Singapur

Vietnam and Cambodia

2008-11-25T02:27:00.001-08:00

All right!
So on the 8th of November Anna, Julia and me started our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia.
Since there was nothing really spectacular on the flight, like a crash, a burning plane part or anything like that I wanna start of with a few impressions of Ho Chi Minh City

That was the phone wires... you don't have to worry about getting a sunburn because they cover the whole street :-)

This was one of the very rare parks that people would use to relax. Back home in Germany people would avoid going there because on each side there is a 4 lane street with and never ending flood of motorbikes.

After finding our hostel we went to the reunification palace. One of the sights of Ho Chi Minh (or Saigon as I should probably say... sorry Huong! :-) )

The room had all their special color theme depending what the were used for.
Guess what yellow is for............. it's supposed to make you hungry, since this was the dining room.

I wanna have a helicopert too some day! (that was on the roof by the way)

After that we went to the war museum. I was about the Vietnames war of the Americans against the Vietcong. Here a few impressions.

The cells for the Vietcong prisoners.

Pictures of victoms of Agent Orange.

And on the way back we took a bath in the ocean of motorbikes. It really looks like a river where the water/motorbikes just keep coming...

That was our view from the hostel room. Really nice since we had the 6th floor on the other had they didn't have a lift... :-)

From the city hall one might see the influence of the French Colonization

The same thing with the Nortre Dame church... I heard that name before..

And that was the old/main post office.

It looked like a beautiful train station on the inside.

Then we went to the history museum where you were not allowed to take pictures...
[so no picture here] :-)

In the museum we were lucky to see the water pupet show. We were there with a huge group of elementary kids but I enjoyed the show anyways. It was actually interesting how they were moving the figures so precisely.

Then we walked along the Mekong(name of the river) which was not too nice since it started to rain and I only put up pictures where you can't see the garbage everywhere.

The following day we got a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels. That is the tunnels that the Vietcong digged to hide from the Americans.
That was our tourist trap stop on the way there. The things there were nice but the prices high end European...

Then we finally got there. That the three layers that the tunnels had.

That was a spider hole. Notice the size of the guy demonstrating how to use them!!

Well our guide picked me to try it too. I hope you can see the little size difference to the previous guy!

By the way I made it all the way in! Even tough I was not sure if I'd ever make it back out!
The was the hole, notice the shoe beside it... the hole was tiny!

Here is one of the booby traps that the Vietcong invented just for the Americans.

And entrance to the tunnels.

more booby traps.

This was the entrance to the tunnels that were prepared for tourists... so they were even bigger than the acutal ones.

I felt fat!

After we got back we had a great supper at a Korean place just next to our hostel.

A little flood on the streets on the way back, caused by some rain...

...yet the ocean of motorbikes did not care about that! :-)

6th floor in the hostel...lots of stairs.

Then we started our 2 day tour to the Mekong Delta.
A bus brought us there and we took a boat to the floating markets. The only problem was that it was an actual market so the least you had to buy was amounts of 10 Kilo.

Rice paper place there.

Coconut candy place.

Pop rice place.

Then we took a boat to our lunch place. It was a really nice ride but the river didn't look clean as our guide was trying to make us believe...well after floating through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam I thing no river would be clean...

That's the beds we fell into after our Mekong Delta day. They were on a floating hotel and yes, I slept like a princess!

Some impressions of the hotel.

Our view in the morning.

That was the floating hotel.

Our visit at the fisherman's house. The fish actually jumped out of the water to get the food...not too smart as a fish..

Then we visited the village of the Cham minority.

and then we started our long boat trip from the Mekong Delta all the way to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.

The border. I was happy that we were on that tour, if not, you could have easily missed it, seriously!

After a good night sleep in Phnom Penh and I good breakfast...

...we got on our bus to Siem Reap... (just kidding! :-) )

That was our bus!

And this was on one of the many temples arround Siem Reap. We were watching the sunset over Angkor Wat. Really nice!

