Coming from India, going to Singapore was like going to New York City. Singapore is modern, wealthy, and clean…three things I wouldn’t say first when describing India. For the first time in five years, Semester at Sea students were allowed to disembark and get off of the ship. Before, the ship would dock and refuel, but no one was allowed to get off. In our preport, we were all warned to be on our best behavior due to the strict laws that Singapore has regarding drugs and alcohol., and since it was Halloween the night that we arrived, Halloween + Semester at Sea could easily equal a problem.
We were only going to be in Singapore for about 36 hours, so there was only so much time to do the bunch of things there was to do. For the first day Julia, Joann, Collin and I went to the Raffles Hotel for a world famous Singapore Sling, and then to the mall to meet Joann’s friend who lives in Singapore. Collin, Julia and I decided to go to the zoo, the best zoo in Asia, and one of the best in the world. It was awesome, we saw an elephant show, they had three white tigers, and we saw a pygmy hippo give birth.
After we got back from the zoo, I had to get ready and go to the Singapore Flyer, the tallest ferris wheel in the world for a high class dinner. The taxi situation in Singapore is pretty awful. Taxis will only pick you up from certain designated taxi waiting areas, you cannot hail them from the street, so if there is a long line of people waiting for a taxi (and there usually is) you may have to wait a while. I got caught behind a really long line at the zoo, so I got back to the ship late. I took less than ten minutes to change, and then left to take a taxi to the flyer. Unfortunately the trip from the ship to the street takes about ten to fifteen minutes because we were docked in a cruise terminal. It was six oclock when I actually got into the taxi, the same time I was supposed to be at the flyer, unfortunately I didn’t have any cash on me and the taxi I got into refused to take my card, so he dropped me off in the middle of the street. Thankfully another taxi driver picked me up and was able to bring me to an ATM and then to the flyer, which I arrived at almost twenty minutes late.
The dinner was awesome, the food wasn’t amazing, but at $120 dollars you get decent food and great ambience. It was really cool to get to be sitting on the world’s highest ferris wheel eating dinner and seeing Singapore lit up all around and below us…it was awesome. When the dinner was over, I made my way back to the ship to meet Joann, Julia, and Collin to go out for Halloween. We took a taxi to a busy part of the city and walked around enjoying the nightlife and having a good time before going back to the ship for the night.
The next day Collin, Julia, and I took off for Universal Studios for the day. The two main rides were closed but it was an awesome time. We bought some of the pictures that they take on the rides, and went to Chili’s for lunch. It was really fun and it was cool to go to Universal Studios in Singapore. After that we stopped at the grocery store and then got back on the ship. Singapore was really fun, but expensive compared to the other countries we had been in. Singapore really isn’t all that different from home, and it was a good friendly reminder of what I’ll be going back to soon.
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