The Philippines

It’s been a busy few weeks since my last post! A couple of my classes wrapped up the week before last with final projects and papers, and final exams are taking place this week and next. I’ve definitely been surprised at how academically demanding this semester has been, but I’ve been fortunate to get breaks from the school craziness by going on lots of small trips. NUS has a ‘reading week’ between the end of classes and the start of exams, so Martha Stewart, Sam, and I took advantage of this time off by going to the Philippines for a few days.

We started off with a long day of travel. We caught an early morning flight to Cebu City, took a taxi to the port, took a 2-hour ferry to Tagbilaran, then were picked up by our Airbnb host to head to our final destination (for the day): Panglao, Bohol. Our accommodations were so nice, especially after an exhausting few weeks of school. We stayed in a villa run by a sweet local family on Momo Beach. It was quaint and had a pool, beach chairs, and some of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen–what more can you ask for? We were a 15-minute tricycle ride from town, so it was nice having the option of a quiet beach or a more lively area. We went to Alona Beach for most of our meals and to buy fresh fruit from stands along the road. We probably each ate about three mangos per day. I know that seems excessive, but they were just too good not to.

Our host was extremely helpful and sent us out on an island-hopping tour during our first full day. We snorkeled and explored several surrounding islands. Of course, I forgot to take pictures that day. Trust me, though, everywhere we went was beautiful. We spent our second–and last–full day in Bohol relaxing on Alona Beach.

The next morning, we headed to Cebu City. We visited Magellan’s Cross, Basilica Santo Nino, Fort San Pedro, and a museum, but the highlight of Cebu was (of course) the food. Since our first night in Panglao, we had basically eaten pork and rice for every meal–and we loved it. Filipinos are that good at cooking pork. At the top of our list for Cebu was Zubuchon–the restaurant that sells the “best pig ever!” according to Anthony Bourdain. I can’t definitively say that it’s the best I’ve ever had, but it was pretty delicious. The other food highlight was Larsian, an outdoor food court that sells barbecued meat and seafood. The food is amazing, but there’s a catch: you don’t get any utensils. You receive one plastic glove with your meal and are left to figure out how in the world you can manage to eat a whole meal one-handed. It was definitely an experience, and I’d say it was worth the struggle.

Our last day, we took a 4am car ride to Oslob, where the main event for the day would be swimming with whale sharks. We were greeted with a breakfast of mango sticky rice (which they claimed was a local dish although I’ve always thought it was Thai) and hot chocolate. Afterward, we got in the water for our 30 minutes with the whale sharks. We rented a GoPro to document this experience, which may or may not have been a good idea. Our guide acted as our photographer and constantly pushed us underwater to snap pictures of us with the whale sharks, which resulted in lots of funny pictures but not many in-person sightings.

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We spent the rest of the day on Sumilon Island, where we just hung out by the pool and at the beach all day. It was the perfect place to spend the day before coming back to final exams.

Well, I (barely) survived my first final yesterday, and it’s about time to get back to studying. I have eight days left in Singapore, so I’m squeezing in the rest of my semester to-do list during my study breaks. It’s hard to believe that my time abroad is coming to an end, but it’s been a semester filled with incredible travel opportunities that I’m so lucky to have experienced.

Kuching

Like most of you reading this, I had no prior knowledge of Kuching. I knew that I was booking a flight to Borneo, but nothing really beyond that. Well… I guess I heard ahead of time that its name means “Cat City,” but that has to be a bad sign for a dog person traveling there, right? I went to Kuching with no expectations and had yet another incredible trip to yet another Southeast Asian country. The only downside was the excessive number of cat statues. Those I could have done without. I mean… look at them:

Kuching was different than most other places I’ve traveled this semester, as it’s not a major city. The city is walkable, not too crowded, and full of kind people and delicious food–a pretty great combination. I especially loved the area along the waterfront near our hostel. It was so peaceful, and lots of the buildings had an artistic touch added to them.

Aiming for a relaxed weekend, we spent the majority of our first day hiking in Bako National Park… and acquiring sunburns. Somehow it’s easy to forget how close we are to the Equator here, and I’m sure my skin absolutely hates me for it.