For dinner we had some traditional Khmer food. It was really good!

Our next day we booked a tuk tuk for the whole day and toured arround the Angkor Tempels. Starting off with the most famous one, Angkor Wat.

On the way to the next tempels we stoped a few times because there was nice stone sculptures everywhere!

That was our tuk tuk, just in cast you are still confused what a tuk tuk is.

Now I have quite a few pictures of tempels, just enjoy them without my comments! :-)

I really liked this temple because of the trees that were all over it!

Our last bit shopping at the market of Siem Reap before we went back to Phnom Penh.

Back in Phnom Penh, we went to the "Killing Fields". That was a area where the Khmer Rouge regime killed a lot of people. The monument contains 8000 skulls of victoms of that cruelty.

The mass graves in the area.

Back in town we went to a former prison of the Khmer Rouge. Interesting was the fact that it had been a school before they abused the building for their cruelties, so you could still see the black boards on the walls in the class rooms that they used as cells.

A cell.

Our last little bit of time in Phnom Penh we spend at the royal palace. It was nice and interesting and it's still in use for some royal ocations. That's why a big part of it is not open for public...too bad.

I hope you did get a little impression of our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. Questions and Comments are welcome! :-)

Melaka / Malakka

2008-10-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

(Here are a few impressions of our trip to melaka over the weekend.
My great comments will follow soon, I'm just way too tired right now! :-) )

Geylang the food trip! :-)

2008-10-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

So on Friday after the practice we did our little team building trip to Gaylang! Yes, that's the correct name!
Gaylang is an area where you can get really good food and hotel rooms for an hour after that to have a nap, or so... :-) (ok, it's also the red light district but we focused on the food!!)

This was at the first of the three places we went to and I once again have to admitt that I don't remember the names but the things we had there were really good!

That's the volleyball team by the way with the coach on the front left side. Such a cool team!!

One of the interesting dishes that we had...among many others (chicken foot)

At the second place it was more like deserts with the fried long doughs that we dipped in soja milk. Really good but then there was that white wabbely stuff, I think it was made out of beans...
And of course some noodels but they were really good!

On the way back we stopped, no, acutally THEY stopped at this fruit stand which had way to many durians in stall... :-)
Guys, how can you smile while you eat that??

That is on of the worst smelling things in the world! Opened durians!

It's said that durians have eyes. That is because they never(...) fall on people's heads when they fall from the tree. Here we tried to proof that wrong.
It's just for for the picture, don't worry, it didn't hit me! :-)

Gaylang, I'll be back! (only for the food, of course! :-) )

Sightseeing in Singapore

2008-10-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

That was my sightseeing trip just about two weeks ago.

I started off at the botanic garden and found a nice(!) jungle trail there. That is how jungle trails in Singapore look like, just compare that to the ones in Malaysia that I posted pictures from earlier... :-)

In the botanic garden there is this orchid garden. That is definatelly worth seeing! (No comments because I wasn't able to remeber all the names...sorry! :-) )

After that I walked to Orchard Road which is about a kilometer away(Orchard Road is the most expensive shopping place in Singapore). On the way there I saw this cool street with it's pretty colonial looking houses.

Then I went to Fort Canning. Not too much left of the fort though but a nice place to get a few over the city.

Then I walked towards the ocean to see the merlion. On the way there I got a really nice few on the skyline of Singapore.

And I also saw the outside of the Chinese Heritage Museum. I'll go there some other time since poeple told me that 5 hours should be enough... :-)

Finally the Merlion! The sight of Singapore!

On my way back I stopped at the Esplanades, which are concert buildings that look like durians...yes, the disgusting smelling fruit that I don't even wanna come close to! :-)

Also got a look at the fontain of wealth...hope it helps that I've been there! We'll see. The funny thing is that you can walk arround the middle touching the little water fountain with your hand and make a wish while you do that... I won't tell you my wish though! :-)

That was me half day sightseeing trip!

