Hello from the Starmart Express

Since the last time I posted I've spent a week and a half in Singapore getting settled, exploring, and starting classes, plus a few days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In Singapore I went on a walking tour of a few neighborhoods. I also went to gardens by the bay, which has an indoor waterfall and garden, and these cool outdoor structures which you can go up to have a great view of the city. Over my first weekend there I went to Chabad, where I supplemented my rice based diet with some challah. Then on Sunday, I went with friends to an island that’s part of Singapore called Pulau Ubin. The island was really beautiful to bike around, and luckily we made it on a ferry home right before a monsoon started. If I have learned one thing during my first weeks in Singapore it’s that no matter how nice or sunny it looks, it can start raining harder then you’ve ever seen within a matter of minutes.

Gardens by the Bay

View from Pulau Ubin

Last Monday I started classes at SMU (Singapore Management University, commonly mistaken for Southern Methodist). I only have classes one Mondays and Tuesdays, making them rather long days, but since it was the first week most of my teachers let us out early. Everything went pretty smoothly, although I almost went to the wrong class because apparently seminar room 2.1 and classroom 2.1 are different things. Luckily since I tend to show up at least 20 minutes early to things, I realized before class actually started.

After a ‘long’ week of class, I used Wednesday to relax, run errands, and go out for ladies night. Ladies night is a phenomenon in Singapore where every Wednesday night, bars, clubs, and restaurants have special deals for ladies. As a logical person I’m really not sure how this makes any financial sense. They gave each girl at the club we went to 4 free drink vouchers, and for reference a 750 ml bottle of alcohol in Singapore costs about $60. Either way, I’m not complaining.

On Thursday morning I took an 8 am bus to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, or KL as everyone there seems to call it. The bus had pretty bad reviews on google so I was a little nervous, but despite the fact that it was a 6.5 hour journey with all the stops and immigration checkpoints, it was actually very comfortable (reclining chairs, footrest, and massage settings on the seat- but honestly I think anything would be a step up from my most recent travel experience on China southern airlines). When we made it to KL, we decided to take an Uber to our airbnb. Something I learned this weekend is that Ubering in Malaysia is dirt cheap, but the roads are so confusing and there’s so much traffic that you need to leave a ton of extra time. Our driver missed the turn to our apartment building 3 times (this was a common trend throughout the weekend), but the 45 minute ride still cost 20 ringgit (which is about $5 usd). Thats pretty good value! After dropping our bags, we grabbed lunch from a mall and then went out and explored the city. We saw the national mosque, the central market, and Chinatown. That night we made sure to get back to our airbnb in time to swim in the infinity pool on the 37th floor before it closed.

On Friday we grabbed breakfast from the mall before starting our day (both Singapore and Malaysia have huge shopping malls on every corner- it’s crazy!). It was definitely a welcome sign to see Krispy Kreme donuts, Auntie Anne's, and Baskin Robbins. We were a few minutes away from a metro stop that had a train straight to the Batu Caves (our next destination), so we figured we’d try that. After all 11 people in our group bought tickets, we went to the platform, and the train just sped right past us without stopping. We were all pretty confused since there were plenty of other people on the platform, but after asking someone we found out that apparently you need to flag down the train if you want it to stop. The next one was not for an hour and a half, so we gave up and ubered instead.

Batu Caves

One highlight of the caves were the monkeys just hanging around. I probably have hundreds of pics of monkeys on my phone because they were so cute every time (although they got a little scary any time people took food out of their bags). 

We climbed hundreds of stairs to the main cave, which had a temple inside. Then we went on a tour of the dark caves, which are home to over 200,000 bats (#batinthebunk). Bats are apparently pretty smart, and there is an area of the cave which is essentially their toilet, so if you want to be ankle deep in batshit, that is the place to go. The whole experience made me think of the phrase "batshit crazy" in a new light.

Batu Caves

The tour was really cool, and when we were far into the cave we got to experience total darkness. After the caves, the group wanted to try authentic Malaysian food, so we went to a village. People there were eating with their hands (we’re not talking a slice of pizza or chicken nuggets- they were having rice and stews and whole fish with their hands). Luckily we found a place that had utensils- otherwise I would’ve missed out on some authentic Malaysian plain white rice.

Then my friend Talia and I walked back to our airbnb to get ready for Shabbat. The walk back was a little scary since we were dodging cars and motorcycles and there wasn’t really a side walk, but I did feel like I got a more local view of the city. Talia and I spent Shabbat with her old camp counselor, who happens to be living in KL for a few weeks with her husband. This worked out really well. We had good food, caught up on sleep, played some monopoly deal, and even walked through the worlds smallest rainforest. Saturday night Talia and I got pizza that could actually be classified as pizza (that’s hard to find here) before heading back to our airbnb and going to a bar with our friends. Sunday morning we went to the Thean Hou temple before going to our bus. I'm writing this on board the Starmart Express (doesn't that sound like a name that would be used in a horror movie?) back to Singapore, so I apologize if this was super long, but I do have a 6.5 hours to kill so you can’t really blame me. 

