Weekend in Bali

Ahhh... all of us EAPSI participants have been so excited about this one - we planned it WELL in advance!

Bali is an island that is part of Indonesia, and it's actually quite larger than Singapore. The weather there reminded me of California - in the mid to high-twenties (C of course), no humidity. A bit of clouds here and there.

Me and several others were taking a 9pm flight there which got pushed back until 11:30pm (this is what you get with budget airlines!), getting us to our hotel in Kuta in the wee hours of the morning. I don't know about you guys, but no matter how many hours (or days) I've been without sleep, coming to a new and exciting place always wakes me up. Or at least puts the sleepiness off, when it culminates, days later, in a massive and glorious night of sleep. Needless to say, I was up only a few hours later, checking out our hotel, drinking coffee (a must in such situations) and booking a car for the day for touring around.

Passing the time at the airport. There was also a POOL at the airport which we hung around.

Around 10am about 8 of us, split between two cars, were off! We basically "rented" guides/drivers for about 12 hours. They took us around the island to a few crafty places (Ubud is an "artisan" city in the middle of Bali. It was nice just riding around, as there was awesome architecture EVERYWHERE.

Drive-by picture taking :)

I think this was at a silversmith

We also went to a monkey forest with temples. There were SOOO many monkeys there. And they were not afraid of coming up to everyone and looking for food in your backpack. A lot of them were fat, too, because of the overfeeding tourists. It was very cool, but towards the end, after seeing so many monkeys jump on people, I saw them more as obstacles than as things to come up to.

Walking to the monkey forest.

A trip to Indonesia wouldn't be complete without having some Kopi Luwak, or Civet Coffee. It's basically the world's most expensive coffee because it's made of beans that have been eaten by civets and then basically excreted whole. They are then cleaned thoroughly and made into coffee, which is quite delicious and lacking in bitterness. Definitely worth the 5 bucks. As we were at the exact place where they make it, it wasn't as expensive as it'd be somewhere much farther. The view from our table was beautiful as well. 

Civet coffee, cocoa beans from the tree, and an assortment of other delicious drinks

At the end of the night we went to Amed, which was roughly a 3 hour drive to the east coast of Bali. Our rooms there were awesome! Right by the beach too, and the restaurant on the premises was great. Amed is definitely quieter than Kuta beach, and mostly a local or quiet-seeking tourist spot.

Sunday we spent the day snorkeling (BEAUTIFUL and just meters from the shore!), getting cheap amazing massages, hiking, eating delicious food, and just spending the time by the beach in general. 

Restaurant by the shore

Amed beach

Me and a few others had an uber-early flight back on Monday morning, so we went back to Kuta (which is 15 minutes from the airport) on Sunday night. Kuta is definitely more tourist-ey, with lots of people trying to get you to buy stuff (I was getting a little tired of that by this point). 

The Bali airport is definitely not on par with Singapore's and there was a ton of walking around the terminals, but we got home safe and sound :)

Clark Quay night out, Gardens by the Bay

On Thursday the 28th was Liz's birthday! woo! What better way to celebrate than to go to the mall, shop for party clothes, and eat some cake?

Fun door decoration surprise!

Friday pretty much the whole EAPSI group went out to Clark Quay after pre-gathering at NTU. It was a very fun experience - lots of dancing to good music. The place we went to (Pump?) had a cover band that did all sorts of fun songs. I was so happy that Danza Kuduro played TWICE (once the cover band and once the DJ). When we left around 4am the whole club AND Clark Quay was still hopping. There was a Russian bar/club called Rasputin - I randomly ran into a guy who was Russian and worked there. Didn't think I'd speak Russian to someone in Singapore, but there ya have it!  Definitely worth to come back to.