Recess week in Bali and Lombok

2008-10-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

So, finally I'm writing on my blog again!

There has been so much happening since the last time I worte a blog that this one is a little longer. I hope though not boring at all to read it! ;-)

That's how my "Recess week" started. Recess week is supposed to be a week for studying but since I know everything already I decided to go to Bali and Lombok for that little bit of time! :-)

Our plane from Singapore to Bali...it got us there just fine.

Arriving in Denpasar Airport we went to the nearest beach which is Kuta beach and stayed there for one night. By the way if I write we, I mean Violaine, a friend and me! :-)

The next day we tried surfing and I was seriously surprised how well it worked. I don't know if I should recommend people who want to learn snowboarding to learn how to surf first because it doesn't hurt by far as much as when you fall snowboarding! (HINT!)

Then we took a 2 hour bus to Ubud. That's a city in the central area of Bali. Here is a few pics of our room! That was the nices place I've stayed in a little while... :-) (and for 7 Euros a night it was even affordable for me!)

The pool...so nice especially after a hard day of holiday.

Around Ubud we looked at a lot of temples and here is a few pics of them. I won't bother you with the names, mostly for the reason because I don't remember them myself :-)

We also did a really nice hike arround Ubud through the rice paddies. It really lookes amazing!

Oh, forgot to show you the door of our hotel room. Nice, eh?

That was the view from our door onto the pool!

One night we went to a traditional dance show. There is lots of them each night in Ubud. They are usually perfomed during a temple ceremony but since they figured that they can make money by showing them to turists we got the chance to see one.

Another day we rented a motor bike. That was scary in a way that I've never driven on the "wrong" side of the road... and I didn't have a licence. That was only a minor problem though because you can easily pay our way out of that if you get stopped by a cop.
Here is some more pictures of temples that we visited with the motor bike arround Ubud.

We also had our cultural part. Going to an art museum was not one of my ideas but it turned out to be a really good idea. Look at the few pics I have and you'll know what I mean.
I'm not an art freak but I was really impressed!

When you stay in Ubud you have to visit the Monkey Forest. So we did! :-)
Since there has been a controversity about monkey pictures in my last blogs I tried to get a good balance of the amount of monkey pictures in this blog! :-) (hope everybody is happy with it!)

The "Sharon" I'm wearing in this picture was compusory in every temple we went to. Lucky us there was alway someone that was willing to lent us one for a little "donation" (robbers!)

That was the temple with the elephant. I probaly wouldn't have seen it if not for the name "elephant temple".

Back in Ubud we had one day of pure shopping and Spa for Violaine.
That's some random things that kinda cought my eye...since they were everywhere... :-)

After 7 days of Bali we took the ferry to Lombok. The next island east of Bali. There we met a friend to go on a 3 day hiking trip on the vulcano Mount Rinjani.
That was the first sunset on Lombok...really nice.

Here I'm still laughing...that's gonna change later since we had to climb about 2000m in hight the first day. Our group was 5 people, us 3 and 2 guys from Belgium. We also had 3 portes who carried our tents, sleeping bads, and food and one guide(they didn't carry him! :-) )

Our first base camp at about 2600m above see level.

That's some breakfast toast, eh?

That was the view into the crater. On the left side that was the summit that we climbed on the thrid day and in the middle you can see the little vulcano in the crater of the big on. Really impressive!

On the second day we got the chance to swim in hot springs while our guides made lunch for us...that was really relaxing.

Our guides making lunch.

Then the weather changed a little bit. It started to get rainy and in addition it is cold up there...not a good combination if you have no coat with you...like I did...I was freezing!

The last day we had to get up at 2:30am to climb to the summit. That is 3726m above sea level and we made it there at exactly 6:00am. Just in time for the sunrise. So nice!

That's the shaddow of the summit over the crater of the vulcano. IMPRESSIVE!

