evening we went with friends to a hawker center in Clementi (a few MRT stops away) to have chili crab. It's a Singaporean dish, a whole crab in a chili-tomato sauce. I hadn't had it before, so it was about the time. It was really good and so were the other seafoods we had.
That's about my week! I hope you weren't too bored reading the text without any pictures! Stay tuned for the updates continuing the Bali holiday!
6. marraskuuta 2010
Recess week - Part 1
Hey all!
As you can see, I switched the language to English! :) This is because this time I will be writing about my trip to Bali, and also my non-Finnish-speaking friends might find interest in reading about it! :) I don't know if I will be writing in English all the time in the future, since I'm pretty lazy and most of my readers are Finnish. I guess it depends on the feedback I get from you guys!!!
Thus, a word of warning: I apologize in advance for all the grammatical, idiomatic and spelling mistakes I make, since I will spend as little time and effort as possible on thinking about the correctness of my English in these texts. (So English teachers: don't turn your attention to those things! :P)
I will include a few pictures to my text, but actually I have A LOT of them! :D I gave the address to my Picasa album to some of my friend already, but if you don't have it yet and you're interested to see more pictures, just ask me and I can give it.
For those who have read my blog before, I guess you have all noticed that keeping a blog isn't really my thing - the updates don't appear really often... Well, all I can say is, try to bear with me! I know that there is alot that I've seen here and that I haven't told you about even before the Bali trip (17.-25.9), and after it, but I guess I might not be able to write this blog in a cronological order from the beginning anyway. In stead, I will continue with Bali now, before I completely forget everything about it, and tell you some interesting things from Singapore later randomly.
So, let's finally get to the topic, shall we!
BALI, BABY!
It wasn't until I recently checked my bank account, when I realized how fast did we make up this plan about going to Bali. I had only been in Singapore for an week and a half, but I guess the weeks in the beginning of the semester were the longest ones, and by then, I had already made a lot of good friends. One of them suggested that we would go to Bali for our recess week, which wasn't too far away either - 6 weeks from the beginning of the semester (which started on August 1st). This sounded like really good idea - I mean once you're in Asia, you HAVE TO go to Bali, right? It might be a once in a lifetime chance...
Alot of other exchange students also wanted to go to Bali, I think at some point there were 15 people who were planning to with our group. Many of them made their own groups later, thogugh, since our group was too big for travelling together. But still, in the end, our group consisted of 13 persons, four of them joining us not before than in the airport in Singapore! :D But, even walking around in such as big group is too annoying - some one wants to say in a shop for 10 minutes, another only 1 minute and so on... you get the picture. So, seeing this coming, we separated as two goups after spending the first evenig together.
Days 1-2
We left to the airport right after school on Friday, 17th September, and landed on Bali International Airport (that's in south on the map) in the evening. Here's a map Bali for you, so you can see our route.
Actually the island is rather small, so for example a taxi ride from the airport to Legian, where we spent our first to nights, was only about 15-20 minutes away.
On the second day of our trip, we just wanted to rest from the school week behind us, so went to the Legian beach. It is next to the famous Kuta beach (and Kuta town) where all the tourist go, being the nearest city to the airport, and thus quite crowded with tourists (especially Australians). Because of that, we were warned not to stay in Kuta for a long time - some of us (not me) went there that night, and described the place awful. Such a shame for those people (like some exchange students) who only stay in Kuta for their whole holiday. There is so much more to see in Bali! Well, the beach was nice, though:
In the evening we took a car to Ulu Watu temple, where we could see beautiful views and sunset while watching traditional Balinese dance performance. This one, "Kecak & Fire Dance" was especially interesting, because they didn't have any musical instruments. Instead, there was a man choir "singing" the music that is usually played with traditional balinese instruments in this kind of performances. The beautifully dressed dancers actually performed a play - some parts of and old (and long) Hindu epic, Ramayana. If you're interested to read more about the story or Kecak dance, you can check here. I have to say, it was pretty hard to understand the plot of the play (where there was no talking either, exept in the part in the following video), because I naturally didn't know the stories of Ramayana, and also I didn't have time to read the whole paper that they gave us about the story.
I have two other videos about it as well, but this was the funniest part of the play:
All in all, it was a very nice and interesting performance, something you really don't see every day! After the show, on the way back to Legian, we stopped in Jimbaran to have dinner in a seafood restaurant. It was a really beautiful place, because the tables were on the beach! Also the food was good. Although, it was a bit funny, like some one said, to eat seafood on a beach - it's like eating the fish on their back yard! :D
Day 3
On the third day it was time to leave the Kuta-Legian-Seminyak area (considered as one city really). Hireing a van, especially if there are 7 people, is very cheap in Bali, and I think with this tour we had a very good deal as well: we only paid about 4 euros each for a car and a driver for the whole day. And you'll see how many places we went!
The first place we went was Tanah Lot. It's name actually means "land sea", and that's what it is: a temple in the sea. With an extra few thousand rupiahs you could go and see a holy snake in a small hole in a cave, and have a man praying for you. Well, I saved my money, but a few friend went to see it, and told me the man propably prayed good luck in studies for them. In a few weeks we'll see if it was worth saving money at that point or not...