On Sunday a few of us made an evening excursion to the newly-opened Gardens by the Bay. It's a huge $1 billion project, where beautiful fauna intermingled with creatively-designed man-made structures to display them. Just gorgeous! Sadly, my phone doesn't take good night pictures, so I'll just post a picture my friend took. What I saw was similar. There was also what sounded like a movie soundtrack playing in the background as we walked around, which made us feel like we were in Jurassic Park or something. We hope to come back sometime during the day so we can get a different view and partake in some of the ticketed experiences which were closed when we came there. This garden definitely shows you what Singapore is!

Gardens by the Bay at night

Pulau Ubin and Bintan, Indonesia weekend

Short ferry ride to Pulau Ubin.

Saturday, me and Katelyn went with Amy to the nearby Island of Pulau Ubin, which is part of Singapore. It was a very short and cheap ferry ride away. The island is undeveloped, unlike the rest of Singapore, and has a very village-ey ('kampong') feel. Lots of people come there to bike, hike, and eat seafood. There we got some bikes at the area near the ferry dock and went biking around for a while. The roads were well labeled, and it was nice riding around nature. We got off and went through a mangrove and did some hiking through the jungle, saw some mud skippers! If those things don't scream evolution then I don't know what does.

Looking for and taking pictures of all sorts of critters and stuff!

 When we went back to the bikes (where there were a whole lot stationed) we found that a bunch of monkeys and boars (including cute baby boars). The ensuing scene was quite hilarious with the monkeys hopping around and stealing bottles from the stationed bikes, and proceeding with biting them and drinking the contents. The boars did this as well with bottles that they knocked out off of the bikes. They were all really close to us and it was very funny. Totally made my day :) I will post those photos/videos later.

We then got some local eats, ran into a couple of other EAPSI fellows, biked some more, and took the ferry back. A very nice, nature-laden morning/afternoon.

Fresh coconut water is always available - nature's sports drink!

Some food by the water after hiking & biking.

Lots of bikes everywhere in town.

 I then went to my Prof's house for a lab party, which was super delicious as his wife made some Korean food and we played a bunch of Wii sports (apparently I'm pretty good at table tennis and shooting things).


Sunday we were going to Bintan, Indonesia! There are a lot of resorts there, so people usually stay more than just one day, but since it's so close and we only had one day, we decided to make it a day trip. We went to a ferry terminal and took a one hour boat ride to Bintan (south east of Singapore). Tom and Jerry were the on-board entertainment, though most people napped as it was so early in the morning.

On the way to Bintan.

 After arriving at Bintan and getting a little jipped for the 7-day Visa, we were followed by one of the resort drivers who wanted to take us on some fancy tours. It was quite annoying, but not toooo bad. Our plans were to take a taxi to Trikora beach, about an hour to the east. It's a public beach frequented by locals which is supposed to be super beautiful. After a very fast and swerving ride, we arrived at a beauuuutiful white-sand beach full of Indonesian kids running around.


We were there for about 4-5 hours total, enjoying the sun, sand, and amazing water. Had some delicious local food. It was great.

Can see boats and prawn farms in the distance (they were actually swimmable-to)

Local eats (and yes, coconut water again :) )

Nap time!

Gorgeous beach

One of ton of pictures that were taken.

 Got about 50 billion pictures taken with the locals. So first, since Indonesia is a Muslim country, even the boys there were all fully clothed (even in the water). Of course us girls showing up in our bikinis was different for them, but no-one seemed to be against it. Second, since this was a local beach and they probably don't get a lot of foreigners there, EVERYONE wanted to take pictures with us.

Usually teenage boys and girls in large groups would spot us, say "Hey Mista/Miss, pictah?" and make a camera gesture. Since we are nice, we let everyone take pictures with us. They'd giggle so much! Then of course everyone would have to take it with their phone and in different positions etc. It wasn't too bad unless we were walking off by the beach. Me and Liz tried to walk down the beach at the end (wanted to see the other side), but the picture taking made us turn back. It was knd of funny, but pretty tiring/annoying towards the end. At least we indulged the humor of some of these kids who think tall white people are cool!

It was a very beautiful place and makes me very excited for Bali in a couple of weeks!

Bugis and Arab Streets

Entrance to the maze that is Bugis Street.

