Reflection

I'm leaving Singapore within an hour! I'll write a brief one today since I don't have much time...

This semester went by so fast! I really had a great time here. I got to meet many people from various countries who have different cultural backgrounds and values. I learned many things from them. At first I wasn't interested in some countries since I didn't know much about them. But once I started meeting people from those countries, I started feel that I want to know more about those countries and want to visit them one day. I also learned a lot from the hard working Singaporeans.

I went to ride the Singapore Flyer so I'm sharing some night views from the top!!

I randomly found this few days ago in a MRT station. I thought this is quite interesting!!

NO DURIANS!!

Lastly, I want to thank Freeman Family once again for giving this opportunity for me to gain a great international experience!! Thank you very much!!

Malacca Trip!

I went to Malacca in Malaysia with my friend! We were there for only one night but we had a great time! We used a coach (bus) to get to Malacca. It took about 4 hours but it only costs S$21 getting Malacca and RM22 (about S$9) on the way back. I heard it's common to take a coach instead of a plane. I'm not even sure if there's a flight to Malacca...

We stayed at the Hatten Hotel which was pretty nice. We had a great deal, too! It costs about S$41 per person including the breakfast and free Wi-Fi access in lobby and lounges.

This hotel is connected to a newly built shopping mall and I didn't have any problem finding food places. Because of the good location, I didn't have to walk that much getting to places I wanted to go!!

Christ Church

Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum

Since its colonization in the earlier history, Malacca has a lot of European influences. When I went to the heritage museum, I saw many commodities imported from Europe. I also found some decorations of houses..

I randomly ran into this cafe, when my friend and I were heading to the heritage museum. I really liked how the interior decoration is really colorful.

 

I only have less than a week before going back home!! Hopefully, I can travel a little more within Singapore!

Done with the School Work!

My group turned in our last group project report last night! I'm done with all my school work at NUS!! I can't believe it over!!!This past week was a reading week (study week). All my friends are busy studying for exams which is coming up next week. Even though I'm done with school work, I still need to write another report. It's one of the requirements for the Freeman scholarship....

By the way, I went to Night Safari with my friend last week. It only starts from 7pm!They actually have Singapore Zoo right next to it but I couldn't go since it closed at 6pm. I went to see the fire performance and ate dinner before going in. I got to see some interesting animals but sadly it was pretty dark so I couldn't see them clearly. I couldn't take any good pictures either... I also saw Creatures of the Night Show. Before the show started, the staff were mentioning so many times not to take pictures with a flash light since it distracts animals a lot. I found it pretty interesting because they translated into 6 languages including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Filipino, and Hindu! I think this is something unique about Singapore. Once the show started, a couple of people from the audience were picked to go onto the stage. I was happy I didn't have a huge snake wrapped around my neck! lol

This is the funniest Merlion I've ever seen in my life!! lol You can find this at the souvenir shop right by the entrance!!

 

One More Month To Go!!

Time really flies!! I can't believe I only have two more weeks of school and about a month left to stay here!! I think studying abroad for one semester is not enough.... I honestly thought I could go to most of the places in Singapore since it's such a small country... (Fun fact! Singapore is less than half of Oahu Island! lol ) But I guess I need more time to really-get-to-know this place.

I've been really busy recently. I just finished two exams and one paper. I still have two more presentations next week and another exam the following week... Group projects are very intense since students here really love to "Ace" every single assignment!! I was actually impressed and got motivated to work harder!!

I heard that 3000 level or upper business courses tend to have final examinations earlier than the final exam week. Luckily, I can finish everything by the end of April!! Hopefully, I can travel to another Asian country after I'm done with school!


I'm posting this picture because I find this pretty interesting! I know a couple of cameras are monitoring the goodies but I'm still surprised nobody takes it. I guess this really tells you Singapore is a pretty safe country to stay!!

Alumni Network

This past Monday, I had an opportunity talking with Wendy Chan who works for LVMH, and she is currently the regional director of media strategy in the perfumes and cosmetics sector. She is originally from Hong Kong and started working in Singapore since last year. She worked in several countries in the past including Hong Kong and Japan, and often goes on business trips in Asian countries since she got her current position. Being an marketing expert, she shared many things about LVMH as well as the current condition of cosmetics industry from the marketing perspective. She also gave me some advice on my future career. She was a perfect person to talk to!!

Trip to Penang!

Last week was the recess week! For NUS students (especially Singaporean students), this week is not much like a break but rather like a "catch up + study" week so many of my Singaporean friends were studying hard, mostly writing reports and preparing for up-coming exams for the following week. But for most of the exchange students, this week is really a holiday week! I know some friends went to Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, and Hong Kong.

