Adventures In Asia

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Arrival in Singapore

Hello Everybody!

As per popular demand, here is another blog to follow as we spend the semester in and around Singapore 🙂

Was a very long flight over here, 17 hours from San Fransisco… quite the journey.

Once we arrived, we made our way to the apartment we are renting.

It has been about 30 degrees and pretty humid. Supposedly January is the coolest month too so hopefully we acclimatize or something because it’s already very very warm!

Hot ? Heck yes.

Super delicious food ? Confirmed.

Beautiful city sights ? Check.

Yesterday we walked around our neighbourhood area, shopping for a few things, as well as the going to the grocery store. Decided to take a chance on some new types of mushrooms, lotus root, old cucumber, and some banana-leaf wrapped tempeh among other things. I think one of our favourite things will definitely be trying out new grocery items.

Singapore sights, Chinese New Year, and a trip to Thailand!

Just starting to get a routine and be more comfortable out and about. It took a lot longer than I had expected to be honest. But it is getting much easier now.

Our neighbours are super nice, they invite us over and tell us to address them as auntie and uncle. They gave us a few gifts to wish us a prosperous New Year. Some common CNY gifts include; two oranges (two is a lucky number, four is unlucky), assorted cookies and crackers in a red jar (these are for sale everywhere you go during the CNY holiday), and money sachets in red envelopes called ‘ang bao’.

We went to the downtown area to see some celebrations. They had lion dances and performances, handmade oversized paper lanterns, all sorts of food stalls, and fireworks. We also read our Ox fortune for 2020 and it is looking to be a good year for us. And I agree.

Last week we took our first trip to Thailand. Mitchell already wants to move there. We went to a beach town in the southern area called Krabi. It was touristy but very laid back. We enjoyed eating our way through night markets and scootering between the characteristic limestone cliffs.

We also went snorkeling! It was my first time and it was absolutely amazing! I was just giddy the entire time. Very cool to see life under the sea like that.

I was thinking a lot about you guys, Kimberley and Nick, because of all your scuba adventures!

Oh yeah.. and school. School is good haha. I really like all my Professors and the classes are pretty interesting as I have never taken general business or sociology classes before. I am in a marketing class, an International business class, another about developing cultural intelligence and a really interesting one on the palm oil situation.

So far, we have been following the school’s advice on the coronavirus situation. We shall see what happens in the next few weeks.

My sister and mum are coming to visit this week which is very exciting!

Miss you all!

xoxo

First week a wrap!

It has been one week of adjusting to the heat, u-turning while navigating, and figuring out the swing of things around town. This post is going to be more pictures than talk. To start, here is a general reference to where we are on the island.

The university is both huge and stunning. As my mum would say, you can really smell the learning here, or something like that. It is its own little world around campus with beautiful buildings and green tropic scenery and, you guessed it, lots of yummy food options.

I already have a favourite tree; Rain trees, which are scraggly ones with a nice open canopy. They are pretty common lining the streets.

We walked around Chinatown and also the iconic Supertrees. It is close to Chinese Lunar New Year. This year is the year of the Rat – there are several shops to buy your luck bringers, charms, and buckets of special treats in anticipation of the day. A sea of red and gold, pineapples and oranges across the markets. More on that later.