Weekend Update

Saturday - February 26th
I started off Saturday by attending an information session for a race I will be attending next weekend. I’m on a team with 3 other international students. The race looks like lots of fun.
The rough details are:
1. Complete 4 puzzles.
2. Jump off a bridge into the Kalang River
3. Swim around a buoy and then back to the riverbank.
4. Split up, two people go biking, two people go kayaking.
5. Meet up, and switch
6. Meet up again, and proceed to Fort Canning Park for a mystery task.
7. Run
8. Arrive at the G-Force tower for a mystery task.
9. Run
10. Arrive at climbing wall
a. One member of the team climbs over a short wall and then abseils down the other side.
11. Complete race.

After the information session, I met up with two of the other Canadian interns – Shawn and Raj. We went to a travel agent exhibition in Singapore’s biggest shopping mall. We were told that there would be good discounts. Unfortunately, we arrived 1 day early. On the up side, we got to see the Fountain of Wealth – the world’s largest fountain.

Post, mission to the mall, we had some dinner and arrived back at home in time for a spectacular thunder shower – the first real rain since I’ve been in Singapore. My hall was hit by lightening, temporarily knocking out the power to all of our electrical outlets. Luckily, this was the only problem.

Later in the evening, Shawn and I went out with his German room-mate Dan to celebrate Dan’s soon departure for Germany. We went to the Swiss Hotel – The Stamford – for the beautiful scenery of New Asia, the bar on the 70th floor. We arrived just before 9:00pm and avoided the $20 cover charge. Unfortunately, the happy hour price for beer was $7.50 a bottle, and doubled to it’s ordinary price of $15.00 after 9. That said, it was a good evening and I enjoyed my first real “club” experience in Singapore.

Sunday – February 27th
Sunday morning, I got up at 9:00am and, along with Cristel, Raj and Shawn, headed out on a trip to one of Singapore’s outlying islands – St. John island. We took a bus, the MRT, another bus (this one to Sentosa island) and then finally a ferry. However, it was worth and the two and a half hours it took.

St. John’s island is quite small and has a rather unpleasant history, being used as a quarantine centre for Chinese immigrants with cholera, the world’s largest quarantine centre for leprosy, a deportation holding centre, and a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. The infrastructure left behind is many a few small building all surrounded by high fences with large quantities of barbed wire. Not an inviting scene. However, the island is also furnished with a nice swimming lagoon and sitting areas that overlook the ocean.

St. John’s island is also an area for marine biology research. There are two private facilities and a government centre. The government centre, much like the former quarantine area, is outlined with barbed wire and high fences. They don’t want any visitors. However, the two private facilities were quite receptive. We met a security guard at one of the places. He informed us the facility was closed for the weekend but referred us to his counterpart across the way. At the other facility we encountered Yaz Ong. He’s the security guard for the facility, but extremely friendly. We asked if we could look around. He put his lunch aside and began leading us on a tour. He took us through a few of the bio labs, to look at the water pumping facility, and to the area where the have some marine samples. He then took us on a trip around the facility in a golf cart and informed us if we were to return on a weekday we could go visit the dolphin training facility. He even said he would talk to his boss to see if we could join a scuba diving trip for samples. We were amazed by his openness and eagerness to help. We left with a few post-cards, and Yaz’s contact number – in case we could return on a weekday.