In the temple area we could see women prepairing small baskets like in the picture above. But actually, you can see those little baskets all over the place in Bali. They are offering for gods, with flowers, some food like candies, and ants. They are placed on the ground in strategical places, like in front of your house's gate, but there were some also on the beach etc, so where ever we were walking, we always had to look down and be careful not to step on them.
The next place we stopped was Mengwi, where we saw the Royal Temple, Taman Ayun. It's a really old temple, built in the 17th century, and a sanctuary for the members of the royal family of Raja of Mengwi. I don't know so much about the histoy of Bali, but to my knowledge rajas were somekind of leaders like kings, and Megwi used to be a kingdom.
Next on our tour was a stop in Kintamani, to see a beautiful view on Mount Batur and Lake Batur. We climbed the mountain later on our holiday, but we hadn't planned that yet a that point. So I'll talk about the volcano later.
The trip continued to The Holy Spring Temple in Tampaksiring. For me, I think that was the most interesting place we visited that day. That's because it is an actually "active" temple, not just a tourist attraction. So, we could see the families going to the temple, (all the family members wearing same style of clothes), taking their offerings there, going to the holy water, and praying. 很有意思!
One nice family was especially interested in us - they wanted to take pictures with us and them together. It wasn't very unique thing to happen in Bali, and I don't mind, but I still wonder why are the locals so facinated by us (blond-haired) tourists. I mean, there have been a lot of tourists in Bali for a long time, so haven't they seen "us" before?
Anyway, to end our day tour we finally got to Ubud. Ubud is known for being the "cultural centre" of Bali, so I was expecting something else, something more authentic. But I guess being known for culture has also brought the tourists, and all those clothing strores there. So authentic it definitely wasn't, but cultural yes. So many galleries and shops selling paintings! A paradise for window shopping: walking along the long Monkey Forest Road, a shop after another selling local (or not so local) handicraft, beautiful clothes (some also fake expensive brands), paintings and jewellery. There was also chances to see Balinese dance, but it was expensive and seemed not very different than the dance we already saw in Ulu Watu, so we decided we're satisfyed with that.
My dear roomate and her boyfriend, who were travelling with us, already had a booking to a hotel, so we drove them there. For the rest of us it was too expensive, so we went to look for another one. It didn't take very long time until we found a good and cheaper one. A great place, we especially liked the balcony/kitchen area in front of our (girls') bedroom! So, after a balinese dinner we just returned to relax there and enjoy each others company and share ghost stories!
---
Not to get one update too long, I think I will cut my story here and continue in the next part. I hope I can release the next sequel soon enough, because I also have a lot of school work to do right now! For least before the next trips! :D
As you can see, I switched the language to English! :) This is because this time I will be writing about my trip to Bali, and also my non-Finnish-speaking friends might find interest in reading about it! :) I don't know if I will be writing in English all the time in the future, since I'm pretty lazy and most of my readers are Finnish. I guess it depends on the feedback I get from you guys!!!
Thus, a word of warning: I apologize in advance for all the grammatical, idiomatic and spelling mistakes I make, since I will spend as little time and effort as possible on thinking about the correctness of my English in these texts. (So English teachers: don't turn your attention to those things! :P)
I will include a few pictures to my text, but actually I have A LOT of them! :D I gave the address to my Picasa album to some of my friend already, but if you don't have it yet and you're interested to see more pictures, just ask me and I can give it.
For those who have read my blog before, I guess you have all noticed that keeping a blog isn't really my thing - the updates don't appear really often... Well, all I can say is, try to bear with me! I know that there is alot that I've seen here and that I haven't told you about even before the Bali trip (17.-25.9), and after it, but I guess I might not be able to write this blog in a cronological order from the beginning anyway. In stead, I will continue with Bali now, before I completely forget everything about it, and tell you some interesting things from Singapore later randomly.
So, let's finally get to the topic, shall we!
BALI, BABY!
It wasn't until I recently checked my bank account, when I realized how fast did we make up this plan about going to Bali. I had only been in Singapore for an week and a half, but I guess the weeks in the beginning of the semester were the longest ones, and by then, I had already made a lot of good friends. One of them suggested that we would go to Bali for our recess week, which wasn't too far away either - 6 weeks from the beginning of the semester (which started on August 1st). This sounded like really good idea - I mean once you're in Asia, you HAVE TO go to Bali, right? It might be a once in a lifetime chance...
Alot of other exchange students also wanted to go to Bali, I think at some point there were 15 people who were planning to with our group. Many of them made their own groups later, thogugh, since our group was too big for travelling together. But still, in the end, our group consisted of 13 persons, four of them joining us not before than in the airport in Singapore! :D But, even walking around in such as big group is too annoying - some one wants to say in a shop for 10 minutes, another only 1 minute and so on... you get the picture. So, seeing this coming, we separated as two goups after spending the first evenig together.
Days 1-2
We left to the airport right after school on Friday, 17th September, and landed on Bali International Airport (that's in south on the map) in the evening. Here's a map Bali for you, so you can see our route.
Actually the island is rather small, so for example a taxi ride from the airport to Legian, where we spent our first to nights, was only about 15-20 minutes away.
