A Quick Stopover in Singapore (Sept. 2nd, 2013)

Since the flight to Indonesia is fairly long, it makes sense that we wouldn't fly directly there, but instead bop around a few different cities and countries before arriving in the capital of Indonesia, (which is still an hour and a half from the city I'm supposed to live in). So my total journey would take me from camping in Indiana (wahoo!) to the Cincinnati airport, to Chicago, and then to Hong Kong, followed by a day and a half layover in Singapore before carrying on to Jakarta and then Pontianak, Indonesia (my town for the next nine or so months).  So the question that I'm sure is on all of your minds is: "What the heck did you do during that day and a half in Singapore?!" Let me tell you.

For starters, we had a mini one day orientation where we were informed of certain "need to know" items that would hopefully keep us from getting into too much trouble during the four days we would spend in our host cities before returning to The Jakarta area for orientation. These tidbits were things such as how to find water, what we should expect from our housing situation, a few local customs, etcetera.  So with the basic Indonesian information jotted down, we were given the rest of the day to explore the city of Singapore. And this is what we saw...

The "Mer-Lion," a mascot and national personification of Singapore. Half lion, half Mer, all awesome.

The city of Singapore is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever had the pleasure of wandering around.  Along with a group of 5 other ETAs (English Teaching Assistants), we toured the inner part of the city that surrounds a bay of water.  The buildings and streets were so incredibly clean, leading some of my compatriots to be creeped out by the eerie utopian feel of the city.  Some would say it felt as if there were secret police lurking behind each bush and inside every trash can, just waiting to jump out and terrify any wayward pedestrian who dared to litter their beautiful city.  Personally, I greatly enjoyed the intense cleanliness of the area, even though the awesomeness of the sparkling city was overshadowed by one thing... BENCHES. The city is chalk full of intense street art, my favourite of which is all of the absurd benches. I never thought I could get so excited about a platform that you sit on... 

This one was a parabola!!!

 Some cool fake trees. And what is that in the background, you might ask? It's a boat. On the top of three buildings. No big deal. Except that it's the coolest thing ever!  Let's check it out up close - 

And the round half disk thing is meant to replicate a lotus flower, and has a beautiful lotus pond underneath of it. That white building is actually a science museum, which makes sense since it looks like a lotus flower. Here's a picture of the aforementioned lotus pond, with e armored ETAs sitting on its edge:

After wandering around the inner city by the water, we walked through the giant 3 buildings with the boat on top, crossed over some major roads, and visited the Gardens by the Bay.  Singapore's quest to become the City in a Garden is no more evident than in the Gardens by the Bay, where the Singaporean government compiled trees and plants from all over the world (except Antartica for some reason...) into a giant park for tourists and the people of Singapore. Hopefully the following pictures will do the garden justice, but I just want to quickly say that they was so much of the garden that we didn't get to see due to time restrictions. The place was super cool though, especially the giant metal trees with plants growing off of them!

Check out all the greenery...and the giant metal trees with random bromeliads on their trunks.

Grounds crew in serious haz-mat costumes keeping things clean and tidy.

An awesome double helix bridge leading back into the city! It was wobbly, but architectural!

A artsy photo of flowers for my sister who taught me all I know about artsy flower shots.

So that was Singapore. An awesome city by a bay, soon to be known word-wide as the "City in the Garden."  Spending just shy of a day and a half in Singapore was definitely not enough time to see all of the awesome bits and pieces this city has to offer. But for now, it must do :)   Now it's time to head to a country known more for its natural beauty! And so, with VISA in hand, we all headed off to Indonesia!

And if you couldn't tell, this post was started over a week ago, and I just wrapped it up... So basically you can expect delays in my blog posts from time to time! But I'll do my best to keep up.

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." - Roald Dahl

Talk to you soon,

Ryan