With all the travelling on weekends, we would usually do things around Singapore during the week. One of the first places I went to was the Singapore Night Safari and Zoo. The night safari wasn’t as great as I had imagined. It was pretty much a zoo at night time, making it harder to see the animals. Although I did enjoy seeing the bats. When they spread their wings, they were enormous. The day zoo was similar to the Toronto zoo. I was expecting to see some exotic animals because I am in Asia, but they were pretty much the same animals that are at any other zoo. I enjoyed the Ferret and Elephant shows we watched.
Sentosa
Sentosa was another place we visited as soon as I arrived in Singapore. Sentosa is a little island close to Singapore. They made the island into a large resort with a man-made beach. The beach is actually quite nice despite the view of all the oil tankers in the distance. Overall, it’s a good place to visit for the day and has a lot of clubs and bars to go to a night. One of the bars called The Wave has a simulated wave machine where you can pay to try surfing on it. Since everyone watches you, it had the potential to be really embarrassing, so I decided to just watch the others.
Singapore’s 45th Anniversary
I was lucky enough to be in Singapore for Singapore’s 45th Anniversary. Not only did we get the day off school (random days off happens quite a bit here), but there was also a big display for the anniversary at Marina Bay Sands. Xander and I headed down to Marina Bay Sands at night and realized quite quickly how packed it was. There were so many people in such a small area. The Singapore skyline is absolutely beautiful. Marina Bay Sands had a boardwalk type area that looks out into the water and on the other side you can see the entire downtown. With the high sky rise buildings outlined with lights and modern architecture the view was amazing, which made the firework display even more beautiful.
Ladies Night
Every Wednesday, it is “Ladies Night” in Singapore. What this means is ladies literally get everything for free. First, there is a restaurant called Sailors close to Clark Quay that serves free pizza and pasta for ladies. Then we get free entry to any bar and depending on the bar, we get drink tickets or unlimited flow all night. Because of this big event every Wednesday, it becomes probably one of the busiest nights out in Singapore. Not going to lie, I don’t think I can count on one hand the amount of Wednesday's I have not been out yet. We always go to “the bridge”, which is the place where pretty much all exchange students or foreigners go to pre-drink. Since alcohol is expensive in Singapore we have learned to either buy alcohol at duty-free when we are travelling or get $2 Chang or Tiger beers at the 7/11. After we have spent at least an hour on the bridge, we usually migrate to one of our favorite bars. So far, we have come to know and love Attica, Arena, Le Noir and James Powerstation. Attica is the most popular bar, which is always a good go-to. Arena has a live singing group that perform the same top 40s every Wednesday (where Shelby and I have learned our routine to the song Champagne Showers). We usually get recruited to Le Noir by the owner that never seems to remember us from the last time we have been there, and gives us free and unlimited drinks any day of the night (still don’t understand how the bar makes money). And my recent new favourite James Powerstation, is good if you want to dance the night away with the Singaporean locals.
My Birthday in Singapore
We decided to celebrate my birthday in Singapore (since I refused to celebrate it in sketchy Jakarta). First the festivities began by my room being ambushed by Shelby, Robyn, Samhita, and Kelly. Like everything else we do in Singapore, it was a birthday ambush "on a budget" or "on a shoestring" as Lonely Planet calls it. They had used the giant toilet roll that I had stolen from the residence washroom and put toilet paper all over my room. They then used my nail polish and sticky notes to write somewhat vulgar notes all over the room. And best of all, they bought me chocolate and a ‘shit stick’, which is the name we made up for the extremely melted Kit Kat bars they sell here in Singapore. On Wednesday, we decided to go to the bar Arena. Everyone decorated the bridge and sang me Happy Birthday while holding candles in their hands. We then went to the bar with my big birthday poster, my Asian birthday visor and birthday hats and let everyone know it was my birthday. Probably one of the funniest and best nights of the semester.
Halloween in Singapore
Since Halloween is not a really big thing in Singapore, there is an event every year at a local, isolated mansion for all the exchange students. The tickets were $20, which included a bus ride there and back, entry, drink tickets and a DJ. Shelby and I didn’t want to spend money on a costume, so we decided to use the big Canadian flags we had brought from home and be, well Canadian flags. I had told one of my Singaporean friends in my residence my brilliant costume idea and he was sure to warn me never to do that with a Singaporean flag (probably would end up in jail or something, yikes). The costumes turned out great, and Mehdi decided at the last minute to also joining in on our Canadian theme by simply painting a leaf on his face. The party ended up being huge, there were over 1000 exchange students at the event. The mansion was enormous and beautiful, with a backyard that overlooked the ocean. The DJ was amazing, everyone was dressed up. It was probably one of the other best nights of the semester.
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