Besides seeking out the best food Kuching had to offer, we spent the rest of our time roaming the city, going to museums, and visiting an orangutan sanctuary. The orangutans were hilarious–they clearly knew their photos were being taken, so they posed accordingly.

Now for the most important part of any of my trips: the food! This was debatably the best trip I’ve been on this semester in terms of the food, though it has some tough competition. It’s embarrassing to admit how many different types of food we managed to try over the course of the weekend (it was a long weekend, okay?), so I’ll just cover some local favorites and weird dishes: Sarawak laksa, 3-layer tea, beef prata roll, ice cream with gula apong syrup and cornflakes, white lady (a drink), and umai jellyfish.

That’s about it for my trip to Kuching. As I mentioned, it was a pretty relaxed weekend without too much excitement. I’ve been back in Singapore for almost a week and will be here for two more before I take off again–this time, to the Philippines. Between now and then, though, I’ll be hard at work finishing final projects, papers, and presentations as classes come to an end.

Bangkok in (Basically) a Day

Last Friday, we hopped on a plane for a quick trip to Bangkok, Thailand. We hit horrible traffic on the ride from the airport to our hostel, so we were left with just Friday evening, a full day Saturday, and a couple hours Sunday morning to explore.

Our experience was nothing like the one The Hangover guys had. We stayed the Old City, which was convenient to temples, the Grand Palace, and museums rather than the bar scene. Our hostel was awesome: it was clean, well-decorated, and spacious. Plus, the sleeping accommodations were a million times better than my dorm at NUS. The beds were big and there was air conditioning (!!!!!!). Totally made up for having to sleep in a bunk bed.

 

Friday night, we were wandering around the Old City when we met a woman who was very eager to help us find something to do. While we were walking behind her, she overheard us trying to settle on plans for the evening, turned around, and offered plenty of advice for our visit. She hailed a tuk tuk to take us to a pier, where we boarded a boat that toured us through the canals and by several temples. Parents and their children sat on their porches overlooking the canal, smiling and waving at us as we passed. I think Thailand has been my favorite country to visit so far, and that’s due in large part to how friendly the people were.

Afterward, we had dinner at a famous Pad Thai restaurant and had ice cream-topped toast for dessert (this and ice cream waffles are two things Asia has really gotten right).

 

Saturday was filled with touristy adventures. We visited the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, the Jim Thompson House Museum, the Golden Mount (a.k.a. Wat Saket), and Chinatown.

The temples were unbelievable. Every aspect of them is so intricately designed–I can’t imagine the process it took to create them.

The Jim Thompson House was awesome, although we unfortunately weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. Jim Thompson was an American designer who fell in love with Thailand. He lived in Bangkok until he traveled to Malaysia with friends, told them he was going on a walk, and  mysteriously disappeared (dun dun dunnnnn). His house was beautiful, and the retail shop carried products from his brand, which features really cool fabrics and patterns.

We saw a beautiful panoramic view of the city at the Golden Mount…

…and got a taste of Bangkok’s famous street food when we went to Chinatown for dinner. I guess I was too busy enjoying my meal to take pictures of the food.

 

Sunday, we woke up early to visit the flower market before heading back to the airport. The market is open 24/7. We were told to go around 3-4am to see all the shipments coming in but decided that was a little too early. Luckily, we were still able to see lots of gorgeous flowers and other plants.

 

I still can’t believe that I’m able to just jump on a plane to places like Thailand for weekend trips! Being able to travel so easily to other countries is something I probably will never get used to. I definitely don’t mind it, though.

SB2K16: Asia Edition

So… I haven’t been quite as great about blogging as I intended to be. Okay, I’ve been terrible. It’s been a whole month since my last post. I’ll try not to let that happen again.

With the exception of recess week (a.k.a. spring break), it’s been a fairly uneventful month by study abroad standards. I’m halfway through my semester at NUS, which means it’s midterm time. The week before break, I had papers and assessments due in two of my classes, and this past week (the week right after break), I had midterm exams for my other two courses. The ‘study’ part of study abroad really kicked in… and in full force. All I can say is that I’m extremely thankful that I’ll just be receiving pass/fail credit this semester. Classes here are tough. Enough about school stuff, though.

