Room with a View

Looking up from ground level the Marina Bay Sands Skypark looks like it is quite a ways up there and that it could fall off the top of the three buildings it is resting on any minute. The closer I came to the hotel the more I had the feeling that you get as you are anticipating riding a roller coaster. Once I was on the top the view was awesome! I won't take the time to explain the pics because it is late and I want to go to bed.



This last pic is off my salvation and sanity. I never would have thought that waffles would be sold as a lat night snack but here in Singapore they are!

Now I Know What Being Sick in A Foreign Country Feels Like

Hi y'all. I'm back from the dead. This past week has been crazy. Monday and Tuesday were extremely busy days for me and then on Wednesday I was attacked by the stomach ache, back pain, head ache, diarrhea monster. I don't know if I ate something bad or if something bit me but either way it is fair for me to say that I have not felt very well and thus I have not updated y'all on my adventures in Singapore. But, now that I am back, here we go!

This lovely creature can be found near a pond on the southwest side of the dorm complex that I am staying at. Don't worry, he isn't alone in his grazing there is another rhino grazing a few feet. The coolest part about it? They are made of WOOD!

On Monday we went to this really nice place that serves Dim Sum called the Crystal Jade. I was a little worried when we first arrived because the prices were pretty steep (the one thing I saw said $60 per person). I voiced my concern to the Singaporean student who was leading us and his reply was not to worry about it and that NUS would be treating us to lunch. That eased my worries and made it possible for me to eat my lunch without having to figure out how to pay for it.

On Tuesday we visited a company called Makino. At Makino they make very large CNC machines. It was really neat to visit a place that makes machines similar to what I have used at school. I was surprised at the large amount of manual labor put into assembling these machines. The factory worker showing us around said that most of their orders that they receive are very specialized and so it is more cost effective for them to assemble them manually then to have it all done by robots.

Welcome to Wednesday. This is the day that I went from enjoying Singapore to wishing I could go home and lay in a soft bed in an air-conditioned room. Don't get me wrong, I still love being here in Singapore, but being sick in a foreign country is not fun at all. Despite my feeling very ill Wednesday evening I just had to go out and do something fun after 2 long days of lecture and work on our project. A few of us from BYU decided to go explore the neighborhood know as Little India. When we stepped out of the train station and onto the street I was surprised at how different it looked from the places in Singapore that I was used to seeing. I'm guessing it really does look like India. We didn't really know what to do in Little India so we just started walking to see what we could see. Eventually we came across a lot of shops with souvenirs and stuff for really low prices. I found a really slick looking watch for $13 and three Merlion figurines for $10. After we had shopped for a while we decided to find a place to eat before heading home. A lot of the places we found were relatively expensive at $15 or more per plate. I know that doesn't really sound expensive given that you will pay that much for good Indian food in the states but if you were used to paying $3.50 for a good meal even $7 sounds expensive.

So we eventually found a place that looked sanitary and that had prices that weren't too steep. We ordered what the waiter recommended. It was delicious but seeing as how I wasn't feeling well I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I would have if I were feeling well.

I soon realized that eating the local food was not helping me feel better and so I had to break my vow of eating nothing but Asian food. For lunch on Thursday I went to the Engineering Canteen on campus like usual but instead of ordering from one of the Asian menus I ordered from the place that offers "Western Cuisine" which comes in the form of something that looks like pasta. After staring at the menu for a long while I decided to order the backed pasta with breaded chicken. When I was given my food I thought that it looked like it would taste good but looks can be deceiving. Now, I won't say the baked pasta was horrible but I will say that is was probably not as good as something you could eat out of a Chef Boyardee can. For dinner me and my teammates ate at a place called Mos Burger, a Japanese hamburger joint. I tried the teriyaki chicken burger. Not only did I have to pay $5 for it, it was only mediocre in taste. Despite the lack of tastiness, eating at a Japanese burger joint was a fun experience.

After three days of stomach aches, back pain, and other unmentionable problems Saturday FINALLY arrived! My team worked on our project for an hour in the morning but after that I was home free to have fun and relax. The BYU students all decided to go to Sentosa island to play on the beach. While the water around Singapore is nowhere near crystal clear or pristine, it was still fun to go play in the water and in the sand. We played around for an hour or so and then decided to pack up and go explore the rest of the island.

