Singapore Time

It was nice and sunny this morning, and now its raining again. The rain keeps it less humid, so I'm not complaining much, except on the weekends, when I want to go to the beach.

I'm still just settling into classes. Haven't been to my Viet one or Japanese one yet. Viet doesn't start until next week. My civil engineering classes seem alright so far, taking water resource, construction project management, and CE materials and steel structural systems.

There seems to be so much going on on campus, much more than waterloo. there are so many plays, production, sports. Or maybe at waterloo I just don't see them advertised. There is definitely a lot of student body spirit, here.

This is a view from my old apartment.

The cars here -- like everything else -- are so clean! Seriously, they all look like they've just been driven off the dealership lot! When I was living off campus, I saw people wiping them down every morning. Wiping the dew off, I guess. I later learned that its so expensive here to own a car -- since they are trying promote more public transportation and limit the number of cars sold every year.

I heard that for even a very basic car, such as the Honda civic, costs about $70K Singapore (conversion rate is about $1cnd = $1.3 sing). So basically, if you can afford a car, you can afford to pay someone to wipe it down every morning! amazing. I think we wash our car every month or so at home! Even less in the winters.


The people here are very serious about what they do. Whether it be sweeping the sidewalks or cleaning the garbage. They seem to always be busy and concentrating on whatever it is they are doing, and happy to be doing what they are doing.

Oh yea, there are so many more Dove and Oil of Olay products here than Canada. Or maybe I should say different. I guess they must be the Asian division or something, because they seem to be catered towards Asian women.

For instance, I bought a shower gel, and its got "pearl powder known to help whiten skin naturally. Its rich and creamy foam, with nourishing milks proteins, gently cleanses away dull dark skin to reveal smooth, fair skin." and they have the same stuff for face too. Some of the more strong "whitening" products are really expensive. its funny how in North America, we have bronzers and self tanners, and here we have whitening products. lol...

People text like crazy -- or SMS as its usually referred to. Its cheaper than calling, so thats what they do. I'm getting quite good at it now. Yea right. I am so glad that my phone has the feature where it will guess the word. It would drive me crazy if I had to press the button 2 or 3 times just to get the letter I want. I'm lazy. I know.

Time to do some hw. Apparently, its supposed to be pretty competitive here since everything is bell curved. Since I've missed the first week of lectures, I should do some reading. Course notes are so cheap here. I think you really just pay for the paper. And books are pretty cheap too. I might buy my books here. My concrete texts (though i havent bought it yet) was only $44 sing, which is about $35 cnd! Wow. Its really ridiculous how much we're ripped off in Canada!


I finally get to meet the people in my res with a res party later tonight. Apparently here, if you have your door open, it doesn't really mean, "hey come meet me..." It just means that they have their door open. I learned that when I was being friendly to the first person who opened their door on my floor. She seemed to be confused as to why I was introducing myself, and it was a somewhat awkward conversation. Lesson learned.

The food. I'm in heaven. Seriously. So delicious.

There are so many malls here. There really isn't that much to do in Singapore. So people shop. A lot. If you can afford to, that it. Here are some pictures along Orchard Rd. The other picture is taken in Vivo City. It looks much like a playground with stores in it, due to all the bright colours.