On the second day of our trip, we just wanted to rest from the school week behind us, so went to the Legian beach. It is next to the famous Kuta beach (and Kuta town) where all the tourist go, being the nearest city to the airport, and thus quite crowded with tourists (especially Australians). Because of that, we were warned not to stay in Kuta for a long time - some of us (not me) went there that night, and described the place awful. Such a shame for those people (like some exchange students) who only stay in Kuta for their whole holiday. There is so much more to see in Bali! Well, the beach was nice, though:
In the evening we took a car to Ulu Watu temple, where we could see beautiful views and sunset while watching traditional Balinese dance performance. This one, "Kecak & Fire Dance" was especially interesting, because they didn't have any musical instruments. Instead, there was a man choir "singing" the music that is usually played with traditional balinese instruments in this kind of performances. The beautifully dressed dancers actually performed a play - some parts of and old (and long) Hindu epic, Ramayana. If you're interested to read more about the story or Kecak dance, you can check here. I have to say, it was pretty hard to understand the plot of the play (where there was no talking either, exept in the part in the following video), because I naturally didn't know the stories of Ramayana, and also I didn't have time to read the whole paper that they gave us about the story.I have two other videos about it as well, but this was the funniest part of the play:
All in all, it was a very nice and interesting performance, something you really don't see every day! After the show, on the way back to Legian, we stopped in Jimbaran to have dinner in a seafood restaurant. It was a really beautiful place, because the tables were on the beach! Also the food was good. Although, it was a bit funny, like some one said, to eat seafood on a beach - it's like eating the fish on their back yard! :D
Day 3
On the third day it was time to leave the Kuta-Legian-Seminyak area (considered as one city really). Hireing a van, especially if there are 7 people, is very cheap in Bali, and I think with this tour we had a very good deal as well: we only paid about 4 euros each for a car and a driver for the whole day. And you'll see how many places we went!
The first place we went was Tanah Lot. It's name actually means "land sea", and that's what it is: a temple in the sea. With an extra few thousand rupiahs you could go and see a holy snake in a small hole in a cave, and have a man praying for you. Well, I saved my money, but a few friend went to see it, and told me the man propably prayed good luck in studies for them. In a few weeks we'll see if it was worth saving money at that point or not...
 |
| Tanah Lot Temple |
 | |
| Offerings |
The next place we stopped was Mengwi, where we saw the Royal Temple, Taman Ayun. It's a really old temple, built in the 17th century, and a sanctuary for the members of the royal family of Raja of Mengwi. I don't know so much about the histoy of Bali, but to my knowledge rajas were somekind of leaders like kings, and Megwi used to be a kingdom.
 | |
| A view on the Taman Ayun Temple |
Next on our tour was a stop in Kintamani, to see a beautiful view on Mount Batur and Lake Batur. We climbed the mountain later on our holiday, but we hadn't planned that yet a that point. So I'll talk about the volcano later.
 |
| Mount Batur - yes, the black thing is lava! ;) |
The trip continued to The Holy Spring Temple in Tampaksiring. For me, I think that was the most interesting place we visited that day. That's because it is an actually "active" temple, not just a tourist attraction. So, we could see the families going to the temple, (all the family members wearing same style of clothes), taking their offerings there, going to the holy water, and praying. 很有意思!
 |
| The holy water |
Anyway, to end our day tour we finally got to Ubud. Ubud is known for being the "cultural centre" of Bali, so I was expecting something else, something more authentic. But I guess being known for culture has also brought the tourists, and all those clothing strores there. So authentic it definitely wasn't, but cultural yes. So many galleries and shops selling paintings! A paradise for window shopping: walking along the long Monkey Forest Road, a shop after another selling local (or not so local) handicraft, beautiful clothes (some also fake expensive brands), paintings and jewellery. There was also chances to see Balinese dance, but it was expensive and seemed not very different than the dance we already saw in Ulu Watu, so we decided we're satisfyed with that.
My dear roomate and her boyfriend, who were travelling with us, already had a booking to a hotel, so we drove them there. For the rest of us it was too expensive, so we went to look for another one. It didn't take very long time until we found a good and cheaper one. A great place, we especially liked the balcony/kitchen area in front of our (girls') bedroom! So, after a balinese dinner we just returned to relax there and enjoy each others company and share ghost stories!
---
Not to get one update too long, I think I will cut my story here and continue in the next part. I hope I can release the next sequel soon enough, because I also have a lot of school work to do right now! For least before the next trips! :D
31. elokuuta 2010
Ruoka, lepo ja liikenne
Heips!
Pahoittelen blogipäivitysteni harvaa ilmestymistä! On vaan ollu niin paljon kaikenlaista tekemistä, että ei oo kauheesti tullu oltua noin vaan koneella. Tällä kertaa, samalla kun jatkan tarinaani siitä, mitä oon tehny, voisin kertoo muutamista perusjutuista täältä Singaporesta, joista on tullu kyselyjä. Nimittäin kodistani, syömisestä ja liikkumisesta paikasta toiseen. Aloitetaan viimeisestä, sillä se on osaks oleellinen asia "tarinan" jatkon ymmärtämiseksi.