For recess week, Martha Stewart, Sam, and I went to Cambodia and Vietnam. This trip was the perfect example of something I likely would have never done–now or when I’m older–if it weren’t for studying abroad here. I’d never given much thought to visiting either of these places, but now I’m so glad I’ve had the opportunity to.

After nearly missing our flight out of Singapore (and a near panic attack on my end), we started our adventure in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where the main attraction is the Angkor temples. We made it to Angkor Wat for sunrise the first day and went to the temples pretty early the second day, too. It gets ridiculously hot in Siem Reap in the afternoon–so hot that you can hardly stand to be outside. So, we toured the temples both mornings and spent the afternoons visiting shops, restaurants, and fruit stands.

The temples were beautiful and we had fun exploring Siem Reap, but there were a couple negative aspects of this leg of our trip. The first was only slightly bad but had the potential to be very embarrassing: I ripped my pants. I’m not talking a little hole at the seam; it was much, much worse and very inconvenient considering that you’re supposed to dress conservatively at the temples. It was so bad that I had to buy a new pair of pants from a stall there. The second thing is that I contracted a gross cold while we were there, and I took it to Vietnam… brought it Singapore… and through midterm week… and I still can’t get rid of it 16 days later. This trip truly made me appreciate the clean air at home and in Singapore. The air in Siem Reap was dusty, lots more people were smoking cigarettes, and–both there and in Vietnam–people burned fake money on the sides of the road for good luck. This meant that we were constantly breathing in smoke or dirt. Here’s an accurate depiction of the air quality (no joke, this is a real picture I took):

From Siem Reap, we flew to Hanoi, which we used as home base for the remainder of our trip. We woke up early the next morning for a bus ride to Halong Bay, where we spent two days, one night on a boat and made various stops. The first one was at a cave. The inside featured blue, purple, red, and yellow lighting–all natural, I’m sure, and not tacky or touristy at all. Sense any sarcasm?

After the cave, we headed to Ti Top Island. There was a short, but steep, walk to a lookout with an incredible view.

We spent that night on the boat, and the crew cooked and served our meals. We went kayaking the next morning and had the opportunity to explore Halong Bay a little on our own. Afterward, we went back to the port to meet our bus. We made the trip back to Hanoi, freshened up at our hostel, and headed out again to catch an overnight train to Sapa.

Before I write about our Sapa experience, let me just say that we chose to visit Sapa and trek to its surrounding villages on a recommendation from one of Sam’s friends. One very important difference between her trip to Vietnam and ours is that she went in the fall (think: moderate temperatures/weather).

Okay, now back to our trip to Sapa. We did look up the weather before going, but that didn’t quite prepare us for the 50+ degree difference in temperatures between Sapa and Singapore. It was roughly 45 degrees Fahrenheit and rainy. Thank God I flew through New York on my way to Singapore, or I wouldn’t have had anything to wear. My down jacket is the only coat I brought with me, and that was solely intended for my layover. We also knew that we would be trekking through the rice terraces. However, we heard that it was all pretty low-intensity and figured that we would be following a trail of some sort.

All in all, the trek was virtually nothing like we’d expected. Remember how I mentioned sliding most of the way down the volcano in Bali? This time, I wasn’t the only one. We didn’t follow any sort of trail through the rice terraces the first day, and not a single person in our group made it down to the villages unscathed. We were covered in mud and freezing from the rain and cold temperatures. The silver lining is that it could have been a lot worse. Women from the villages trekked the whole way with us. It was clear from the beginning that they were trying to make friends with the tourists so that we would eventually give them money. Little did I know, I would have been doomed without “my friend,” as my lady enthusiastically referred to me every time she lost me or I fell. She stuck with me all day, as other ladies did with my group members, and helped me through the terraces. Once we made it to her village, I declared to Martha Stewart and Sam that I owed her my life (a little dramatic, I know, but I was feeling traumatized at the time). Turns out, I only had $3 to give her. So, if anyone’s wondering how much my life is worth, looks like that’s it. The second day was not nearly as rainy, and we actually did stick to trails most of the time. As you can tell, likely a different experience than Sam’s friend had when she recommended it to us, but a good one nonetheless.