We had some monkey contact that day too. They literally tried to steal you your food off your plate!!!

Our last camp befor we went all the way down.

That was one of the huge areas burned by thrown away smokes of locals... scarry what one cigarret can cause...

That was our pick up service. I have to say that this was really the scaries part of the whole hike. Bad road, scary driver, other things or people on the road...I was glad that we made it back.

After relaxing for one night in Sengiggi, the city we stayed before on Lombok we took a speedboat back to Bali. The ride was nice though it was impossible to sleep since we had some minor waves going on.

The last sunset in Bali befor we made our way back to Singapore.

The whole trip was a great experience even though I can't say that it was a relax holiday! :-)

Cameron Highlands

2008-09-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

Our trip to the Cameron Highlands started off with a 8 hour over night bus ride which was really good. Just the last hour was a little bit...how do I put it... the bus driver tried to race a car going uphill really sharp serpentines. I couldn't sleep for that part :-)

Then we arrived in Tanah Rata were our hostel was, called "Father's Guest House". It was such a nice morning when we got there...

the breakfast table...

the garden of the hostel

After a good breakfast we decided to go for a hike into the jungle. After figuring out the longes tour :-) we took off and soon ended up in the middle of the jungle. Not too hard in the Cameron Highlands since it's everywhere.

That's how our track looked like and I just had to take a picture of the little bit of sun we got through the trees

Violaine even found a leave that was bigger than her head...and herself ;-)

After hitting the top and enjoying the "view" (it was completely foggy up there) we got to the Robinson Falls. They were really nice but we didn't have much time since we wanted to see the biggest BOH tea plantation on the Cameron Highlands.

now I know why the RAINforest is called RAINforest...the poncho is pretty stylish, eh? :-)

Finally we got to the tea plantation and it was most definatelly worth the walk there!
(We found out that a Malaysian kilometer can vary from 500m to about 2,5 km in Europe! :-), So 3km in Malaysia might seem way longer than they would in Europe!)

the deserved rest at the top of the tea plantation montain

The next day we did a guided tour arround the Highlands.
We started off at another tea plantation and went to the highest point of the Highlands but had bad luck with the weather again.
Then we did the "mossy forest tour"! So nice!!

some insect-eating plant...they look really interesting

After that we had a break at the tea plantation factory which gave me another chance to take some nice touristy pics so you believe me that I was there myself :-)

that's me by now! :-)

After the break we continued with our journey to the Orange Asli Village. A village of people that still live partially in the original way(they have DVD players too, we just didn't see them! :-) )

There Kumar, our guide (he was soooo cool!), showed us how to use a blow pipe. I even hit the flower (that was the target, of course! :-) )

The last day we spent enjoying life a little bit.
We only went to a strawberry plantation and had strawberries and strawberry ice-cream and the others had strawberry milk shakes,... really good!

then we went to the Butterfly Gardens (= butterflies in a garden with a net on top of it)

On the way back we visited a temple. (I forgot the name)

look closely and you will see the badminton court! :-)

So much for Cameron Highlands even though we had quite a "fun" bus ride to Ipoh and from there another over night bus back home to Singapore!

I hope you like the pictures. And write some comments if you want to!

Bird Park

2008-09-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

So that was Miriam's and my quick trip to the bird park of Singapore.
I didn't take a lot of pictures so here is just the limited edition of the bird park pictures.

That's the highest man made water fall of the world by the way!

a bird

a flying bird :-) (in/through the ring)

pinguines are birds too! ;-)

Night Safari

2008-09-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

So after the long time of no blogging I can tell you that I'm still alive.
That's what happend meanwhile!

We went to the Night Safari which is like a Zoo but at night.
The mean thing about it is that there is this NO FLASH rule...so it's kinda hard to take pictures at night without flash...
(here is my tries)

this is no animal it was just the sign of the restaurant there and bacause I was so disappointed that I can't show you any pictures I put it up here.