I went to Penang Island in Malaysia for two nights with my friend from Sri Lanka. We bought a  deal (includes Tiger Airline flight ticket, accommodation (Hard Rock Cafe Hotel with 4 stars) + breakfast, travel insurance, & pick up from and to the airport in Penang) from groupon and paid S$275 (S$115 + surcharge&taxes) which I think it's pretty reasonable. One difficultly we had was we had to leave at 5am in the morning and had a hard time booking a taxi... In Singapore, it is really bad. I ended up calling several taxi companies more than ten times to book one... Especially when it's raining or late at night, it's even worse.. If you need to book a taxi, I really recommend you to call them in advance!!

Anyways, when we got to the Penang International Airport, a Malaysian guy picked us up and took us to the hotel. We weren't the only one being picked up so that was pretty good. We could've gone on a tour but decided to go to places by ourselves. We saw some traditional sights like temples and mosques as well as the nature sights. We went to Penang Hill and Georgetown on the first day. We took a taxi from the hotel to Penang Hill and had to pay RM50 which is ridiculously expensive!!!! I knew that the driver was going to charge us a high price but I didn't expect to be this expensive.

Cable car

We were supposed to be seeing the great view of the island but since the weather condition was pretty bad, I couldn't got to see much... Then we moved Kek Lok Si temple using a public bus. I only had to pay RM1.40 by the way.

Kek Lok Si Temple

I don't have any pictures of Georgetown but this place has a lot of new shopping centers as well as the traditional buildings.

Kapitan Keling Mosque

On the second day, we went to the Floating Mosque and the National Park!

Floating Mosque

The national park had a really great beach!! We went on 30-40 minutes cruising which was pretty nice!! But I actually miss the one in Hawaii.... lol We saw some wild animals, too!!

National Park

 A huge Eagle nest

 Baby Turtle

Monkey

 Looks like a crocodile head

Iguana

All the food we ate were from the restaurants. I heard that we cannot drink tap water in Malaysia so I wasn't sure whether the food on the streets were safe enough... But I saw some tourists eating so it might be safe. These food were really delicious by the way!!

So, most of the time, we took a bus to travel around Penang. At the maximum, I only paid RM2.70 for a ride. But the demerit is the wild drivers!! On the way to the hotel, roads are narrow and winding but the drivers never speed down!! I wasn't scared but I was shaking all the time! My friend from Sri Lanka told me she didn't have any problem since that kind of thing is pretty common in Sri Lanka!! lol

Aside from the bus ride, I had a great time in Penang. I hope you'll consider Penang as your next travel destination after seeing this posting!!

That's all for today!!

Random Stuff...

It's been a while since I posted the last one... I'll write some random stuff today....

UTown
UTown is the place where most of the dormitories are located. As I mentioned before, this place was built two years ago so everything is quit new. They have pretty good food places; two food courts & small restaurants. They also have the largest Starbucks in Singapore.

This is the new food court and just opened in this January. They have Chinese, Indians, Malay, & Western food. It depends on what you order but food are usually cheap here. You usually have to pay S$2.50-$5.00. I think I paid S$4.10 for this one.

 
So, I live in the graduate residence. I'll just show some pictures...

Graduate residence has up to 25th floor and I live on the 23rd. The view from my room is pretty nice. All I can see is NUS campus but this is only a small part of it!!

I don't have any pictures of my room but I think it's about 25 sq ft (8 sq m). A room comes with a desk, chair, closet, & bed. You have to bring your own bed linen, a pillow & an internet cable. Wi-Fi is limited in this building.. I also recommend you to bring or buy some hangers... Some rooms have air-conditioning but I have a ceiling fan instead. One good thing about this place is you don't have to clean up the shared space like living room. You'll still have to clean up your own room but it's small so it's not much.

 

Education Resource Center

 

This is the place where you can study for 24/7. The biggest Starbucks is located in this building. You have access to Mac & PCs. They also have private study room and seminar rooms.

EduSports



 



 

Sorry, this picture looks really bad... But the weather around here is always like this.. We actually had thunderstorm this past few weeks..

 

Anyways, the EduSports has sports hall, dance studio, gym, swimming pool, the new food court, bookstore etc... I heard the gym will be open sometime this semester.

 

Moving on...

Textbooks

Since I'm taking business modules here, I got all my books from the Central Library. There is a small bookstore at this location. All of them were new and I think the most expensive one was around S$60-70 so it's a lot cheaper comparing to textbooks from UH bookstores. You can also get used ones through IVLE (from your own account). I also heard that you might be able to rent a textbook from the library for two hours but I'm not exactly sure...

 

Club Activities

I decided to join the dance clubs called D'Hoppers (Hip hop) and Jazzttitude (Jazz but mixed with other styles). It's once a week lesson and S$70 for 8 lessons. They have different levels and the instructors are really nice. If you are not interested in dance, NUS has other sports clubs so definitely you should join them!! This will be the chance to meet the local students outside of classes!

 

Climenti Mall

This is probably the one of the closet shopping mall from NUS. I usually shop my groceries here. I got my pillow and bed linen too but I should have gone to IKEA... You can take a bus 196 from UTown  or 96 from NUS campus. It takes about 10-15 minutes to get there. You can use your Ez-Link card and I believe it's S$0.73 one way. One thing I noticed is that most of the American products are pretty expensive.. Japanese products are also expensive but I felt American products are even higher.. I wonder why..