After our second day of trekking, we hopped on another overnight train and headed back to Hanoi (again). We only ended up spending one full day there, but it was pretty full. It might have been my favorite day of the whole trip. There were just little things we saw throughout the day that made the city seem so charming. As we set out to start our day, we passed a group of couples dancing in the park. There were gorgeous flowers, which really popped against the otherwise gray day. The streets were packed with motorbikes. And, it never got old seeing people eat pho on tiny stools on nearly every street corner.

We covered about 15 miles exploring the city by foot. We hit Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, the Temple of Literature, a food tour, a traditional water puppet show, a pho restaurant, and an ice cream shop (not as culturally rich an experience as our other activities).

The food tour was the uncontested highlight of the day. These are some of the things we tried: egg coffee, bo bia (fried sugar cane, fresh coconut, and black sesame seeds wrapped in corn paper), banh cuon nong (Hanoi steamed cake w/ mushroom, shallots, pork, and shrimp powder), nom thit bo kho (green papaya salad w/ fried beef), chicken banh my (secret to the delicious bread: the Vietnamese use rice flour instead of wheat flour to make their baguettes), Vietnamese doughnut, and banh goi/men cua be (pillow cakes/spring rolls filled with chicken, pork, crab, vermicelli, carrots).

Oh, and did I mention that our day in Hanoi was also Sam’s 21st birthday? How many people get to say they went to a Vietnamese water puppet show to celebrate their birthday? Or that they didn’t have a single drink on their 21st? On that note, I’ll conclude that our spring break and Sam’s 21st were just a tad different than they would have been if not in Asia.

Bali

I took my first trip out of Singapore last weekend, and I started pretty big. Bali is somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit. Now that it’s only a short plane trip away, why not go at my first opportunity? I’m not entirely sure what I expected of the island beyond beautiful beaches, but Bali far surpassed any ideas I had about it prior to visiting.

The trip was three days, three nights long. Since I only have classes Monday through Wednesday, I have plenty of time to travel on the weekends. I went with Martha Stewart (who goes to UNC), four guys from the University of Michigan, and one of the guys’ girlfriends. We stayed in a cute B&B in Kuta. This area is normally pretty touristy, but it isn’t so bad this time of year since it’s low season.

Day 1

The first of two days with absurdly early wake-up calls. We had to catch a taxi from campus at 2am to make it to the airport for our 5am flight. This had us arriving in Bali at 8am, ready for a full day ahead. Definitely worth it.

Martha Stewart* and I took the day to explore while the others went surfing. It’s not that I didn’t want to surf–I just wanted to see as much of Bali as I could in our short visit.

*sidenote: I should probably mention that Martha Stewart and I are the only two business exchange students here from UNC, barely knew each other before this semester (despite living on the same hall freshman year), and figured out that we actually get along unexpectedly well. I spend the majority of my time with Sam, who I’m sure you’ll hear about later, and her. Basically, I came halfway around the world to make a friend from home. Crazy how that works.

First stop: breakfast. An adjustment I’ve had to make since coming to Singapore (not mentioned in my last post) is the type of food I eat for breakfast. Living in Tri Delt last semester, I started every morning with a veggie and egg white omelette with fresh fruit. Here, the dining hall offers less glamorous options like toast, noodles, and apples that are sometimes edible. Needless to say, I’ve missed my breakfast routine. We were determined to find something so good that it made up for the dining hall’s shortcomings and, thankfully, we did! We came across Bene Lane Cafe between our hostel and the beach.

From there, we made our way to Kuta Beach. It was an overcast day, but even without the clouds, I couldn’t imagine that beaches like this were what made people love Bali. So, we grabbed a taxi to Seminyak, looked in some of the shops there, and walked along the beach all the way back to Kuta. For the rest of the afternoon, we just walked down whatever streets and alleys we came across and gained a pretty solid understanding of the area’s layout. Some spots were clearly targeted directly at tourists, but I thought our hostel’s surroundings were fairly well-balanced. There were local businesses, restaurants, and culture plus some shops and products with which I’m more familiar.