Yleisesti ottaen teillä näkyy lähinnä autoja, busseja ja takseja. Skoottereitakin on vähän, ei siis todellakaan Taiwanin mittakaavassa. Julkinen liikenne Singaporessa on mun mielestä suht toimivaa. Etenkin metro eli MRT on mainio juttu, koska ne tulee aina viiden minuutin välein, ja niillä pääsee kätevästi kulkemaan melkeinpä kaikkialle. Harmi ettei ihan meidän yliopistolle kuitenkaan. Bussireitit onki sitte hieman epäselvempiä, ja tiiän vaan bussien numerot, joilla pääsen kouluun. Muualle mennessäni käytän aina MRT:ta, tai taksia jos en tiiä minne pitää mennä.
Busseissa on myös se huono puoli, että täällä ei oo missään niitten aikatauluja, vaan pysäkeillä lukee vaan kuinka usein ne kulkee ja millä aikavälillä. Mut sekään ei kauheesti auta, useimmissa lukee tyyliin 5-15 min. Joten joskus busseja joutuu odottaa aika kauan.
Hinnat on edullisia, esim. n. 6km bussimatka maksaa 0,80 SGD, eli noin 50 eurosenttiä. Ja busseissa ja MRTssa käy sama matkakortti, jolle voi ladata rahaa, mikä on tosi käytevää. Tää EZ-link kortti käy itseasiassa moneen muuhunki tarkotukseen, esim koulussa tulostamisen maksamiseen. Taksitki on tosi halpoja, joten jos ollaan tulossa illalla myöhään kaupungista kotiin, ni ei tartte stressata että ehtiikö vikaan metroon (joka lähtee jo ennen kahtatoista). Jos taksissa on neljä ihmistä, niin päästään keskustasta kotiin noin 3 dollarilla eli 1,8 eurolla per nenä. Se on kuitenki joku 12 km matka.
Kun haluun mennä kouluun, voin joko mennä bussilla tai ottaa MRT:n ja sitte bussin. Mutta tää kestää tuurista ja liikenteestä riippuen noin 30-45 min. Toinen, halvempi ja nopeempi vaihtoehto on mennä ilmasella shuttle bussilla, joka kulkee täältä meidän hostellilta kampukselle puolen tunnin välein. Koulubussi, jee! :) Sillä matka kestää liikenteestä riippuen vaan n. 15-20 min. Huono puoli on se, että busseja kulkee aamulla 7:30-10:00, minkä jälkeen seuraava bussi kampukselle menee vasta 6:45 illalla, mikä tarkottaa, että myös kampukselta kotiin eka bussi lähtee vasta illalla 6:30! Ne siis todella olettaa, että me ollaan koulussa koko päivä! Viimenen bussi takas kotiin lähtee kympiltä illalla.
Myös kampuksen sisällä kulkee ilmaisia shuttle busseja, jotka kiertää kampusta jatkuvasti. Tää tuntu aika ihmeelliseltä, ku tästä ekan kerran luin ennen tänne tuloa, mutta syy siihen on, että NUS:n kampusalue on oikeesti valtava! Ja jos sattuu seuraava luento olemaan toisessa, kauempana olevassa tiedekunnan rakennuksessa, niin he haluu varmistaa että oppilaat ehtii tauon aikana eli 10 minuutissa seuraavalle luennolle. Jos sataa, tai on tosi kuuma, niin onhan ne aika käteviä. Mulla itellä on tunteja vaan Engineering -ja Arts and Social Sciences -tiedekunnissa, jotka on onneks ihan lähellä toisiaan.
Oikeastaan suurin osa tiedekunnista on lähellä toisiaan kampuksen länsiosassa, ja näistä eristäyneenä on Science-, Dentistry- ja Medicin- tiedekunnat yliopistollisen sairaalan lähettyvillä kampuksen itäosassa. Myös jotkut kampuksen asuntolat on aika kaukana tiedekuntien rakennuksista.
Mihin jäätiinkään... Noniin, eka päivä siis jatkui vaihtareihin tutustumisen merkeissä. Illalla ois ollu sellanen Bits&Bites ilta, mutta koska mielummin menin ostamaan tyynyä sillä aikaa, olin paikalla vasta ku se oli just loppumassa. Jäi durianit maistamatta :P Joka tapauksessa, aamun infotilaisuudessa Rebecca ja Leong oli mainostaneet, että sen jälkeen kaikki Prince George's Placen eteen (yks kampuksen asuntoloista), niin saataisiin kuulla päätähuimaavia baarietuja mahdolistavista Privilege cardseista ja jatkettaisiin sieltä viettämään iltaa.
Kun saavuin Bits&Bites:in tapahtumapaikalle, muut vaihtarit oli jo ilmeisesti lähteny, enkä tienny yhtään missä tää asuntola (PGP) oli. Onneks huomasin yhen porukan ulkomaalaisia, ja kun menin kysymään, selvis et heistä yks tyttö oli menossa sinne. Se sano, että se tietää suunnilleen, missä PGP on. Lähdettiin siis kävelemään, koska ei vielä tiedetty, mitä ihme reittiä shuttle bussit kulkee ja että kulkeeko ne niin myöhään ollenkaan. Itseasiassa koko kampusalue tuntu koko ekan viikon tosi sekavalta.