From seeing the pictures you might think that it's kinda strange but it was such in interesting experience that I can highly recommend you to go there.
If you come here that's definatelly on thing I'll show you! ;-)

The monkeys!

2008-08-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

Hey Felix,
this block is expecially for you! That's all the monkey pictures I have! :-)
I'll try to take more at the night safari. I might go there on Friday.
(And by the way I DIDN'T MISS ANY lectures up to now! :-) )

Trip to Kuala Lumpur ("KL")

2008-08-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

That's the pictures from our trip to Kuala Lumpur.

The bus ride there was awesome! We had a bus with sleeping seats and a little tv for everybody with a lot of new movies...unfortunatelly we left at 11:30 pm (23:00 Uhr) so I slept almost the whole 5 hours it took us to get to KL.

That was the nicest bus ride I ever had!!

At KL we found our way to the Petronas Towers right away. Even though they switched them off... :-)

That's the view from the skybridge. I hope I'm not lying when I say that it's 171 meters above ground. That's the view into the nice park right next to it. Somewhere behind the park there is supposed to be the German embassy...I couldn't find it...lucky me there was no riots when we where there! :-)

View up one tower from the skybridge...

...and down!

That's me on the skybridge... I had to get a touristy picture, sorry!

That's the tv tower also called KL Tower. You can go all the way up to the visitor level, which we did later that day, at night!

Here we have the Friday Mosque. Used for Friday prayers...that's why its name is Friday mosque! ;-)

Later we relaxed at a nice pool not knowing that they had put lots of piranhas in it... no just kidding. They had a few old skin eating fish in it...

This was our hostel. It was a really nice room...

...just the view out out of the window was not quite the best one I ever had :-)

Now the pictures of our tour up the TV tower at night. Very nice!

and the touristy picture again!

The next day we went to the Batu Caves. That's actually only one (long) cave with lots of temples and monkeys in it. The front statue is impressive though!

After that very hard day I treated myself with a nice fresh coconut...good!

Then we had the bird park in the Lake Gardens on our plan. It was really nice there although we had a little bit of bad luck with the weather...it poured at the end!

Stephane found a friend!

That was the funniest thing! Feeding the crazy birds! They were all over you when you had a few seeds in your hand...and even if not! :-)

That was it for KL!

The Zoo

2008-08-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we decided to go to the Singapore Zoo.
The Zoo itself is really nice. Although it took us almost one and a half hours to get there. That was really surprising because usually you can't go longer than an hour in Singapore and not hit a coast line... :-)

At the Zoo it was really easy to find friends!

That was in a huge bird cage that you could actually go into.

I love this picture!

So today(Friday) we'll leave for Kuala Lumpur ("KL" for insider ;-) )
We're hoping to come back on Monday...it's Malaysia, you never know!

The heritage museum in china town

2008-08-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

Today Violaine and I went to china town to the heritage museum there. It showed the way of life the chinese settlers faced in Singapore when they got here about 100 years ago.

I will never complain about my kitchen again, promise!!!...

and neither about my wasch room!!

On our way back home we had to stop to get a "DURIAN". That ist the most disgusting smelling thing/fruit in the world. Apperently it eatable though...
The experience was worth it, but the smell just kills you. The taste itself is not as bad as one might expect but I could have more than two little peaces. I won't ever have anymore that's another promise for today! :-)

That's the way you can buy them...presented by Violaine :-)

Cultural Trip

2008-08-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

Today we went to an islamic mosque and a shik temple.

The mosque was integrated into a, as they called it, center of hamony. The purpose was to teach people about the islam.
When we got there we experienced a great and warm welcome. They also showed and told us interesting facts about the islam in an unbelievable open way that I totally didn't expect.
(e.g.

After our visit of the mosque we went on to a sikh temple. The welcome there was just as warm as the on at the mosque.

