More first glance observations

I think I left off my last post talking about the school. The school itself is in a nice residential area that is not as close to the heart of the city as I had hoped. To get into town, I have to take the internal bus (basically the campus shuttle) to a city bus stop, where I take that bus to the MRT station, where I can at last get downtown. They are actually in the process of building a new MRT line which will have a station right next to my dorm... so I guess I came just a bit too early for extra convenience. To get to class, I just take the internal bus to the Engineering Faculty, which is practically on the other side of campus. But the buses tend to go pretty fast. There's this one bus-driver who I call "Mr. Ballsy", because he hangs some kind of spherically shaped ornament-charms on his rearview mirror, and he drives like a maniac bat out of hell.

Computer games are definitely big here. Subhash took Q an I to a LAN cafe, which are apparently all over the city. I remember a few days ago there was a big DoTA tournament going on AT THE LIBRARY on campus. It was insane, all official student teams and everything. But to be fair, Singaporeans do exercise in real sports, and the guys especially tend to be buffer than the average dorky Asian kid, probably in part due to their required military service.

Shopping, not my favorite thing to do admittedly, is also popular in Singapore. Orchard Road is a famous high-end place to go, but there are definitely lots of cheaper locales such as Chinatown and Little India. At these places you can haggle for anything, which I fully approve of :) I could even haggle at a money changer, when converting US$ to SIN$. They're also not big on fees, taxes, tips, etc... what you ask for is what you get. I haven't bought anything to bring home yet other than clothes for myself, but I probably will do a spree later, when I have absolutely nothing else to do...

Politics. This topic is not-so-talked-about in S'pore. It is definitely less democratic than the US, you can read all about their Prime Minister and his daddy on Wiki or something. Punishment for crime is also more draconian. There is of course the famous death penalty for drug dealers, even foreigners. I also just read in the newspaper about a rapist who was sentenced to jail time as well as caning. For those of you who don't know what caning is: hollow bamboo stick + your ass = caning. It's quite painful. I also found it funny that, with all the fuss in California about gays being denied the right to marry, here they sentence convicted homosexuals to life in prison. Oh and one very interesting tidbit I learned yesterday from some natives. The current Prime Minister, being from a very powerful and influential family, had a wife before the one he has now. Of course, the entire family was expecting that wife to bear a healthy son to continue the family's legacy; it's just a universal thing for Asians. She did bear a son, except he was born an autistic albino (who is apparently a student at NUS currently, still haven't seen him though). A few weeks after his birth, she died, with the family reporting it as "heart failure". There's a dirty rumor about what really happened... I won't write here because censorship is a big deal here too and I'd rather not be caned on my first few weeks in the country, but ask me if interested.

Sightseeing travel is not as convenient as it was in Europe. Singapore is pretty isolated out on an island at the tip of a huge peninsula. In Europe it was very easy to go down to the big "Hauptbahnhoff" and take the train anywhere, sometimes with the crazy Genevois physicist Shaiyan Keshvari at my side. Here you practically have no choice but to fly, unless you enjoy 8 hour bus rides, and even then you can only get to places in Malaysia in that case. But I hope to at least see 3 other Southeast Asian places before I leave, already saw Malaysia, now considering Bali - Indonesia, Hanoi - Vietnam, and Ankor Wat - Cambodia. Sightseeing in Singapore itself is interesting, but I think I could do everything in a month. Already did the famous zoos (which were really quite good) and such, as well as Sentosa Island, which is not really good for anything other than artificial beach. Singapore itself is not the prettiest of cities, even though it is very clean. I still think Hong Kong has the best oceanfront views of any major city in Asia; Sam Wang can tell you all about his nostalgic yearnings for beautiful HK.

Oh and I almost forgot, there are other exchange students here with me. About 500 of us, quite a big number. But then again we are dwarfed in size next to the >30,000 students total at NUS. Most of the exchange students come from Scandinavia and Canada; I was surprised that USA was not #1. But students from the former definitely didn't mind leaving behind the frigid winter they currently have in their homelands. Poor Jaimeet Gulati... hope he isn't yet just a popsicle with a turban on top :P
I don't hang out with many of the exchange students, I find myself mingling with the natives more, but I did run into the ETH Zurich group yesterday, and we had a good long chat about what coming to Asia for the first time was like for a Zuricher... they definitely had some funny stories.

Well it's midnight now, so I'm signing off. Kind of wish I decided to travel this weekend, a lot of stores and other establishments are closed here due to Chinese New Year's. But travel was so damn expensive... oh well, there will be plenty of future chances.