We all set out to find dinner together and stumbled upon a delicious Lebanese restaurant. I wish I had gotten a picture that did the restaurant or my meal justice. We sat on cushions on the floor, shared Mediterranean appetizers, and tried Bintang (Indonesia’s most popular beer) for the first time. Martha Stewart and I got to pick out the fish we wanted for dinner, which was then prepared and served to us whole. Another meal for the books.

Day 2

Believe it or not, day 2 started with an even earlier morning than the day before. Martha Stewart and I scheduled a hike to the top of Mount Batur to see the sunrise, and we had to be ready to leave the hostel by 1am. A hotel on the island organized the morning. A driver picked us up at 1am and drove us two hours to the hotel, where we had tea before setting off for the hike with our guide. It was about three miles each way and took around an hour and a half to reach the top. I slid most of the way down (pretty standard for always-graceful Zoe), so I imagine that part didn’t take quite so long. Not surprisingly, I napped hard after that on the ride back to our hostel.

Hikers congregated at the top about an hour before sunrise and ate breakfast together. It was windy and dark, obviously, and I actually felt cold for the first time since I came abroad–not necessarily comfortable, but it was a nice change from the heat. I should point out that Mount Batur is an active volcano. Our guide tossed a couple of eggs in an opening on the volcano’s side, let them sit for 15 minutes, and served us hard boiled eggs and fruit for breakfast. It started off as a pretty cloudy day, so we were worried that there wouldn’t be much to see in terms of a sunrise. We weren’t really able to see the sun, but luckily the clouds didn’t keep the colors from filling up the sky. 

Once it was light, monkeys stormed the area where everyone had been eating breakfast. They stole the remaining food and threw our trash all over the place.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the beach and headed to a waterfront bar for the sunset. Not quite the caliber of the morning’s sunrise, but we were ~blessed~ enough to listen to an Indonesian singer’s renditions of songs by none other than JBiebs and TSwift as the sun sank into the water (not a high point of the trip). Afterward, I experienced my first motorbike ride (more like a scooter–please don’t kill me, Mom!), which was surprisingly more fun than it was scary. Indonesian drivers can be crazy, so I was pretty worried.

We had another dinner where we sat on cushions instead of chairs and vowed not to eat at another real table unless it was absolutely necessary. I had local mahimahi wrapped in banana leaves.

Day 3

Our last day, we went to a hidden beach and a sea temple. That morning, one of the guys ran into a Michigan alum who graduated a couple years ago and was on vacation with one of her friends. Together, the nine of us hired drivers to take us to Uluwatu, on the southern part of the island.

The beach we found is called Nyang Nyang, and it’s absolutely beautiful. It also looks completely different from the touristy beach in Kuta that I mentioned earlier. Except for the occasional visitors and surfers, Nyang Nyang is essentially untouched. There’s even a ship there that wrecked years ago, and its two halves still sit yards away from each other on the beach. This was definitely my favorite place in Bali.

Later in the afternoon, we visited Uluwatu Sea Temple, took in more views of the ocean, and saw even more (meaner) monkeys. The monkeys love to steal phones, hats, sunglasses, and pretty much anything else they can snatch away from people. You can allegedly bargain with them and get your belongings back in exchange for food.

Not surprisingly, we were exhausted by the time we got back to our hostel. The restaurant we went to the second night had a variety of foods on their menu and was nice, so we went back. Tired and hungry, we broke our vow, agreed to be seated at a normal table, and I–no joke–had the best meal of my life.

 

It was a packed three days, and I think it’s safe to say that Bali was a success.

Hello from the other side…of the world

Today marks one month since I left the US to come to Singapore for the semester. So, I figured it’s about time to let people know what I’ve been up to. Apologies in advance for the length of this–it’s a little hard to cram a whole month into one blog post.

What have I been doing?