During our exploring we found what is claimed to be the southern most point of continental Asia. The funny thing is that once you get to the south side of the island that the sign shown in the pic above is on you can see islands that look further south than the one you are standing one. We didn't quite figure out how the island we were on was the southern most point of continental Asia but we decided that we would trust the sign.

Later in the day we met up with some of the YSA's from the ward that we had attended last Sunday. We were planning on going to the deck of the Marina Bay Sands Sky Park but by the time we had gathered everyone together and everyone had eaten something it was nearly 9 o'clock PM and the park closes at 10. We decided that since not everyone wanted to go up to the park (it costs $20), that those of us who do want to go up could do so another day. Instead of going up to the park we walked across the double helix bridge that connects the two sides of Marina Bay. The picture above was taken from one of the lookout decks that are along the bridge. The white building on the left is a museum of science and technology and is supposed to look like a lotus flower. The rest of the skyline is the business district of Singapore.
After crossing the bridge we made our way to Clarke Quay which is the place to go if you want to experience the night life of Singapore. By the time we arrived at our destination it was nearly 11 PM. We soon found out that the trains and buses stop at midnight and that taxi prices nearly double after midnight. One of the local YSA kids realized that he didn't have any cash and that the only way for him to make it home was on the train. He wasn't sure if he would make it or not and was worried about what he would do if he needed to take a taxi with no cash on him. Another BYU student and I decided to run to the train station with him to make sure that he, along with us, would be able to make it home before midnight. We managed to make it to the train station with enough time but had to run when it came time to switch trains. Sadly, me and my friend weren't able to make it to our stop before our bus left so we had to take a cab. Luckily we were close enough to where we lived and so the price of the cab was only about $8. Hope you enjoyed my crazy week! I'll try to update y'all more frequently this coming week.

Sunday in Singapore!

Bright and early at 8:15 a.m. we left for church this morning. The quickest and easiest way to go to church was via taxi. Unless I am mistaken the taxi ride this morning was my very first taxi ride ever. Our driver was a little on the wild side. According to one of my peers the driver was going about 20 mph over the speed limit at some point. On top of that the driver seemed to take the shortest route possible instead of staying in the lane. Thankfully we made it to church safe despite the rather adventurous driving techniques of the cab driver.
The pic above is of the church building that we met in today. I remember seeing in the Ensign about how the Church was going to start building meeting houses like this one that have parking on the first floor with several floors above for chapels, classrooms and offices. We attended what the missionaries called "the locals" ward. At the same time that we were meeting with the locals there was a ward meeting upstairs that was either the expatriate ward or the Chinese speaking ward. I'm not sure which though. Today was ward conference for the ward we attended so we had the opportunity to meet the stake presidency. After the 3 hour block we joined the ward for their traditional post ward conference lunch. The food was amazing and I felt like I was back on my mission in Houston.

This pic above is a view of the area just outside the front doors of the meeting house. If you can't tell from the previous pics I have posted, all of Singapore looks the same way. It is very green and very clean. I love it.

Exploring the Island

To start I thought I'd treat y'all with a pleasant night time view of what I see from where I am staying in Singapore. The hostel here looks good during the day but looks much better at night, would you agree? Anyways...Now that that is out of the way I'll get on to the exciting stuff.

So I lied. I thought I'd give you a look at what my incredibly small room looks like. I haven't measured it out, not like I would or anything, but I am pretty sure my room is no more than 10 feet by 10 feet. Now, on to the adventurous stuff.

Today, being Saturday, was definitely a day to go out and explore Singapore and that is what we did. Well, first we had to wait for the crazy rogue rainstorm to pass by. It was pouring buckets and lasted for almost an hour or more! Once the rain decided to stop we decided to go meet up with a local friend (who attends BYU) of one of the members of our BYU group. after some deliberation about where to go we decided that we would go to the Orchard shopping mall area. The pic above is a view of just outside of the shopping mall.

