The weekend in short:

eating Japanese ramen left-handed
a Night Safari invented by S'pore's tourism industrialists
riding random buses to somewhere, anywhere
bars by the bay and mango margaritas with ugly iguanas
hot chicks and not so hot chicks and maybe chicks
midnight coffee cafe chats
cheap Hawker stall beer
I'm-not-going-to-sing-oh-my-god-we've-been-here-for-five-hours-
-wow-wish-I-had-tried-ktv-sooner-too-much-drinking-karaoke
the no-more-soup-dumpling dumpling shop
intense hotpot

a light wallet

Singapore so far

[Updated]

whew, I've been in Singapore 10 days now. Here are some random things I've initially noticed/thought about regarding Singapore. In no particular order:

• Food is cheap. And Singaporeans eat a lot.
• P.S. Noodles Noodles Noodles everywhere no good rice. Wah! >.<
• P.P.S. Singaporeans really like instant coffee.
  
• Other things are not cheap. The currency conversion doesn't help much because it's 1USD to 1.6SGD and prices are the same if not slightly more. Esp cheap stuff I'm used to buying here suddenly become imported goods and prices skyrocket. Tropicana Orange Juice @ 9SGD or Green Tea @ 2SGD? Local stuff please.
• P.S. the randomest most everyday things are so hard to find here: laundry bag, trash can, shaving gel, a gallon of milk...
  
• Singaporeans walk really slow, gosh! I naturally walk really fast, so I have to slow down a lot with the locals. Or if I'm late to something, you'll see me flash in and out of the slow crowds on the sidewalks as I'm weaving through. In fact, I haven't seen a Singaporean be in a hurry...
• Singaporeans spend very freely. $2 desserts at food stands, $5 earrings in the mall during lunch time, $20 coffee, taxis when they don't feel like walking, regular LV, Gucci, Prada shopping trips... it all adds up. Those high-end designer stores get constant business, and they're more expensive than the US too. Yea we're all wondering where they get their disposable income from, esp the trendy high schoolers...
• I'm not short anymore! In fact, with heels I'm tall and see the top of Singaporean girls' heads, hehehe.
  
• For hot guys and girls, all I'm saying is that I would rather go to Japan, Korean, or even China (in that order).
• Hearing Singlish makes you think Singaporeans can't speak correct English, but they actually sort of can if necessary. However, Singlish is just baby talk mixed with Malay words. Add words like 'lor' 'leh' 'wah' 'ay' to the end of all your sentences, speak in bad English grammar without any articles, add the Asian accent and you've got Singlish.
  

Example: Singlish: The house sell already. English: The house has been sold.
Example: Singlish: Dat one de wife lah. English: That one is the wife.

• There are so many shopping malls. I'm speechless.
• White collar office professionals are mostly female! I'm used to being and working in a male environment, it's weird to see all these groups of young women going to lunch together, dressed in high heels and cutesy feminine clothing as is the Asian fashion... and for me to be apart of one of those groups is even weirder.
  

The end. for now.

I'm eating a rambutan!

Ram-ram-rambutan!

Step 1: Lookie! bright prickly prickly red, wth is this o.O


Step 2: Break it open, let's see...


Step 3: oo it's related to the lychee! yum yum yummyyyy


Step 4: Wah I want another one! *runs off*

My apartment!!

I finally get to update, my internet has been slow and taking forever to upload these really large pictures.

But anyway, yay I'm all nice and settled into my apartment now! The outside doesn't look amazing, but inside, it's quite a cute little place. Let's go on a tour :-)

As I said, street view not too mpressive. There's a large park right by though, and right on the other side of the park is everything I will ever need: the plaza holds a shopping mall, banks, restaurants, food court, supermarket, convenience store, movie theater, and MRT (subway) station. Need anything else? :-P Super super convenient, and my work place is just two MRT stops away.


The back entrance is also ugh.

But but! Inside...
My dining table is so cute, and the window view is pretty.



With nice couches and an LCD TV with DVD player and satellite TV, and wireless internet. I uber like modern decor :D

My bedroom! hehe meet my panda pillow pet Xing Xing <3

My desk setup and lotssss of closet space!

There's also a kitchen, laundry area, and bathroom, but those are boring to take pictures of.

Plusssssss, this is a service apartment, meaning I get a regular housekeeper, utilities like shampoo, soap, pots, utensils, etc. and regular towel/linen changing. Yay!

Oh, and this is where I work :-)

Suhweeeet life :D

The hottest movie in Singapore right now:

Little India

So I went to Little India yesterday night to hang out with a MIT girl Diane who is also here this summer. Oh my god Little India... the pictures only do partial justice. On Sundays, everyone in Little India apparently just loiters around outside doing nothing. Imagine the super super crowded, local dirty areas of China -- and replace everyone with really dark South Indian men. We had been walking around for ten minutes before we realized that, hey... all the Indians here are men, what the hell... the male to female ratio was like 40:1. We kept wondering why: are all their wives back home in India? are they locked up in the house? are they all unmarried? We had no clue.

We walked around, ate dinner, and walked around more, people-watching until night fall and then my jetlag hit me.

A temple in Little India:

(hehe, it reminds me of my math research last term... I wonder what the fractal dimensions of this temple are?... :-P)

Er, ignore my weird expression in this picture, I was trying not to laugh! haha it was so hard to clear out a space to take a picture.

We sort of wanted to go in, but we couldn't figure out if socks were allowed in the temple because looking at the shoes, everyone was wearing sandals haha. We tried to ask a guy next to us, but he couldn't understand what we were saying, so we were making these really weird motions for "sock" and pointing into the temple, haha.

The temple is really pretty at night:


Around the streets of Little India, lots of nightmarkets, little shops, and random whatnots:

Sooo crowded -- hey at least it wasn't really smelly, unlike China. Dirty parts of Singapore are still much much cleaner than dirty China...

We went to a Little India Methodist Church, peeked into the door, and giggled when we saw that they still took off their shoes for the Christian service :-)

Okay, time to pack my suitcase and check out of the hotel to my actual apartment! I start work tomorrow, and I don't know if my apartment has Internet connection or not yet, so we'll see how soon I can update again :-)