This is the part where I give my list of excuses for taking so long to make a blog.* I promise, they’re good ones! As an exchange student, I had to wait a while for the approval of my Student’s Pass, which enables me to leave the country. As a result, I’ve just been doing things around Singapore for the past four weeks with the exception of a trip to Bali last weekend (I’ll cover that in my next post). Here are some highlights:

Marina Bay. This is the area you see in almost every picture of Singapore or its skyline. It’s the one behind the title of this blog. Standing by Marina Bay, you see the iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel, the Merlion, the arts and science museum, the sparkling Louis Vuitton building, the Singapore Flyer, and the skyscrapers of the financial district (among many other things). There are lots of restaurants and shopping in this area, plus a pretty neat light show every night.

Singapore Flyer. Near Marina Bay, but it needed its own section so I could include all my pictures. By far, the most touristy thing I’ve done thus far. My friends and I went one of our first days here. After hours of orientation activities, we were ready for a break from campus and set out to see the city. Campus is beautiful and pretty sizable, but the atmosphere is completely different than in the city. It started to feel small quickly, and this was the perfect way to gain perspective on how much is really going on in Singapore.

Chinatown. A very busy area right now, as Chinese New Year is approaching. We went to the hawker (a big food center), a temple, and explored what the street vendors had to offer. The food was undoubtedly the best part. A local introduced our group of exchange students to popular foods that I would never have tried on my own. However, there was also a clear winner for the worst part of my Chinatown experience: trying durian. Without exaggeration, I can say that it’s the worst smelling food I have ever encountered…and it has an aftertaste to match. Apparently it’s a must-try when you visit Singapore, so I’m at least glad that I can say I’ve eaten it and that I never have to again.

Arab Street. Definitely one of my favorite areas. There are lots of cute shops and plenty of Middle Eastern cuisine. The meal below is one of the best I’ve had since arriving in Singapore (it even rivaled Med Deli…that’s saying something).

Satay Street. Another highlight that made the list because of the food. And another tourist trap. Oops. At 7pm, a street next to the Raffles Quay hawker closes,  and vendors set up ten satay stalls and tables. We did some research ahead of time to make sure we ordered from the best stalls. Satay Street definitely lived up to the high expectations I had for it.

Apologies for the bad photo quality. Still haven’t mastered the art of food pics.

 

*One important excuse that didn’t make the highlights: I spent a solid two days asking anyone’s and everyone’s opinions on a blog name. All we came up with is this really mediocre one. What can I say? Creativity has never been my strong point.

What’s different?

It’s clean! I don’t necessarily think of most places in the US as being particularly dirty, but public places here are just incredibly clean. You’ve likely heard that gum isn’t allowed in Singapore and that there are harsh consequences for littering. That’s at least partially true. You can chew gum, but it’s not sold here. I’m actually not sure what the repercussions are if you get caught littering, but people just don’t do it.

The classroom atmosphere. I was really surprised how different the experience of attending lecture is here. Students talk for the entirety of the class to the point where it’s nearly impossible to hear the professor–even from the front row. Only one of my professors has even acknowledged this and makes a point to keep the classroom quiet while she’s teaching. I guess my other classes will take some getting used to.

The climate. Florida summers don’t even come close to the heat and humidity here. As someone who hates winter, I was excited to skip the cold this year. I guess I got what I wished for. And, it’s only supposed to get hotter and more humid during my stay.

The accommodations. I’m back in a dorm with a meal plan. Not the worst thing in the world. But this part might be the worst thing in the world: I don’t have air conditioning. Within my first week of being here, my computer couldn’t take the heat or the moisture from the humidity. It went totally dead for about five days. I’m figuring out how to cope, though. I keep my fan on high 24/7, and I currently have six dehumidifiers in my room. I now keep my computer in a drawer with its own dehumidifier inside. This has probably been the hardest adjustment of my study abroad experience so far.

What’s the same?

More than expected. Singapore is fairly westernized. Everywhere you go to eat, there’s a western option–and it’s not just for the Americans or Europeans who miss home. Most people are at least proficient in English. Stores carry lots of products and brands that I recognize. Classes are evaluated with continuous assessment, so I have homework and group projects in addition to quizzes and tests.

 

Overall, it’s been a pretty great first month. It’s hard to believe that I’m already a quarter of the way through my program. I can’t wait to see what the next three months bring!