Siinä sitte juteltiin, että ihan yliarvostettuja nää shuttle bussit on muutenkin. Aamun kampuksella poukkoulun perusteella todettiin, että ihan hyvin vois kävellä monet matkat, mitä paikalliset kulkee bussilla, ja ne tuskin kestää kävellen yli 10 minuuttia.
Niin no... kaikkea emme selvästikkään tienneet vielä. Matkalla törmättiin toiseen ryhmään vaihtareita, jotka oli etsimässä samaa paikkaa. Yhessä sitten käveltiin, jotain aivan ihme reittejä, tietämättä (ainakaan minä) missä oltiin karttaan nähden. Ja käveltiin ja käveltiin... Lopulta kun päästiin perille, oltiin kävelty ainakin puol tuntia ja muut oli just lähteny eteenpäin! Eih! Jälkeenpäin oon menny saman matkan bussilla, kesti ainakin vartin silläki, eli ei ne shuttle bussit ollukaan niin yliarvostettuja!
Saatiin puhelimella kuitenki jonkinlaisia ohjeita siitä, miten päästä West Cost Parkiin eli puistoon, jonne kaikki muut oli jo matkalla. Ensin kävellen bussipysäkille. Matkalla nähtiin iso ryhmä vaihtareita, jotka myös matkalla puistoon. Välillä mentiin varmaa kaks pysäkkiä bussilla ja taas käveltiin. Ja taas tavattiin lisää vaihtareita! Koko matka oli yhtä sähellystä, ku kukaan ei oikeestaan tienny minne mennään ja kuinka pitkä matka sinne oli!!! Mutta ei luovutettu (paitsi jotkut) ja jollain ilveellä vihdoin ja viimein, varmaan tunnin matkan jälkeen päästiin perille! JES!
Loppujen lopuksi meitä oli varmaan 30 vaihtarin ryhmä, ja lisää tuli puistoon koko ajan. Sitten ei muuta ku hengattiin ja syötiin-juotiin. Tutustuin ekan illan aikana niiiiin moneen vaihtariin, huhhuh! Sain lopulta muutaman tyypin kanssani jakamaan taksin takas Commonwealthiin, eli meidän asuntolalle.
Kello oli siinä vaiheessa kolme yöllä, kun pääsin nukkumaan. Olipa pitkä ja tehokas päivä!
Oma sänky kullan kallis!
Seuraavana päivänä nukuin pitkään väsymystäni ja jetlagiani pois. Heräsin varmaan neljältä päivällä, joten enpä oikeestaan muuta tehny ku menin illalla juhlimaan. :D Sunnuntaina oliki sitte shoppailupäivä parin vaihtarin kanssa.Pääsin mm. testaamaan viime vuonna Taiwanissa oppimiani tinkimistaitoja kiinaksi. Hyvin meni, sain kuulokkeet ja webbikameran 20% halvemmalla. :) Päätin puolen myös vuoden tauon jälkeen alottaa taas liikkumisen, joten ostin uudet lenkkarit, ja ostettiin kaikki sulkkismailat, jotta päästäs pelaamaan. Ja maanantaina mentiiki sitte toisen kaverin kanssa jo katsastamaan yliopiston kuntosali ja muita liikuntatiloja. Niistä voin kertoo myöhemmin.
Mutta nyt kiinnostaa varmaan, minkälaisessa paikassa sitten nukuin, kun kerta ekana yönä 13 tuntia unten mailla viihdyin. Muutama kuva kertonee tästä hyvin.
Pahoittelen blogipäivitysteni harvaa ilmestymistä! On vaan ollu niin paljon kaikenlaista tekemistä, että ei oo kauheesti tullu oltua noin vaan koneella. Tällä kertaa, samalla kun jatkan tarinaani siitä, mitä oon tehny, voisin kertoo muutamista perusjutuista täältä Singaporesta, joista on tullu kyselyjä. Nimittäin kodistani, syömisestä ja liikkumisesta paikasta toiseen. Aloitetaan viimeisestä, sillä se on osaks oleellinen asia "tarinan" jatkon ymmärtämiseksi.
Millä mennään?
Yleisesti ottaen teillä näkyy lähinnä autoja, busseja ja takseja. Skoottereitakin on vähän, ei siis todellakaan Taiwanin mittakaavassa. Julkinen liikenne Singaporessa on mun mielestä suht toimivaa. Etenkin metro eli MRT on mainio juttu, koska ne tulee aina viiden minuutin välein, ja niillä pääsee kätevästi kulkemaan melkeinpä kaikkialle. Harmi ettei ihan meidän yliopistolle kuitenkaan. Bussireitit onki sitte hieman epäselvempiä, ja tiiän vaan bussien numerot, joilla pääsen kouluun. Muualle mennessäni käytän aina MRT:ta, tai taksia jos en tiiä minne pitää mennä.
Busseissa on myös se huono puoli, että täällä ei oo missään niitten aikatauluja, vaan pysäkeillä lukee vaan kuinka usein ne kulkee ja millä aikavälillä. Mut sekään ei kauheesti auta, useimmissa lukee tyyliin 5-15 min. Joten joskus busseja joutuu odottaa aika kauan.
