Singapore: Day 14

Today is the two week mark of my stay in Singapore! These two weeks have passed by quickly, but I'm both glad and astounded that I still have many more weeks remaining in this beautiful country. This is only the beginning of my grounding experience, and I hope I can juggle my research, two classes, Reach the World, and adventures with friends (what is sleep anyway to the college student?)

I work Mondays through Thursdays, and have a full day of class and field studies on Friday; the online class and blogs/videos for RTW are spread throughout the entire week. Today (Friday), we had a lecture on the public housing in Singapore; it is really interesting how Singapore controls and regulates housing through public housing, but it is needed because Singapore has such a large population yet a small amount of land. We were supposed to have a field study today, but it had to be pushed to next week unfortunately. As a result, we had our Friday afternoon completely free, and Laney, Emily, Nicole, and I took advantage of that by making a trip down to Velocity @ Novena Square, a mall filled with sports gear. We wandered around a bit and admired the sports gadgets, and eventually made our way to the post office, where we bought post card stamps; we are all sending out post cards to our family and friends! We dropped by a supermarket located at the very top of the mall, and Laney and I did some grocery shopping. I bought guava, starfruit, dragon-fruit, cereal, and Hello Panda cookies. Yum! Afterwards we split ways, as I wanted to head to Orchard to buy a swimsuit for tomorrow and the others were tired and headed back to PGPR. Not many stores in Singapore seem to sell swimsuits; after wandering around the mall for two hours, I only found swimsuits in Top Shop and H&M, and even then most of them did not come in my size because there wasn't a large selection of size or style. In the end, I bought a modest two-piece from Top Shop; can't wait to wear it for tomorrow! A group of us (the self-named "Balonglongs") are heading to Pulau Ubin, an island offshore of Singapore, for a full-day of biking, kayaking, and/or relaxing in the fish spa. I am going to head to bed now to rest for the long day tomorrow, but I will be back to incorporate pictures into this post!