As many other big cities, Singapore has a plethora of it's little "districts" "towns" and "streets" - Chinatown, Little India, and Bugis and Arab Streets. We went to the latter two on two separate nights last week.
Bugis St is supposed to be representative of the "non-mall" -type of Singaporean Shopping. Lots of cheap souvenirs, clothes, street food crammed into densely-packed streets. Lots of twists and turns and people trying to grab the good stuff. Since we didn't go on a weekend when it's packed, it wasn't too bad and I was able to get a few souvenirs that didn't look too corny :)

Lamb Kebab on Arab Street = delicious!

Arab Street was also interesting - had lots of Turkish rugs and interesting fabrics. I definitely bought a few pretty things. Most importantly, they had Mediterranean food, which I LOVE and dearly miss. I had some delicious lamb kebab.

Around NTU campus and Chinese Gardens

I've been around the campus for roughly a week now, and know it enough to get to where I need to. One thing about NTU and Singapore in general is that there seem to be a TON of ways/shortcuts to everywhere. Tons of walkways, stairs, connecting hallways. It definitely confused me some at first when trying to get to lab and back to graduate hall.

There's TONS of food on campus, in places called canteens (there are more than a dozen around campus). All pretty much have around 5-10 different stands with different types of cuisines such as Japanese, Chinese, Noodles, Korean, Malaysian, and western. There are also always fruit and juice and drink stands, and sometimes desserts. As I said before, a good meal will not be more than a few bucks, maybe like $5 if you get a drink and a fruit too.
Anyways, here are some pictures of campus:

Hall 11, with Canteen 11, closest to our hall (2 mins).

Graduate hall where I live

Stairs to dinner after gym... we don't like these =x

Art and Design Building.. very cool looking!

On Tuesday a few of us went to the nearby Chinese/Japanese Gardens. Only the Chinese ones were open, and basically this was a big park with lakes, sculptures, cool buildings etc. We got food at a hawker center nearby and walked around taking pictures, then got some soya ice cream and stopped by the mall for a few things. Good evening :)

Dim Sum, Marina Barrage, and Frisbee

It was super glorious sleeping in on Sunday! We went to get Dim Sum (my first time ever) at one of the billion malls here. Chicken wrapped in bacon and then fried was the most delicious thing ever!!

  Since we were close to the Marina Barrage (the big boat building) we decided to walk around there. So the boat building is actually a hotel only.

Casino

 You can go up to the top for a price and have fun there, but we're saving that for an EAPSI birthday celebration in a few weeks, so we just went to check out the casino (into which we got in for free but Singaporeans have to pay $100!!). We walked around the mall, which has an ice skating rink, had some food, and then decided to play ultimate frisbee at a nearby park.

Ran across some performance at the Esplanade - there was a harmonica player!

That was amazingly fun, despite the fact that I was wearing a strapless white dress and trying to keep it on the whole time.

We then relaxed with some beers in the AC and headed home. Overall a very fun though tiring afternoon/evening!

Bukit Timah and monkeys

Two of the EAPSI girls here work with the monkeys that are found around Singapore - they do all sorts of hiking every day, tracking, and collecting "samples" :) They let us tag along with them on Saturday morning. Singapore actually has a decent amount of nature, and Bukit Timah is one of them. It's got a mountain (hill more like), lots of hiking, mountain biking, and running trails. Of course it was packed! After a little bit of walking around enjoying the atmosphere and a short but intense hike up to the "summit", Anne, one of the girls who studies the monkeys, called us to come see the ones she's found. It's much easier to hear/see them in the forest if you're alone and quiet.

The monkeys came very close!

Anyways, we stayed around the monkeys for a while, taking a bajillion pictures and watching them come super close to us. Definitely didn't feed or touch them though - big no-no. Bikers coming down the path almost ran over the poor things!


After getting sufficiently sweaty, we went to an awesome Indian place nearby - south Indian. Had some amazing Prata and Murtabak :)