Hinnat on edullisia, esim. n. 6km bussimatka maksaa 0,80 SGD, eli noin 50 eurosenttiä. Ja busseissa ja MRTssa käy sama matkakortti, jolle voi ladata rahaa, mikä on tosi käytevää. Tää EZ-link kortti käy itseasiassa moneen muuhunki tarkotukseen, esim koulussa tulostamisen maksamiseen. Taksitki on tosi halpoja, joten jos ollaan tulossa illalla myöhään kaupungista kotiin, ni ei tartte stressata että ehtiikö vikaan metroon (joka lähtee jo ennen kahtatoista). Jos taksissa on neljä ihmistä, niin päästään keskustasta kotiin noin 3 dollarilla eli 1,8 eurolla per nenä. Se on kuitenki joku 12 km matka.
Kun haluun mennä kouluun, voin joko mennä bussilla tai ottaa MRT:n ja sitte bussin. Mutta tää kestää tuurista ja liikenteestä riippuen noin 30-45 min. Toinen, halvempi ja nopeempi vaihtoehto on mennä ilmasella shuttle bussilla, joka kulkee täältä meidän hostellilta kampukselle puolen tunnin välein. Koulubussi, jee! :) Sillä matka kestää liikenteestä riippuen vaan n. 15-20 min. Huono puoli on se, että busseja kulkee aamulla 7:30-10:00, minkä jälkeen seuraava bussi kampukselle menee vasta 6:45 illalla, mikä tarkottaa, että myös kampukselta kotiin eka bussi lähtee vasta illalla 6:30! Ne siis todella olettaa, että me ollaan koulussa koko päivä! Viimenen bussi takas kotiin lähtee kympiltä illalla.
Myös kampuksen sisällä kulkee ilmaisia shuttle busseja, jotka kiertää kampusta jatkuvasti. Tää tuntu aika ihmeelliseltä, ku tästä ekan kerran luin ennen tänne tuloa, mutta syy siihen on, että NUS:n kampusalue on oikeesti valtava! Ja jos sattuu seuraava luento olemaan toisessa, kauempana olevassa tiedekunnan rakennuksessa, niin he haluu varmistaa että oppilaat ehtii tauon aikana eli 10 minuutissa seuraavalle luennolle. Jos sataa, tai on tosi kuuma, niin onhan ne aika käteviä. Mulla itellä on tunteja vaan Engineering -ja Arts and Social Sciences -tiedekunnissa, jotka on onneks ihan lähellä toisiaan.
Oikeastaan suurin osa tiedekunnista on lähellä toisiaan kampuksen länsiosassa, ja näistä eristäyneenä on Science-, Dentistry- ja Medicin- tiedekunnat yliopistollisen sairaalan lähettyvillä kampuksen itäosassa. Myös jotkut kampuksen asuntolat on aika kaukana tiedekuntien rakennuksista.
Kaksi pientä elefanttia marssi näin...
Mihin jäätiinkään... Noniin, eka päivä siis jatkui vaihtareihin tutustumisen merkeissä. Illalla ois ollu sellanen Bits&Bites ilta, mutta koska mielummin menin ostamaan tyynyä sillä aikaa, olin paikalla vasta ku se oli just loppumassa. Jäi durianit maistamatta :P Joka tapauksessa, aamun infotilaisuudessa Rebecca ja Leong oli mainostaneet, että sen jälkeen kaikki Prince George's Placen eteen (yks kampuksen asuntoloista), niin saataisiin kuulla päätähuimaavia baarietuja mahdolistavista Privilege cardseista ja jatkettaisiin sieltä viettämään iltaa.
Kun saavuin Bits&Bites:in tapahtumapaikalle, muut vaihtarit oli jo ilmeisesti lähteny, enkä tienny yhtään missä tää asuntola (PGP) oli. Onneks huomasin yhen porukan ulkomaalaisia, ja kun menin kysymään, selvis et heistä yks tyttö oli menossa sinne. Se sano, että se tietää suunnilleen, missä PGP on. Lähdettiin siis kävelemään, koska ei vielä tiedetty, mitä ihme reittiä shuttle bussit kulkee ja että kulkeeko ne niin myöhään ollenkaan. Itseasiassa koko kampusalue tuntu koko ekan viikon tosi sekavalta.
Siinä sitte juteltiin, että ihan yliarvostettuja nää shuttle bussit on muutenkin. Aamun kampuksella poukkoulun perusteella todettiin, että ihan hyvin vois kävellä monet matkat, mitä paikalliset kulkee bussilla, ja ne tuskin kestää kävellen yli 10 minuuttia.
Niin no... kaikkea emme selvästikkään tienneet vielä. Matkalla törmättiin toiseen ryhmään vaihtareita, jotka oli etsimässä samaa paikkaa. Yhessä sitten käveltiin, jotain aivan ihme reittejä, tietämättä (ainakaan minä) missä oltiin karttaan nähden. Ja käveltiin ja käveltiin... Lopulta kun päästiin perille, oltiin kävelty ainakin puol tuntia ja muut oli just lähteny eteenpäin! Eih! Jälkeenpäin oon menny saman matkan bussilla, kesti ainakin vartin silläki, eli ei ne shuttle bussit ollukaan niin yliarvostettuja!
