Singapore approaching goodbyes

Before it is not possible anymore, I would like to give a little tour around the NTU Campus.

This is my hall. I spent a lot of my time here the last four months. I will and I won't miss it. As we are approaching the end, everything is accompanied by a mixed feeling.

I won't miss this one and his buddies. Did you know my hall is known as the bugs hall? It was not too bad though throughout the semester, until.. tatataaa my neighbour discovered a HUGE cockroach in her room.

Our lovely busstop where we wait for the shuttle bus (yes, the campus is that big).

People start to more and more eat western food, or at least that is what they call it here. In the canteens it is more like an Asian interpretation of Western food and it will do for now, until we get home and eat all the dishes we have missed. Of course, there is always McDonalds, Subway, Pizza Hut and many others that you can go to to have a taste like home ;).

In the meantime, I'm still very much enjoying the fruit juices and the bubble tea here: a drink with little balls of jelly inside, it's nice! And all the fresh fruit.. if you ever get to go to this part of the world, you should definitely try dragon fruit.

The University has opened the Student Activities Centre this year, where you can take a break from studying (or study there if you can stand the noise, it's open until 2am) by playing a board game or play a game on the Wii or Playstation, play snooker or get a drink from Starbucks and relax. Big big plus! I sometimes sit here until late and the relaxed atmosphere distracts you from the fact that you are studying: that way, you can pretend you are not studying while you are!

The main Library looks like this.

And I have to say that it looks like and is a learning factory where you can actually sense the stress in the air. That's why I prefer studying at HSS (Humanities and Social Sciences) Library where it is much quieter and a more relaxed atmosphere. Plus it is not so full, so there is even a possibility of finding a seat after 10!

And sometimes I just go home. Then my desk looks like this:

At the moment I took the picture I was still enjoying the chocoladepepernoten that Iris gave to me (thanks to her visiting mum and sister!). Now they are all gone.

Two more weeks until the semester is over. I have to admit, I am struggling a bit with getting myself to work hard, especially when the exams are still a week away. I will be happy when it is December 2nd, and I can look back on a hopefully successful semester grade-wise. In all the other ways it has been great and I'm still enjoying being here:).

Luckily some new adventures are ahead: On December 4 Iris and I will leave for Phuket to have some well deserved holiday :). From there we will fly to Bangkok and visit Cambodia, Laos and then Thailand again, where we will end with a diving course. Can't wait.

xxx

A turbulent time is behind me with many adventures, visitors and also some studying. Ahead is four more weeks until the end of the semester, which will be filled with deadlines (this week) and studying and making exams (final three weeks). I can't believe that I am on the verge of leaving Singapore. Before I return to our cold little country, I will spend five weeks traveling in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand; I will definitively report on all the events facing us then! But until then, an update on the past few weeks in Singapore and surroundings.

The first few weeks after recess were dominated

by school work (midterms and essays) and some really sad events. In about a week's time several items of sad news reached us and we did not really know how to respond on deal with this: two girls from the exchange group at NTU got into an accident in Vietnam and were in very bad condition. By now, one of them is back in Singapore but the other has passed away which has made a big impression on all the exchange students. One of the exchange students returned home after he heard that his mum had passed away; it still does not make sense and it is very sad. Finally, an accident happened back ho

me, not involving people I knew personally, but which is still very scary as it makes you realize that a fatal accident could happen just like that. And if that wasn't enough, a friend of a friend passed away in a flight accident.

Luckily, also happier things happened. I went to a concert of a symphony orchestra here on campus, together with my roomie. We could both use a break and it was a lot of fun! It was themed to children as it happened to be children's day when the concert was given, so many happy cheerful songs were played, such as the Super Mario theme song and a song called the 'Typewriter' (look it up on youtube, it is fun!).

In the meantime, my mum returned to Singapore from Indonesia and I showed her around a bit. It is very nice for me that she knows what my life is like here. We visited the Peranakan Museum which was great! Sadness overruled however when she left again, but fortunately, it would not be long until my boyfriend would arrive. I don't think I have ever been more impatient.

A block party organized by a few exchange people was a welcome change to all the studying I had been doing. I think that counts for everyone, as everybody seems to have locked themselves into their rooms to finally get some studying done as there is no way to put it off anymore. The security guard came out when it got too noisy and he wanted the names of the people who organized it. Don't give any names is the general advice, since you never know whether serious consequences will follow (have I told you that Singapore is quite strict?) As far as I know, nothing really happened except for people not b

eing able to control the volume of their voice anymore.

*drum roll*

It eventually turned into Monday. Finally. I went to the airport and waited. The flight was delayed and I waited a bit more. Eventually, Yannick got his luggage and went through the gates to meet me after 3 long months! We waited - together now, so it was all good - for check-in for our next flight to Bali.

I would like to end with some typical things for Indonesia. First thing: bargaining. It is something you have to get used to but once you are it is quite fun. The main thing is to determine what you want to pay before you start. A couple of times we found ourselves in the situation that we were looking at each other like 'I don't know, and I don't know what it is worth and I don't know how low he will go'. The results is often negative then. Of course you also need to know what the prices approximately are. If you are in a busy tourist spot, you can count on higher prices and an annoyed salesman when you try to get the same

price as on the market. It is easiest when you see something that you like, but not NEED to have. You can just stick to your price and if the seller doesn't want to sell it for that price, it's fine. We found ourselves in low season and therefore people who really, really wanted to sell something, and I mean really: they try to get you to their shop and if you don't buy anything sometimes they get angry. Luckily we ran into nice sellers as well and I got lucky buying sarongs (I'm a huge fan, I would buy so many if I couldn't control myself): a really nice Bali-style one and an expensive one which I spotted from outside which I got for much cheaper because she really needed to sell something. I have to admit that I felt a bit guilty, but my Indonesian friend (who is a tough bargainer herself) shook her head when I told her and discarded it.

Second highlight of Bali: the people in general. I picked up some Indonesian before and that shows to be highly appreciated by the locals. Some really funny things happened because of it. First, we were at the beach in Sanur where you have all these little stalls with food and also with young coconuts (kelapa muda) so I asked her how much they were in Indonesian. She looked at my in amazement and when I tried to negotiate the price, she agreed, something she would probably not do if it concerns tourists. Second inciden

t was in a shop where Yannick and I were looking at sarongs. The lady in the shop was watching TV and was totally focused on that, not paying attention to us at all. When I looked around the corner and started to say some little sentences, she was literally shocked. I don't think it fit into her frame of reference. Again funny.

I love Bali. Ubud is beautiful and there is so much to do that 3 days there is obviously not enough. Amed was a nice change from the more touristic places, where I could really use my Bahasa Indonesia, since the extent to which people speak English there is much lower. But we got a warm welcome and with some "hands and feet work" you'll succeed in understanding each other.

So far for now. As I haven't been writing that regularly, I will update again soon with my final post in Singapore!

Love, Fleur