So yesterday (or 3 days ago, it depends on how you count), I left for Singapore. This is probably the biggest decision that I have ever made in my life and that is really only starting to hit me now. For some reason, I decided to move to the other side of the world. To a culture completely different than my own. With food nothing like what I’m used to. And with more humidity than I normally see in about 10 years combined. But here I am. And it’s a little scary.
Saying goodbye to everyone was really hard but I was really happy that the whole family came to see me off.
Family selfie!!!
The flight wasn’t so bad! I made some friends! Keri, who was on my first flight, was a German citizen heading to the Phillipines from Vegas because she said that her mom was exiling her. There was also something about going to a nursing class of some sort. I’m not really sure. But she was super nice and put up with me for 14 hours. Ouch. I slept for most of it though and the food wasn’t bad! And the movies they played were hilarious!
This is Cathy and her daughter Hope. The whole family was headed to Singapore for the first time from the Philippines to go to Universal Studios on vacation! They were super nice and Hope was adorable! This flight I’m pretty sure felt longer than the 14 hour one. I was okay while I was watching Maleficent and alright when I was watching Modern Family but then they put on this really weird, really bad “prank” show which was really just where they did slightly irritation things to innocent people. Unimpressed and so wanting to be off the plane!
And then we came in to Singapore! (okay, this picture may have been leaving the Philippines. I’m not actually sure. Either way, land ho!)
After landing I waiting for Adam, a family member of a teammate, to come pick me up from the airport. In the mean time I tried to figure out how to make my phone work and get money that actually spends in the country (that awkward moment when you’re jet lagged and brain dead and try to spend American money because oops…). Then we grabbed a cab and headed over to the apartment I’ll be staying in for the next week or two while I find something more permanent.
Adam was great, he showed me all around. We got some food, made a key for me for the apartment, wandered about NUS, met his dad, saw his room, got me a pass for the transit system, got my money changed over, and almost got me a bank account. Turns out that’s easier said than done. The appointment list was ages long and I found out today that I think I need my actual S Pass work visa thing in my hand to get an account. So here come the international card fees until I can make that happen! Which shouldn’t be more than a day or two, so it’s not so bad. Here is a random picture of my walk home from NUS! It’s so green! And yet so city!
After that I was well and tired so I went back to my room where I found ants in my bed -_- I wasn’t pleased by this but there are worst things in life and there weren’t that many so I got to work reading (since the wifi wouldn’t work), texting people from home, and killing every ant that came within range. Eventually I got hungry and texted Anoop (the housemate) to ask where to go for dinner and met up with him at the National University Hospital (NUH) which is essentially where I will be working. We went to get Indian food and I found out that the Indian food here might be wayyy too hot for me to eat. So really I had rice for dinner. Then we got home and still had no luck on the wifi, which was really upsetting, and then I’m pretty sure I broke the power in the apartment by plugging in my power strip. But! It worked out. Because that reset the wireless router and the wifi started to work for me! Yay! And then I took a cold shower because I couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to make it warm and I was really just completely exhausted so I passed out. I made it all the way to like 9:30 pm! Go me! I still need to make the ants go away though.
This is what’s out my window right now:
It’s super awesome at night cause that little flame thing you can see in the back is all crazy awesome looking. If I can get a good picture I’ll post that later.
Now it is day 2! And I have lunch plans with Kyle and I’m so excited to get to see a familiar face!