There everbody had to wear a turban, witch looked more like a pirat scarf on us! :-)

We started off hearing a presentation of typical sikh instruments. The sound of it was interesting... :-)

After that we got a tour through the actual temple. By the way the thing in the middle you can see on the picture does not contain a dead holy person as I expected, but a book witch is comparable to the bible for Christians.

Finally we tried to learn doing our own real turban...didn't quite work as well as he showed it to us... :-)
(He also told us an amazing fact... not everybody wearing a turban is a terrorist...well, didn't know that! :-) )

Trip to Raffles Place/City

2008-08-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

The last few days where quite busy. I had my first few lectures and there is so much to organize. It's even worse with bureaucratic things than in Germany. Unbelievable but true. I also got to know that the ICA (Immigration and Ceckpoint Authority) put a wrong date on my student pass (visa). So now I have to go back to get a new one... the last one took us 5 1/2 hours to get...

I just wanted to show you this sheet of paper that was hanging everywhere arround my dorm. It's so funny how serious they take the mosquito thing here. I think exactly the same should be started in Germany! :-)

So on Wednesday we went to Raffles Place which is the oldest part of Singapore. On the way I found a few food prints of good old Germany. :-) Although, one bottle of beer was at about 15,- SGD which is about 7,- Euro. So it wasn't a real German feeling!

That's some pictures of Raffles Place. The colonial part. It really nice there!

Showing some patriotism! :-)

On the way back we just got a quick few of the skyline of Singapore.(I hope I get a better picture soon!)

Chinese Garden

2008-08-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

So yesterday Violaine and me went to the chinese garden. The garden itself was really cool. Especially the Bonsai Tree Garden. The funny thing was that some Indian guys wanted make their pictures look even better by having us on them. (They seriously asked if they could take a picture of us! :-) ) ... I knew I have it! :-)

The Confucius statue in the middle of the chinese garden.

Just to proof that I was there myself and didn't just steal the pictures.

Trip to Tioman (Malaysia east coast)

2008-08-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

So this was the group we left with to Tioman. That is a little island on the side of Malaysia. The trip to the island would probably take about 3 pages to write about. That's due to the Malay "organisation" of busses and ferries... :-)

So here is the group That we started off with.

The cabins on the island actually looked really nice from the outside. Unfortnatelly a lot fo them didn't have running water and the girls were scared by all kinds of animal in their bathroom or under their bed :-)

The unbelievable beaches made totally up for that tough!

For supper we had self chosen fish. I didn't really understand what I had but it was really good.

The picturces of the snokeling trip are going to come soon. I decided to let other people take them because my cell phone (camera) is probably not water proofed...

We also did a jungle tour which was really interesting. Pics will follow!

2008-08-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

Hier habe ich nochmal ein paar Bilder von meinem Zimmer. Das war gleich am Einzugstag... etwas kleiner als ich es so gewohnt war! :-)

Und hier ein kleiner Mitbewohner der heute unter meinem Bett vorkam...

The day in Sentosa (4th day)

2008-08-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

So this was my day in Sentosa.
It's a pretty much men made island which was supposed to be completely touristy and not really nice. We wanted to go there anyways. So when we got there by train we went to the next beach and as you can see that was all the tourists there were. It was so nice!

Here is an example of how man made the island sometimes appeared. square pieces of grass...I didn't know that grass grows in square pieces :-)

That was our Canadian, French, German group.

Later we went to see another beach and it was even nice... :-) Well I guess I just have to come back some time.

Tonight we also watched "The Dark Knight". Was kinda hard to find the right movie theatre but in the end we found the movie fridge(!) in which they showed it!

The hostel

2008-08-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

I decided to keep writing in English, because it's easier in the first place and that way everybody who wants can read it!

So here are a few more pictures of my hostel. I guess I can say that I got an upgrade to the one in Karslruhe! :-) My room itself on the otherhand is alot smaller and has neither aircon nor running water in it.

The first pic is the view from my room and the following are pictures that I took on the way to the food court which is on the very last picture.

