And the final end to my travel blog.

INTRODUCTION

Before I arrived in Singapore, I had this vague, grandiose idea that my travel blog would serve as some sort of informal travel guide where I would give restaurant and club recommendations of Singapore, NUS survival tips, travel advice and all sorts of other hokey information that you would find in a travel magazine found in the front pocket of your airline seat. This worked maybe in the beginning when I would drunkenly type in the name of a dance club I just came home from on a blog entry (I believe my first club experience in Singapore was Ministry of Sound) before passing out on my dorm bed.

Over the course of several months, the whole pressure to make the blog so travel-y and informative faded away as it instead became just another personal blog about my life--which HAPPENED to occur in Southeast Asia instead of UCLA. So while you will see many beautiful, panoramic photographs of the beaches of Indonesia or the temples of Thailand that will undoubtedly make your jaws drop, you will also read several banal entries (my taking on a new skin-care regimen, my quarter-life-crisis musings) that have nothing to do with the joys of studying abroad and may be of no interest to you at all.

Upon retrospect, I am glad that I took this approach instead of simply making it a recitation of cool places to see and do. Studying abroad in Singapore isn't just about country-hopping to every tourist trap in Southeast Asia or taking cool pictures to make your friends jealous. It is also a very personal internal journey of reconciling your former attitudes with the sudden onslaught of a completely different cultural and geographical environment, which can bring about very uncomfortable or enlightening (usually both) revelations about yourself and the rest of the world. After a while, it becomes less about the glamor of being in another country and more about simply accepting the new changes as a part of your everyday life.

I have tried to record down as many relevant memories and observations as possible in this travel blog for future reference--not only for myself, but for other people. I could go on and on with a much longer introduction, but for your sake, I have decided to pass along some pearls of wisdom for future students who wish to study abroad in Singapore.

Keep in mind, though, that while there are many things that are written in this blog, there are also many things that are NOT included. One informal blog of one person's purely subjective experiences is certainly not enough to encompass all that there is to studying abroad.


SOME THINGS I WISH I BOUGHT OR KNEW BEFORE I WENT TO SINGAPORE

- This is just me, but I wouldn't bother buying a Singapore travel guide. Singapore is so freaking SMALL and so easy to travel around in, it is impossible to get lost in Singapore. If you want your fill of all the hokey tourist things to do in Singapore, you can easily get the information from other exchange students and locals. (And one important point: make really good local friends! They will show you the best of everything!) Personally, a better investment is Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Budget , which will give you highly informative descriptions and ideas on country-hopping all over Southeast Asia, which you WILL be doing. Which brings me to my next point...

- Invest in a good travel backpack. If you are a typical exchange student in Singapore, you will probably visit a minimum of five different countries in Southeast Asia by the time your term is over. Do yourself a favor and get a good travel backpack from REI or something--you'll look more like a hardcore traveler, not to mention be able to carry more stuff on you with maximum space efficiency. Plus, you'll be able to use it for future adventures when you are done with traveling through Southeast Asia and you have the travel bug to conquer the rest of the world. Which brings me to my NEXT point...

- For the love of God, invest in decent hiking shoes. This doesn't apply to you if you plan on sticking to chic urban places and all you want to do is shop, sip tea and explore antique stores. Chances are, though, you are a little bit more adventurous than that and you want to climb ancient temples, trek through forests, rice terraces and rugged mountain peaks. Right? (See this blog entry for what happens when you decide to go hiking with flimsy sandals.) Your rough and dirty nature adventures will be all the more rewarding if you are not worrying about falling flat on your face. Don't even think about buying shoes while you are there because chances are, it will fall apart within a couple of days--which is what happened to my friend while she was traveling with me in Vietnam.

- Bring some photographs, posters and mementos from back home to decorate your new home in Singapore. Because seriously, you are going to need something to decorate your bare dorm room with when you finally arrive to Singapore. And what's more depressing than sleeping in a prison-like room with no decorations when you are lonely, homesick and insecure with yourself for the first few weeks of being away from home?

- Bug spray and sunscreen. Unless you an immortal, you WILL get bitten by mosquitoes a lot. Bring all that anti-itch ointments and bug spray with you. For some reason, sunscreen is ridiculously expensive in Singapore so invest in one of those huge, economy-sized sunscreen bottles that will last you for a good chunk of your stay abroad.

- A bank account in Singapore. I didn't do this myself, but several of my fellow exchange classmates opened a bank account in Singapore so they didn't have to worry about transaction fees every time they withdrew money from the ATM. I kind of wish I did that myself, because all those small transaction fees of withdrawing money abroad really does add up. Something for people to consider.

- Get Skype. Bug all your friends and family members to get this free internet calling service. Then you can hear their beautiful, wonderful voices from across the other side of the globe. I think all you need is some headset or something like that. I personally did not utilize this myself, but this was a popular tool for people with significant others back home.


THE MORE UNEXPLORED SIDE OF SINGAPORE (The little things.)

So yeah, yeah, by the time you're all settled and comfy, you'll probably go to Sentosa Island, go to all those freaking bars in the Clark Quay region and if you are a lady, you will take advantage of lady's night on Wednesday nights where you get free admission AND free drinks at Double O.

Personally, I didn't care much for the popular tourist attractions, like the zoo, the bird park, and the orchid garden. As for all the popular clubs and bars, you will learn them fast. What I appreciated the most were the lesser-known nooks found either by accident or through a local friend. Here are some favorites:

- Books Actually. A little hole-in-the-wall indie bookstore on the second floor of some building near Chinatown. I only went to this place once maybe a week before I left the country, and I wish I had a chance to explore it more. In addition to having a great collection of books, there are also random quirky things (matchboxes bearing canonical book covers, cool indie magazines, old-school typewriters etc.) that may tickle your smug hipster pretensions. Sometimes they have art openings of local artists, and that always has free food.

