Singapore continued...

I know it's been a very long little while since I've posted anything here but you should take that to mean I've been busy travelling ( which I have been). Also, the internet over here has been acting up (or maybe it's blogger.com) which explains why there haven't been many pictures as of late either. But before I go into my most recent trip, I want to finish up writing about Singapore. Here goes...

Saturday morning, we all got up at the crack 'o' dawn, but for differing reasons: The others were going to have Breakfast at the Zoo (I couldn't get a ticket) and as for myself, well, I wanted to run to the Singapore Botanic Gardens on ther reccomendation of a friend from Singapore. It was well worth the 35 minute run across the city.

As I entered the gardens, the first thing i noticed was how clean the air was and how refreshed I felt. It was an amazing feeling. Having lived in a city for a month-and-a-half, I was beginning to tire of the poor air quality. Spending time in the Botanic Gardens was a welcome relief.


I was there by 7:30, but even then there were quite a few people there already, jogging or doing TaiChi or meditating. Nevertheless, it was peaceful and very relaxing. As I walked along the paths, I tried to take as many deep breaths of oxygen as I could to savor the pure air and soak in my now lush, green surroundings. The types of plants, trees, flowers, shrubs, are so extensive that it's impossible to tell how many there are. These are some pictures from my moring there:
Around 9, I started on my run back. It took me roughly 40 minutes on the way back and after I grabbed a shower, I had a scrumptious breakfast of cornflakes, fruit, and wheat toast with peanut butter and jam. Another girl, Blair, hadn't been able to get a ticket for the Zoo Breakfast either and when I mentioned that there was a Orchid Garden back at the Botanic Gardens that I hadn't had time to see, we decided to take the bus back to the Gardens. I have never seen so many different kinds of flowers, let alone species of orchids, in my life. I immediately thought of my mom and grandpa and how much they would be appreciating this beauty.

Blair and I met the others back at the hostel around 1. We decided to check out Little India for lunch and ended up eating Indian style around a low table, sitting on pillows. The food wasn't bad and afterwards we walked around that section of town before heading back to Sleepy Sam's to grab some sleep before going out that night. First, though, I bought some Hindi dance music! Good stuff...

We headed out of the hostel again around 7:45 and ate at Subway (Gosh, I missed/still miss that place). Then we caught a taxi to Zouk, the most famous dance/night club in Asia. we got there by 11 and danced the night away, ha! The club felt like it was straight out of a movie with about 3 different levels, an excessive number of spotlights and strobes, and an awesome smoke machine on the ceiling that would send down huge jet-like streams every so often. It was a fun time, and I really started having fun and getting into the groove when I started breakdancing because I'd promised Jenna I would. Unfortunately, when I had a bigger circle and took it to the floor, a bouncer came over and told me I had to stop. Oh well... It was fun while it lasted.

That main club was playing mainly house music (like techno) but there was another smaller club with in the same building, called Phuture, playing more Hip-Hop/R&B. We went over there for a bit and had some fun, too. Then we came back to Zouk for a while and left aound 2:30. We slept really well that night, not awaking 'til 10:30!

We decided to go to Sentosa, Singapore's island resort area where the main beaches are. We relaxed on the beach from 1:30-5:30. It truly felt like we were in paradise at that point (or at least back in Malibu!) and really like vacation. There were several small, man-made islands about 100 meters out from the beach that I swam to and walked around. Peaceful, relaxing, calm, refreshing, warm, are adjectives that come to mind when I think of Sentosa. If you're ever in Singapore, go to Sentosa for a day.
That night we went to the tallest building in Singapore to relax and then we called it a night early, hitting our bunks around 11:30 in preparation for our 6:45 flight on Monday morning (we actually got up at 3:30!).

The flight was great and we were back on campus before noon that day. I went for a swim and then hit the books...I crashed hard that night.