I will take a few more from time to time, so you get an idea where I live here!

Das Haus das Verrückte macht!!!

2008-08-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Heute war ein ganz besonderer Tag. Wir wollten unsere Registrierung an der Uni erledigen und danach gleich unseren Student Pass bekommen. Ersteres wurde uns gesagt würde in etwa ein paar Stunden dauern und alles in allem wäre man damit einen Tag beschäftigt...

Als wir in die Multi Purpose Sport Hall kamen waren allerdings die erwarteten Warteschlangen einfach nicht zu finden! :-)
Die Registrierung hat dann alles in allem etwa 20 Minuten gedauert. Danach ging's dann mit einigen Gleichgesinnten aus Canada(!!!)
und Deutschland zum Immigartion and Checkpoints Authority. Dort angekommen nahmen wir uns alle (aus deutschen Behörden bekannt) eine Nummer aus dem Automaten. Alleine den Schalter zu finden an dem man aufgerufen werden sollte stellte sich als kleine Herausforderung heraus. Als ich dann als erster an den Schalter durfte wurde mir gesagt, dass ich eine Nummer am falschen Automaten gezogen habe. Also nochmal von vorne mit neuer Nummer. Dann ging es aber erst richtig los. von Schalter 10 (Unterlagen abgeben) zu Schalter 12 (Fingerabdrücke machen lassen) zu Schalter 10 (Unterlagen kontrollieren). Dabei stellten wir fest, dass man nur mit Cash-Card bezahlen konnte, was keine Kreditkarte ist...und Kreditkarten sind auf keinen Fall möglich... . Aber aufladen kann man sie nur an einem 7eleven oder über einen Bank-account... beides nicht vorhanden. Zusätzlich hat der erste monsunartige Regen die Luftfeuchtigkeit draußen auf ca. 99% steigen lassen... noch krasser als 85%! Wirklich!
Als uns dann eine nette Singapurianerin von ihrem Konto-Geld auf die Karte geladen hatte ging's zurück in zum Immigartion and Checkpoints Authority Gebäude(Das Haus das verrückte macht)

Dort angekommen wurde uns gesagt, dass wir anstatt der erwarteten 40 Dollar 100 Dollar zahlen müssen, weil wir nicht wie unsere Leidensgenossin aus Canada kommen sondern aus Deutschland...
Also wieder zurück und nochmal aufladen.

Weil das Bezahlungssystem leider heute augefallen war hat es pro Person etwa 10 minuten gedauert...bei 8 Personen...
Als wir das alles hinter uns hatten durften wir eine einstündige lunch break einlegen damit unsere Student-Passes fertig gestellt werden konnten. Das Essen war mal wieder ein Versuch sich an die landestypischen Essgewohnheiten zu gewöhnen. Scharf aber wirklich gut! Übrigens das Soursop-Lychee-Getränk ist nur zu empfehlen, auch wenn's ... aussieht! :-)

Für die Jungs gab's auf dem Rückweg noch kleine Spielzeuge zum anschau'n die schon mal für's Rennen in ein paar Wochen gezeigt wurden!

Dann hatten wir endlich unsere Student Passes und sind somit offiziell für ein halbes Jahr in Singapur geduldet! :-)

Am Abend ging's dann nach Clarke Quay. Eine Ansammlung von ziemlich vielen Bars und Restaurants. Auf vielfachen Wunsch unsere weiblichen Begleitungen haben wir dann das Restaurant HOOTER'S gewählt um uns mit nicht ganz so exotischem Esses zu sättigen. Root Beer schmeckt in Singapur genau wie in Canada! :-)

Die Bars hatten alle unterschiedliche Mottos. Bildbeispiel: The Clinic

Soviel zu Tag 3 in Singapur. Bis zum nächsten Post!

Die ersten Tage

2008-08-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

Auf nach Singapur für ein Semester!