- Somewhere on the third or fourth floor of the Esplanade, there is a small music, movie, drama and art library located next to a small indoor cafe. If you go to the very top of the building, you are rewarded with a wonderful view of the Clark Quay bay, where Singaporean high schoolers and couples hang out to enjoy the outdoor air.

- So much freaking good food. Okay, okay, so I said that you don't really need a Singapore travel guide, but you MAY want to invest in a FOOD guide of Singapore once you are at the country. There are so many great places to eat it's unbelievable. I wish I can remember specific locations of places that tickled my fancy the most, but there are so many of them I honestly can't remember. (I do remember three dishes that I absolutely love, though: char kway teow, carrot cake, and fried oyster. You do not know what they are now, but you will once you get there.) So yes. Invest in a good guide. And get a good local friend who will show you all the hot spots. Geylang has some great seafood, like red chili and black pepper crabs, I just don't remember the exact location. Like I said, make a really cool local friend. Speaking of Geylang...

- The prostitution quarters of Geylang. What the hell? Singapore says no littering and spitting, but yes to sex for money? Go figure. Maybe I'm just a shameless voyeur, but I had to see this for myself. Like the random hot eatery spots, I don't remember the specific location of this place, but you should enlist in a local friend to show you. (If you are a female, a MALE friend.) I won't say it was a particularly enjoyable experience, but it definitely was an eye-opener.

- The Buddhist Temple and the Hindu Temple in Bughis. Bughis is one of the central shopping districts of Singapore. It also has a Buddhist Temple and a Hindu Temple right next to each other in midst of all the commercial mayhem. I really like Bughis (not the indoor mall part, but the place where there's all the small vendors), it's a busy, colorful and diverse place. There are always traditional street performers, people trying to sell medicine on loudspeakers and a crowd of people burning incense sticks for good furtune.

- Volunteering at the Communicable Disease Center every Saturday. This isn't so much a place, but an activity, and probably one of the most rewarding activities I did while I was in Singapore. Through Professor Albert Teo (whose office I believe is located where the University Scholars Programme office is on campus), I learned of this opportunity to spend a few hours with AIDS patients and massage their arms and legs with massage oils. Not only do you meet a lot of amazing people outside of NUS, you are also exposed to another side of Singapore that isn't the government-promoted squeaky-clean image of economic prosperity and racial harmony.


AND NOW FOR THE REST OF SOUTHEAST ASIA:

First, I will list all the useful travel resources that you will probably be using when you want to country-hop the rest of Southeast Asia when you've been in Singapore for a month and you realize that you have already seen everything that the tiny country has to offer. .... okay, I'm just kidding. But Singapore really is SMALL.


- Lonely Planet, in addition to making great travel books, has its own website. While the book version is a lot more informative, the website can be a useful tool for giving a condensed version of the sights you want to see and the lodgings you should stay at.

- Jetstar is a budget airline for traveling cheaply in Southeast Asia. So is Tiger Airways and Air Asia. Chances are you will be using those three airlines the most when you are purchasing tickets to country-hop.

- The U.S. Government website on travel alerts. Southeast Asia, undeniably, has a lot of cool things. Like jungles, monkeys, temples, floating markets and motorbikes. That, and there's also civil unrest, terrorist attacks, typhoons, illegal sex slavery, bloodless military coups... well, you get the point. If you want to be a responsible and safe traveler, check up on travel alerts often.

A FEW BLOG HIGHLIGHTS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

- How durian looks like a jaundiced penis and other observations of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.

- The beaches of Bintan Indonesia are absolutely gorgeous.

- Melaka, the historical town in Malaysia, that kind of makes you feel like you're in San Diego or Mexico, but kind of not.

- How you can shoot guns in Cambodia and all sorts of other crazy things that you probably won't do elsewhere.

- The ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous crowds of people of Hong Kong.

- Talking to a Buddhist Monk, riding an elephant, and visiting a lot of cool temples in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

- Thailand just had a bloodless military coup but I still went to Thailand anyway and I even took a shameless picture of myself posing next to an army tank parked in front of the capitol building.

- A long rant on how Singaporean law just doesn't make sense.

- I never had a chance to write a blog entry about this experience, but if you do have the chance, go visit Tiomann, Malaysia, where you can go snorkeling and see some really, really pretty and colorful fish.

People always ask me what my favorite countries to visit were, and I always say Cambodia, with a close second being Hong Kong and Vietnam.

There is plenty more in this blog, of course. You're just going to have to find them for yourself.


AND SOME CLOSING REMARKS

Everyone has their own personal style of traveling, but asides from having a very rough itinerary of knowing what city I was in for x number of days, I mostly winged it once I got there (with the help of a very beat-up Lonely Planet travel guide). Personally, I think it's more fun that way, and there is nothing like the exhilaration of an unexpected experience due to a chance conversation with another traveler or local.

Studying abroad is a life-changing experience. It's completely different from traveling abroad because visiting a place and living at the place are two very different experiences. I can give you another lengthy essay on why this is so, but rather than hear it from me, you should go out there and see for yourself.

So what are you waiting for? Life is short. College is even shorter. Who really has a chance to do this kind of thing when they have a stable job or are married with kids? Do yourself a favor and get out there already. Think of all those blank pages in your passport just waiting to be filled.

On a very final note, get yourself a travel blog. If you're not going to remember your experiences, who's going to do it for you?

- YS