 

If you want to do the real "SHOPPING," Orchard is the good place to go. The shopping malls are huge! There are lots of luxury brands there. But they do have Forever 21 and H&M as well...

 

 Chinese New Year

I didn't have school on Feb. 10&11. So I went to Universal Studio Singapore during the break. Since I went on the new year's eve, I got to see some fireworks in the evening!!

 

 

I didn't have a chance to go but in Chinatown they had Chinese new year's countdowns! I heard my friends had a lot fun so it may be a good idea to go if you are studying in Spring semester.

 

Recess Week

Recess week is from Feb. 23rd to Mar. 3rd!! This is the one of the longest break you'll get so this is the time to travel!! I'm planning to go to Penang Island in Malaysia with my friend for a couple days! So EXCITED!! X]

 

I'll update more about my trip when I came back!!

 

The Past Couple of Weeks

I'm sorry for not updating my blog for a long time... I was pretty busy...

Now, I'll share some of the things I did or learned in this past couple of weeks.

Registration Day

On this day, you turn in all the required documents to process your registration and your student pass (student visa). You'll get your student ID on this day. I recommend you to be there on time or earlier since all the exchange students will be there and you'll have to wait for a long time... And make sure you have everything with you! One of the things I needed was a passport-sized photo. When I showed it to this lady, she told me my eyebrow is slightly covered with my bangs... So I ended up waiting in a long line and paid $7 for 4 pictures where I actually needed only one.... Anyways, you can pick up your student pass in a week or two.

Welcome Briefing

Information session was held by the business school for non-graduating exchange students. You'll be given an Information package and a timetable of the courses you are currently registered for. Instruction on add/drop courses are also given.

Courses I'm taking

All my modules (courses) are from the business school!!

• MKT2401 - Asian Markets and Marketing Management (equivalent to MKT361)
• MKT3402 - Consumer Behavior (equivalent to MKT311)
• MNO3301 - Organizational Behavior (equivalent to MGT341)

All my classes are 3 hours long... We usually get one 10-15 minutes break in between but it's not enough for me... It's like classes at UH. I think there are around 30-40 people in each class. We have in-class discussions, group case analyses, quiz, group project & presentation... I actually realized students at NUS study really hard. Most of the students in my classes raise their hands and speak up at least twice or three times during the class discussion. Many of them are always studying, even while they are eating..

Class Registration

Since I was talking about my classes, I should also mention about the class registration. At NUS, they have a bidding system for course registration. It sounds confusing but lucky for exchange students since we don't have to deal with it! For exchange students, we just had to list up to 10 course preferences on an application form. Once you are accepted, you will receive an email with the list of courses you are currently enrolled in.

I actually had a hard time registering for the consumer behavior course. I couldn't get into this course at my first registration so I had to register during the add/drop period. It made me more difficult to register because I couldn't find out the time schedule of this course until I have access to IVLE which is like a MyUH Portal at UH. So I ended up missing two classes in the first two weeks.

Transportation

Transportation here is pretty easy to remember. You only need one card called Ez-Link card to access MRT (train system) and buses. We also have NUS shuttles going around on campus. Since I live in UTown, I need to take D2 to get to Business building and D1 to come back. You can check the bus routes in NUS map which is on their website. It's getting off the subject but you also need an Ez-link card to print out your lecture notes.

Trip to Sentosa

Sentosa is a small island located in the southern part of Singapore. I heard they have great beaches there. I'm not sure if they are as good as Hawaii... Universal Studios Singapore is in this island.

Orientation was held here by the business club for business exchange students. They were planning do a lot of activities at the beach but it was pouring so we couldn't do much.. But I still got to know some people so I had fun :-)


This is one of the old pictures I took  when I just arrived at Singapore.

 

Merlion

 

Well, I finally figured out how to upload pictures so I'll post more and try to update my blog more frequently!! Now, I need to go and study for my first quiz!

 

 

My First Couple Days

Dormitory

I just moved in to my dormitory last night! I stayed at hotel for a couple nights before moving in. My dorm is located in University Town (UTown) and I live in Graduate Residence even though I'm not a graduate student... My room has four single rooms and a living room I share with my three roommates. It's similar to one of the apartments at UH. Dorms in UTown are pretty new and really nice!! Luckily, my room is on the 23rd floor so I have a great view of NUS campus from my window!! Graduate residence is one of the dorms that don't require a meal plan, and a fridge & a microwave are given but nothing else so you actually cannot cook unless you buy them... But there are some food places close by so it shouldn't be too bad...

Orientation Week

School starts on the 14th but some events for international & exchange students are held a week before the school starts! The event I went today was about learning 4 official languages in Singapore, which are English (Singlish), Malay, Chinese, & Tamil. I learned the basics like greetings but they were pretty hard!! Singlish is hard for me to understand!!! Hopefully I can get used to it...

That's about it for now...