Saatiin puhelimella kuitenki jonkinlaisia ohjeita siitä, miten päästä West Cost Parkiin eli puistoon, jonne kaikki muut oli jo matkalla. Ensin kävellen bussipysäkille. Matkalla nähtiin iso ryhmä vaihtareita, jotka myös matkalla puistoon. Välillä mentiin varmaa kaks pysäkkiä bussilla ja taas käveltiin. Ja taas tavattiin lisää vaihtareita! Koko matka oli yhtä sähellystä, ku kukaan ei oikeestaan tienny minne mennään ja kuinka pitkä matka sinne oli!!! Mutta ei luovutettu (paitsi jotkut) ja jollain ilveellä vihdoin ja viimein, varmaan tunnin matkan jälkeen päästiin perille! JES!
Loppujen lopuksi meitä oli varmaan 30 vaihtarin ryhmä, ja lisää tuli puistoon koko ajan. Sitten ei muuta ku hengattiin ja syötiin-juotiin. Tutustuin ekan illan aikana niiiiin moneen vaihtariin, huhhuh! Sain lopulta muutaman tyypin kanssani jakamaan taksin takas Commonwealthiin, eli meidän asuntolalle.
Kello oli siinä vaiheessa kolme yöllä, kun pääsin nukkumaan. Olipa pitkä ja tehokas päivä!
Oma sänky kullan kallis!
Seuraavana päivänä nukuin pitkään väsymystäni ja jetlagiani pois. Heräsin varmaan neljältä päivällä, joten enpä oikeestaan muuta tehny ku menin illalla juhlimaan. :D Sunnuntaina oliki sitte shoppailupäivä parin vaihtarin kanssa.Pääsin mm. testaamaan viime vuonna Taiwanissa oppimiani tinkimistaitoja kiinaksi. Hyvin meni, sain kuulokkeet ja webbikameran 20% halvemmalla. :) Päätin puolen myös vuoden tauon jälkeen alottaa taas liikkumisen, joten ostin uudet lenkkarit, ja ostettiin kaikki sulkkismailat, jotta päästäs pelaamaan. Ja maanantaina mentiiki sitte toisen kaverin kanssa jo katsastamaan yliopiston kuntosali ja muita liikuntatiloja. Niistä voin kertoo myöhemmin.
Mutta nyt kiinnostaa varmaan, minkälaisessa paikassa sitten nukuin, kun kerta ekana yönä 13 tuntia unten mailla viihdyin. Muutama kuva kertonee tästä hyvin.
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| My block |
Tähän hostelliin, tai mikskä haluu kutsua, kuuluu monta blockia, tässä mun talo eli blocki. Mun huoneen ikkuna on ylin, vasemmalla reunimmainen.
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| Mun huone |
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Tossa siis mun puolisko huoneesta, jaan sen yhen puolalaisen tytön kanssa. Sen kaappi näkyy tossa mun kaapin vieressä ja sen pöytä tossa mun pöydän vieressä, eli kuten huomaatte, huone on aika pieni.
Meidän asunnossa on kaks makuuhuonetta, yhteinen keittiö, olohuone ja vessa/kylppäri. Yhteensä siis asukkaita on 4, toisessa huoneessa asuu tytöt Sveitsistä ja Italiasta (saksankielisestä pohjoisosasta). Kaikki mun kämppikset on tosi mukavia ja niitten kanssa on kiva asua.
Vielä näkymä pihalle olohuoneen ikkunasta. Tykkään siitä, että meijän pihalla on puita, eikä oo semmonen betoniviidakko.
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| Näkymä vasemmalle... |
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| ...ja oikealle. |
Tää on kiva paikka asua myös mm. sen takia, että täällä asuu niin paljon muita vaihtareita, joten kaverit asuu lähellä. Joko samassa talossa tai muutaman blokin päässä. Siten onn helppo suunnitella jonneki menoa, ja jos tulee takasi myöhään, taksin jakajia löytyy aina. Ja on illalla on helppo mennä kavereitten kanssa syömään läheisiin food courteihin. Siitä puheen ollen...
Ruokaa!
Lupasin viimeeks kertoo siitä, mikä on food court tai hawker. Ite en vielä tiiä, mikä on näitten kahen sanan ero, mutta molemmat on täällä erittäin yleisiä ruokapaikkoja, joita näkyy lähes kaikkialla. Niissä on siis yleensä keskellä paljon pöytiä ja niitten ympärillä on paljon kojuja, joista voi tilata ruokaa ja juomaa.
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| The Deck |
Tuossa kuva NUS:n Arts&Social Scienses tiedekunnan kanttiinista, jota myös The Deckiksi kutsutaan. Oikeestaan tossa on vaan osa siitä. Mutta tuohon tyyliin food courteissa / hawkereissa on erilaisia ruokavaihtoehtoja: Muslim, Noodle, Chinese cooked food, Fish ball soup, Indonesian, Claypot seefood soup, Japanese, Vegetarian... tässä muutamia nimiä mitä oon nähny.