Thean Hou Temple in Kuala Lumpur

Hello from Singapore

Last night, after more than 36 hours of traveling, I finally made it to Singapore. The journey started off smoothly (or so I thought). I checked my bags, made it through JFK security, found my gate, and boarded the plane. We were supposed to take of at 12:45 am, but due to general JFK air traffic we had to wait a little longer. Luckily, my China Southern plane had a good movie selection, so I started a movie to entertain myself. An hour and a half later, I finished that movie and we were still on the ground. I dozed off a bit, and woke up to the pilot announcing that there were some mechanical issues, and they'd update us in an hour. Obviously, this was not promising.
Next thing I know, it's 4:30 am and they're announcing that the problem is not yet fixed, so we have to deplane. We took shuttle busses back to a gate in the basement of JFK, which did not have nearly enough chairs for the amount of people on the flight. After getting a nice seat on the cold, hard floor, I figured I would go use the restroom and stretch my legs. I asked an employee where the nearest restroom was, and she informed me that we were not allowed to use it. At this point, it basically felt like we were being held hostage. It wasn't long before someone started screaming at them that we were all going to die if they didn't let us get water or pee. They began escorting us to the bathroom in groups of ten, which kind of brought me back to my preschool days where we were not allowed to go to the bathroom by ourselves.
After a while they announced that they were getting us a new plane and a new crew, and we'd be leaving around 7am. They also changed our gate to one upstairs in the terminal, which was nice because there were more seats, better heating, and unlimited bathroom access. 7 quickly turned into 7:45, which quickly turned in to 9:30. Obviously, I would no longer make my connecting flight in Guangzhou, China, but all the agents said that I couldn't rebook my transfer until I arrived in China. I waited on a 40 minute line to get a "very important" piece of paper proving that our flight had been delayed. Some people said this would help us when we arrived in China, but I'm pretty sure they just wanted people to stop screaming at them.
We boarded the plane after 10am, and I fell asleep before takeoff. I woke up about 8 hours later, watched a few good movies, and slept a little more. Once we made it to Guangzhou, it felt like we had overcome a great challenge, but a new one was just beginning.
There was one flight left from Guangzhou to Singapore leaving that day at 6:30 pm, which gave us about two hours from the time our first flight landed. After waiting on a long transfer line with basically everyone else on our flight, we reached an agent who told us we would have to take a flight the next day at 8:30 am, because the 6:30 pm flight was already overbooked by 13 seats. She said there was also a Singapore Airlines flight leaving at 1:35 am, but she wasn't sure if there were open seats, and seemed genuinely confused by our suggestion that she should call them to find out. We were given forms to get a temporary visa so we could stay at a hotel for the night, but decided to try asking someone else about the Singapore Airlines flight before leaving the airport. After a heated exchange with a new ticketing agent, she took our passports and said her supervisor would look into it in the next 20 minutes. After waiting for about half an hour, a new woman came over to us with our passports and tickets to the 6:30 pm flight (which they had already told us we couldn't take) and said, "this is boarding in 10 minutes, you should go". We ran through Guangzhou airport, and somehow boarded the flight to Singapore. They informed us that our bags would not make this flight, but we were just happy to be on the plane.
Getting off the plane in Singapore was a huge relief. Although not everyone speaks the clearest English here, it was a million times better than in the Guangzhou airport. I got a SIM card, filled out the forms to have my bags delivered to me, and took a taxi to my new apartment. I arrived to my apartment at 12:30 am Singapore time, wrapping up my 36 hour journey from Stamford, CT to here.
Today I woke up pretty early because of jet lag. I walked around the city this morning, got breakfast, and had a campus tour of SMU before my appointment to get my student visa. Then I went to a Hawker Center for lunch, which is a popular type of food court here. There was not much for me to eat there, but I did have some indian bread and potatoes. It seems like my options are to expand my food palette or eat plain white rice for every meal (I think you know which is more likely). On the bright side though, there is an ice cream place and a mac and cheese restaurant in the shopping center below my apartment building, so I probably won't starve.

Some of SMUs buildings are on Stamford Road- feels like home

This afternoon two of my roommates and I continued to explore the area near our apartment. We found a cool temple where people were making offerings of some sort and burning lots of incense, we found a 5 story shopping mall devoted entirely to electronics stores, and we found the local synagougue (although we didn't try to go in yet). We made it back to our apartment right before a torrential downpour and thunderstorm, which I guess is something I have to get used to happening daily here. Now I am just waiting for my bags to arrive, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later.
Overall, it was a rocky start to this journey, but it can only get better from here!

Buddhist temple around the corner from my apartment