Travel to Singapore

I’m in Singapore!  This is the official beginning of my first official Georgia Tech study abroad, and it is taking me through Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Beijing, and perhaps even Cambodia or someplace else equally exciting.  Singapore is our first stop, and we will be here for five weeks.  It took us quite some time to get here.  The majority of the study abroad group booked on the group flight, so we all traveled together to Singapore.  We left Atlanta at 7.20pm on Monday evening and landed in Singapore at 10.45pm Wednesday evening after going through both L.A. and Beijing.  We had some long flights, but everyone was very excited, so the time passed quickly.

I have never been on a group study abroad before.  I have been abroad several times, and just returned from a year studying in New Zealand, but I did all of that on my own.  I found my own way through the airports, traveled how I liked, and didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s schedules or problems.  Traveling with a group is much different.  You have a lot more people to look out for, and you also have to make sure you don’t lose anyone.

That being said, I have really enjoyed traveling with this group so far.  We had roughly twenty people on this group flight, and that was a great thing during the ten hour layover in Beijing.  Many of us didn’t know each other before this trip, so we spent a good deal of time getting to know each other and having fun.  Our first day of travel coincided with my 21st birthday, so several of us had a late lunch / early dinner in Chili’s to celebrate before getting on the plane to L.A., and we also socialized on the plane.  We weren’t too interested in watching the in-flight movies.  Many of us made our last phone calls in the international terminal before leaving the USA, and we also scrounged around for food because we hadn’t eaten in quite some time.  By the time we left L.A., it was 4.30am by our body clocks, so we were also trying to stay awake so we would sleep all the way to Beijing.

Our flight to Beijing was more than 12 hours long.  I sleep well enough on planes, especially when I wear myself out beforehand, so I was able to sleep for about 7.5 hours.  I have never been to Asia before, so even being in the airport was a new experience.  We only have one native speaker in the group, and he was very instrumental in guiding us through the airport.  None of us had any trouble getting through customs, but once we got out into the main part of the airport, we had no idea how to pass the 10 hour layover.  Most of us were hungry, and the rest of us had nothing better to do, so we scoped out a restaurant on the upper floor and then migrated to two large tables there.  We the proceeded to spend the rest of our layover eating, talking, playing cards, and learning bits of Chinese from the waitresses in the restaurant.  We were there from roughly 5am to 12 noon and ate two full meals there.  When I first learned that we were going to have a ten hour layover, I thought it was going to be very painful, but it was actually a lot of fun getting to know the rest of the people on the trip.

By the time we got on the plane to head to Singapore, most of us were exhausted (since we had been up since 1.30am or so), and we all passed out on the plane.  I didn’t even notice the flight attendant throw away my dinner and return my tray table to its upright position!  It ended up being a very good thing that we were all asleep because our flight was delayed for an hour.  The pilots had to alter our flight course after we were in the air, and it added an extra hour of flying time.  No one even noticed until we all woke up for landing.  We rushed through customs and collected our bags and left to meet Professor Zhou, our trip coordinator who is also from Georgia Tech.  He had arrived the previous day and met us at the airport with transportation back to our dorms and keys for our rooms.  As soon as we walked out of the airport to go to the bus, we realized that we were in Singapore.  It was 11.15pm and still incredibly warm and humid.  Singapore is a lot closer to the equator than many of us realized, and but once you get here there is no missing that fact.  It is very warm and humid!

While in Singapore, we are studying at the National University of Singapore (NUS).  We take two classes here, a history class and an industrial engineering class.  We are staying in dorms on campus, and they are pretty nice.  We all have individual rooms with private bathrooms.  My room has a ton of windows, and everyone has air conditioning as well (essential for being so close to the equator).  Today we had an orientation session to find our way around NUS.  NUS is sometimes referred to as the National University of Steps because there are so many staircases.  I have never been anywhere that has so many staircases!  The campus is also really pretty.  It is huge, and the administration has put in plenty of green space, gardens, flowers, etc.  The university is so large that we have to take a bus to class and then somehow find our way around the engineering buildings, so wish us luck not getting lost!

After orientation, we all headed downtown to go to Immigration to get our Student Passes (a document you need to be able to move in and out of Singapore), and then we stayed downtown to explore.  We took the subway to City Hall and walked all over the east side of the city, stopping for good Asian food (I had a curry) and to take lots of pictures.  Singapore is a very, very clean city.  It has one of the most beautiful skylines in the world, and it also has a lot of interesting sculptures and distractions.  My group ran into the rest of the group at a restaurant by the river, so we all went out for a drink and some karaoke before heading back to the university.  We had some minor trouble hailing a taxi, but I am sure that the longer we are here, the easier it will be to find our way around.  This city is a lot bigger than Wellington, more the size of Atlanta, but hopefully we’ll manage!