Hinnat food courteissa on yleensä tosi edullisia, ja koulun kanttiineissa vielä edullisempia. Yli 5 dollarin ruokia en enää mielellään osta, ellei olla ihan ravintolassa. Yleisin koulussa syömäni ruoka on tosta Chinese cooked food -kojusta, ja maksaa 2,20 SGD, joka on siis n.1,3€. Siitä saapi valita mikä näyttää hyvältä ja tuon hintanen ateria on muotoa riisiä+ 1 meat/seafood + 2 vegetables. Hyvää on! Oon aina tykänny myös kaikesta intialaisesta ruuasta, mitä oon syöny, mut koska en tiiä mikä on minkäki nimistä, niin en oo syöny sitä niin paljon. Nyt oon pikkuhiljaa opetellu syömään myös sitä. Tofu kojuun en edelleenkään oo menny... :P
13. elokuuta 2010
Eka päivä Singaporessa
Takana oli tosiaan pitkä lento, ja kun saavuin aamukasilta lentokentälle, niin jo silloin tekin mieli päästä nukkumaan. Ei kovin hyvältä alulta näyttäny... Mutta onneks päivä senkun parani ja väsymys ei estäny päivän temmellyksiä.
Heti ekaks kentällä ollessamme mun Meet-and -Greet Buddy, Kah Wee, opasti mut vaihtamaan rahaa ja hankkimaan pre paid –liittymän. Siitä sain kaupan päälle sateenvarjon, joka oli kerrankin erittäin tarpeellinen kaupanpäällinen. Ulkona satoi nimittäin aivan kaatamalla, minkä takia mm. taksimatkan varrella kuulemma yleensä näkyvät pilvenpiirtäjät sekä nähtävyydet jäi näkemättä, koska näkyi vain harmaata, ja matka NUS:lle kesti vartin tavanomaista pidempään. Olipa aikaa tutustua paremmin tähän toiseen vaihtarityttöön sekä Meet-and-Greet Budeihin. He oli siis vapaaehtoisia NUS:n opiskelijoita, jotka sai halutessaan pyytää etkäteen tulemaan vastaan kentälle ja saattamaan asuntolaan.
Mutta kuten sanottua, meillä alkoi infotilaisuus pian maahan saapumisen jälkeen, joten emme menneet asuntoloille, vaan suoraan laukkuinemme kaikkinemme yliopistolle. Saimme kuulla kaikenlaista tärkeää tietoa NUS:sta, tosin suurimman osan tiedosta olin jo lukenut yliopiston sivuilta, eikä mua askarruttaneita käytännön juttuja kuitenkaan käsitelty. No, oli sinne ihan kannattavaa kuitenkin mennä.
Infossa ittensä esitteli mm. kaks tyyppiä, Rebecca ja Leong, jotka järjestää joka vuosi vaihtareille matkoja ja muita tapahtumia. Tähän mennessä ne on järjestäny jo aika monta klubi-iltaa sekä kokoontumista uusille vaihtareille, matkan Tioman –saarelle Indonesiaan viime viikonloppuna ja matkan Kuala Lumpuriin, Malesiaan, tänä viikonloppuna. Sinne, KL:iin, mäkin oon menossa tossa vartin päästä, eli yritän tässä nopsaan saada jotain viikonloppulukemista teille ennen sitä! J
Joka tapauksessa, sali oli täynnä vaihtareita, ja tutustuin kahteen vaihtariin Kah Ween kautta. Ne oli menossa infon jälkeen samalle asuntolalle mihin mun piti mennä tekee chek-in, joten ne opasti mut perille. Ja samalla ne kanto mun laukun :P Se oli hyvä, koska mentii bussilla ja metrolla, jos oisin menny yksin, oisin varmasti ottanu taksin. Näin sain tietää jo ekan reitin koululle.
Asunnolla kerkesin nopsaan katsastaa paikat, päätellä että täytyy ostaa tyyny ja lakanoita, tyhjentää märän laukkuni vaatteista ja lähteä. Noin 13 syömättömän tunnin jälkeen kävin vihdoin läheisessä Food Courtissa syömässä. Ja mitä sieltä löysinkään: kanaa ja paprikaa soijakastikkeessa, juuri niin kuin minä sen kotona teen! J Samalta näytti ja maistu, ja kun sain chopstickit käteen, olo oli kuin kotona!
Siitä, miltä asunto näyttää ja mikä ihme on Food Court, kerron seuraavalla kerralla.
Seuraavaksi oli ohjelmassa kouluun rekisteröityminen (liian tylsää luettavaa), sekä tyynyn ja lakanoiden etsiminen. Tyynyliina jo mulla olikin, kiitos tyttöjen, jotka anto mulle kivan läksiäislahjan. Ainiin, tuli pölyrättiki heti tarpeeseen, sillä mun piti saada nopeesti pestyä kaappini ennen ku uskalsin laittaa vaatteeni sinne, joten loistava lahja oli sekin! Ja taulu on seinällä, ja korviksia oon käyttäny. Kiitti tytöt! :D :D
Löysin pitkän etsinnän jälkeen loistavan tyynyn, joka oli kallis, mutta rakastan sitä! Ja loppujen lopuksi lakanatki löyty. Oli muuten vähän selittämistä, ku en tienny mitä on lakana ja pussilakana englanniks... :S
Eikä tässä vielä kaikki! Päivä jatkui vielä monta tuntia...
Mutta nyt rakkaat ystäväni, mun täytyy jättää taas teidät jännitykseen, sillä Kuala Lumpurin bussi odottaa! ;)
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