Exploring Singapore

Last weekend was literally the first weekend I had some spare time to explore Singapore. Saturday I went to Orchard road with a friend, this road is filled with shops of every brand you can imagine. There are shopping malls everywhere, with shops from very expensive (Dior, Gucci, Prada) to shops which are less expensive (Zara, Bershka, Mango), still the less expensive stores are more expensive then in the Netherlands. Probably this will have something to do with the fact that these shops are all European and everything is imported. Another thing you immediately notice is the amount of cloths for the winter they sell, which makes me wondering why??? Because till now, I have wore a long trousers only once and all my tops with long sleeves, I brought them for nothing! After a day of seeing a huge part of Orchard road, we were in for some sushi. In a mall close to a mrt station I knew a place where we can have sushi from an assembly line. Most of you will know this concept from some places in the Netherlands, but the main difference here is that it is really cheap. Everything is freshly prepared and you can have green tea for free. In the end we had to pay 8 dollars (which is around 5 euro's) and we had lots of amazing sushi!

Sunday we went to Macritchie reservoir park, which is the jungle of Singapore. They have monkeys, amazing nature views and a treetop walk. After 5 minutes we indeed saw our first monkeys (macaces) and they are sooo sweet!! Most of the times we saw one monkey at the time, but at one moment there was a spot where we saw around 20 monkeys, it was great! When we continued our walk from that space, we got a little shocked, because a snake (and he was huge!!! Thin, but huge!) crossed our path! After the shock, we walked further, it was quite an exhausting walk, it went up and down on a little path, but we really wanted to reach the tree top walk. Arriving there, my friend got a bit scared, because she's afraid of heights, but in the end she crossed the bridge! The view was amazing!!!

Tuesday was a public holiday in Singapore (Since we have arrived here, there have been two public holidays and you don't notice a single thing of it, nothing special happens), so we decided to visit the Botanic garden. Maybe I had to high expectations, but to me it wasn't special at all. It was just a nice park with some gardens. Yes, there were some plants I've never seen before and they were really nice, but I wouldn't recommend this place as a hotspot of Singapore.

Some other thing we noticed last weekend is that every place we go and see as a touristic place, there aren't a lot of tourists.. maybe the tourist season is over, maybe tourists skip Singapore (which is kind of stupid if you ask me!). What you do see at these places (jungle and botanic garden) is crazy Singapore people who are running (like sports). We had a hard time walking through the jungle, but they are running there!! Same for the botanic gardens. Also the gym is so crowded here everyday. The people here are really focused on staying in shape.

Singapore Night life!

I think for every exchange student the night life of the city is important! Well, Singapore night life is amazing!!! Especially for girls, because wednesday is ladies night every week, which means free entrance and free drinks till a certain time or till a certain amount. Last week we even had free drinks till 3am!! Can't imagine that to happen in the Netherlands! Some clubs are filled with exchange students, while other clubs also have plenty of locals going out! Because the alcohol is really expensive (10 dollars for a glass of beer, but also for a mix drink), most of the times we have pre-drinks. Those pre-drinks are in my opinion the best! In a little appartment, where everybody brings his own booze (most of the times beer cans, they don't have bottles like we do in the Netherlands), playing drinking games from all over the world and have an amazing time together. It definitely brings you in the mood for going out! Last thursday we had a party at the roof of one of the highest buildings of Singapore, everybody had to dress up and it was really crowded, but arriving on the roof, with 200 other people it was the best! The view over the city (see picture) was breathtaking!

Well that's it for the moment. One more thing to notice, because of the public holiday, all the lectures are rescheduled to saturday! So when you're enjoying your weekend tomorrow, think of me attending lectures!