So,jetzt ist es soweit. Mein Flug nach Singapur steht an. Trotz Streiks des technischen Personals in Deutschland ging's um 13:20 Uhr pünktlich auf die Rollbahn.Mein australischer Nachbar hat sich dann auch gleich über das, mich erwartende Klima, amüsiert... und das fast 13 Stunden lang... (na gut ich hab zwischen durch geschlafen)Das ganze sollte sich als garnicht so unrealistisch herausstellen. Nachdem ich auch die Zollkontrollen hinter mir hatte, die ja mit der Todesstrafe auf zu großen Drogenschmuggel werben, durfte ich mich auf das erste Wintergefühl dieses Sommers einlassen.Was sich im Flugzeug und im Zug dann als Winter angefühlt hat war beim verlassen des 15°C "warmen" MRT(S-Bahn) dann wirklich ziemlich extrem. Ich war ja gewarnt worden aber das Klima ist wirklich richtig(!) heiß und richtig(!) feucht... (knapp 35°C und 85% Luftfeuchtigkeit = schwitzen, viel schwitzen). Den Bus No. 95 habe ich dann aufgrund der "falschen" Seitenfahrweise (links!!!) dann auch gleich mal in die falsche Richtung genommen. Da aber Busse in Singapur konsequent in Kreisen fahren muss man nur lange genug sitzen bleiben. Auch das Umsteigen in den Schulbus hat funktioniert. Diese sind auf dem Campus kostenlos und daher vermute ich auch kam der Hinweis die 300m von der Bushaltestelle zum Hostel (Price George Park) mit dem Schulbus zurück zu legen.
Einchecken im Hostel verlief wirklich gut. Habe gleich meinen eigenen Hostel guide bekommen der mich dann überall herum geführt hat und mich auch auf zu meinem Zimmer gebracht hat. Nur zum Zimmer, weil in das Zimmer nicht 2 Leute gleichzeitig passen! :-)

Danach habe ich mal das "Hostel" ein bisschen erkundet. Man könnte es auch Kleinstadt nennen. Mit einem Laden, zwei Foodcourts (so ne Art Kantine mit vielen kleinen Imbissen)3 Basketballfeldern, Tennisfeld, .... und etwa 2000 Studenten war das am ersten Abend kaum zu schaffen.

Dann ging's mit Leo (auch aus Karlsruhe) einfach mal so in die Stadt. Chinatown und Little India waren unsere ersten Ziele. Unsere Tour war gespickt mit Tempeln, Touristeneinkaufstaßen und interessanten einheimischen Läden. Das konnte man an der Undefinierbarkeit der verkauften Dinge erkennen. Teils zum essen teils zur Krankenheilung. Nach einigen Flaschen Wasser ging's dann zurück zum Hostel.
Nach dem abendlichen get-together mit Leuten aus den USA, Frankreich, Deutschland,... ging's dann wie mir geraten wurde früh ins Bett. Dem Jetlag keine Chance!
Hat funktioniert.

Am nächsten Tag haben ich mich mit zwei französischen Freunden nach dem Foodcourt Frühstück um 11 Uhr los nach Palau Ubin aufgemacht. Das ist eine sehr ursprünglich gehaltene Insel im Norden von Singapur. Dorthin ging's nach einer langen MRT und free shuttle bus tour, und einer Taxifahrt dann mit einem "Bomboat" auf die Insel. Dort haben meine zwei französischen Begleiter und ich uns Fahrräder ausgeliehen um die Insel zu erkunden, was wirklich lohnenswert war!
Auch die Rückfahrt konnte schlafenstechnisch gut genutzt werden.
Heute geht's früher ins Bett, damit die Registrierung and der Uni ohne größere Zwischenfälle verläuft.

Falls ihr übrigens noch Anregungen für meine Blog habt, oder mir einfach so schreiben wollt dann freue ich mich sehr! :-)
(E-mail: florianzischlerAThotmail.com)