Being only one of two undergraduate exchange students within my faculty (NIE) at Nanyang (NTU), orientation activities have been a little sparse on the ground. I've been caught in this awkward situation whereby I'm not specifically invited to university wide events as NIE mostly acts as a separate, independent entity and NTU assumes that they're doing their own thing with overseas students, however with so few students, NIE hasn't organised any orientation activities which may have helped with the struggle in the first few weeks. I was supposed to have a buddy but that seems to have failed considering I haven't met her yet (this being the third week of the semester). With this in mind, I saw that the civil and environmental engineering club was organising a day out at Marina Bay, with local students acting as tour guides to those on exchange. I've met a few people who are studying within the engineering faculty while on exchange as NTU is supposedly well respected for its courses in this area, so I knew some of the people going. What else could I do but crash the party? After all, I didn't have anything else on!
Before actually heading off to marina bay, we participated in some icebreaking activities. I don't know about anyone else but I feel like icebreaking activities do they opposite of what they're supposed to - everyone feels more awkward afterwards than they did to begin with! Despite this, I was happy to be going out and celebrating Australia Day with some new friends.
I found the Aussies - playing criket (badly) wearing Australia day onesies and (of course!) drinking beer.
Before beginning the tour, the leaders of the group fed us which was fantastic as I'd skipped lunch! We tried some foods that are specifically for Chinese New Year which is on the 31st Jan/1st Feb.
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| Mareena (from the US) and I |
Excuse my dodgy hair but we'd just finished line dancing! The locals taught us how to do the electric slide to folk music - I don't think I've laughed so much in ages! Most of us were pretty hopeless until we got the hang of it: it wasn't really that difficult, I think we were just laughing too hard to concentrate. I have to admit, despite being stared at by all the other tourists, it was a lot of fun.
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| Aussie Aussie Aussie! |
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| Shooting a new Singapore airlines ad perhaps? |
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| Blurry I know but I think the lights on the double helix bridge look amazing! |
After exploring and having dinner, we rushed around the bay to try and make the light show. Occurring at 8pm and 9.30pm every night, you can see this show by catching the Bayfront MRT, and exiting the shops onto the promenade. Following this we headed to another display in Gardens by the bay, specifically with the Super Trees! Showing at both 7.45pm and 8.45pm all week, it's best to lie on the step under the main tree as its from here that you can get the best view - it was pretty amazing. The lights and designs on the trees change in time with music and considering their size, it is something to see!
I really enjoyed exploring other aspects of Marina Bay that I didn't see in my last visit. Despite being a tourist area, it is definitely worth seeing if you visit Singapore. I had a great day, and was really thankful that the others included me despite not being an engineer! I was thinking of everyone back home - I hope you all had a fantastic day as well. Although I wished I had some vegemite with me, just to see the looks on people's faces when they tried it...
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