The Orchard shopping mall was by far classier and cooler than anything I have ever seen in the US. Case 1, the above picture is of glass panels that lined the walls and ceiling of a section of the mall. The fish shadows swam around all over the place, very cool.

This pic above is a view of the entrance to the mall where we came out. In the top right of the pic is a sweet TV screen that curves with the shape of the architecture.

Just outside of the mall there was a street vendor selling ice-cream. He was selling multiple flavors with two options for how it is prepared. Option one is to have the bar of ice-cream wrapped in a slice of bread that has swirls of color. Option 2 is to have the bar of ice-cream between two wafers as in the pic above. The one I had was quite tasty.
Speaking of food, just before the ice-cream sandwich I had the highly acclaimed chicken rice for lunch. It wasn't really anything as special as most people make it out to be but it was good.
After lunch at the mall and the ice-cream sandwich we went exploring in the area. We eventually made our way to the President of Singapore's house. We were hoping to go up close but that didn't happen. We actually couldn't even see the house because the trees and foliage around the house were so dense. We then went on to see the famous Singapore Merlion and on the way saw a really cool concert hall, the Singapore Flyer, and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. After that we set out to find a Museum called the Red Dot Museum. Eventually we found it after walking for quite some time. The museum was small so we only spent maybe an hour looking at the various products that had won Red Dot awards. If you want to know more about Red Dot you can look it up on your own. By the time we were done at the museum it was pretty close to dinner time so we decided to take the train back towards the Hostel. Me and two others from the group stopped at the Clementi shopping mall to eat dinner and to buy some food for the Sabbath. I had Chicken Laksa for dinner, it was really good and especially for only $3! Once we were done eating dinner I was determined to find a really good Bubble Tea, no it isn't really tea that is just what they call it, so we went into the mall and started looking for a place. We were lucky and found a place right after getting into the mall. The place was called Mr. Bean. I ordered the mango icy soya milk with bubbles. My order was based solely on the pictures of the various products that are sold at Mr. Bean. To my great delight I ordered exactly what I was hoping for, a smoothie like drink that has tapioca pearls in the bottom. IT WAS EXQUISITE! I'll be going back for another on Monday no doubt. After the extremely delicious bubble tea I was completely satisfied and ready to return to the hostel for the night and that is where I am now.

I thought I'd leave you with one last picture from the day. This was an advertisement in the subway for Evian bottled water. I can't remember what the tag line was but there were quite a few different posters like these that I couldn't decide if they were disturbing or funny.

Singapore: Day 1

Welcome to Singapore. That pic above is the view from just outside my bedroom. Speaking of which, my bedroom is extremely small and there is no AC. Slepping at night is difficult because it is so hot and humid.


The above two pics are pictures of Chinatown. You might think that having a Chinatown in Singapore is a little redundant but it really isn't. Singapore definitely does look like an Asian country but it doesn't look like China, Chinatown looks like China. That temple above was beautiful. We went to the top floor where there was a garden and a prayer room. It was neat how quiet it was up there compared to down on the street. So far Singaporee has been very interesting and very hectic for me. I'm looking forward to getting into a normal schedule and a good daily routine. Catch y'all later!

Korea!

No pictures for this one. It is currently 6:39 pm may 18th here in Seoul and if I'm not mistaken it is 2:39 am may 17th in Utah to give you sone perspective of the time difference.

IDEO, Stanford, and Zircon

Yesterday was a busy day. After arriving in San Fran we rushed down to Palo Alto to visit a design and innovation company called IDEO. They design products as well as help companies with business strategies and the like.

After IDEO we visited Stanford University's Product Realization Lab. The lab has machines and tools to make just about anything a student would want to make using just about any material a student might want to use. I had never really considered Stanford as an option for grad school but now that I have seen what they have to offer I think I'll look into their programs a little more.

Once we were finished at Stanford we visited a small company called Zircon. Zircon makes stud finders that range from basic to very advanced with capabilities to locate nails and hot-wires and other things that you might want to avoid when drilling or nailing into a finished wall.
All of the places we visited were absolutely awesome. At the end of the day I learned a lot about what goes into designing and developing
products and a little about business as well. My excitement and desire to enter the professional world was also heightened by the many things I saw learned.