Thursday was our first day of classes here at NUS, so we all managed to get up bright and early to make it to the Arts and Social Sciences building by 9:00. Many of us discovered the amazing prata stall in the canteen near our dorms and have made it our usual breakfast haunt.
Our first class every morning focuses on issues surrounding human migration and is taught by our very own Dr. Steiner from UNC. Our other class, which starts at 10:30, is on the history of Southeast Asia and will be taught jointly by two professors while we are here in Singapore. The first half of the class is on the history of Singapore and is being taught by Dr. Quek. Meeting her on Thursday was a pleasure, as she seems like an extremely interesting person.
After our classes ended on Thursday, we all headed over to a nearby canteen to grab lunch. Many people decided to be adventurous and ordered things like fish ball soup and soursop juice. The reaction to fish balls was mixed, but everyone now seems to be a fan of soursop, which is apparently some exotic type of fruit.
After lunch, the few of us that were lucky enough to get to revisit the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (which we had been to on Wednesday as a group to get our student passes) were once again valiantly led into the annals of bureaucracy by Nadiah while the rest of the group made a trip to a supermarket to pick up some necessities. Everyone reconvened at the Welcome Dinner held later that day, which took place in a lovely Indonesian restaurant. We were joined by Dr. Quek, the professor that will teach us Malaysian history during the second half of our stay here, and an administrator from NUS.
On Friday, we had class again and then took a bus downtown, where we ate at a remarkable Thai restaurant before heading off to the Asian Civilizations Museum for a tour. We split into two tour groups and led around by extremely knowledgable guides. The museum was divided into four sections: South Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia (the Middle East), and China. All of the artifacts were amazing, to say the least, although I think some people were a little put off by the head-hunter's shield covered in human hair.
It was a short walk from the museum to the riverfront, where we boarded a boat to take a short cruise through the downtown area. We could see a bunch of noteworthy things from the water, including the performing arts center that looks like a durian and the infamous Merlion.
After the cruise, we all went our separate ways to forage for dinner and explore the city on our own. For the first time, we were responsible for finding our own transportation back to the dorms. It's a great feeling to know that you can navigate a large city like Singapore without much outside assistance.
To end, a few pictures of our experiences so far:
Prata and a watermelon milkshake from the canteen near our dorm
A typical canteen lunch
The durian building!
...and the Merlion!
No comments:
Post a Comment