Day 1 - Introduction

I left my Aunt's home in Markham early on the morning of December 29th catching the AC15 to Hong Kong. After staying a few days with my family, I proceeded to Singapore.

Day 1 - Jan 3, 2011
23:00
I landed in the hot and humid Singapore on the night of January 3rd and quickly walked to wards the customs and baggage pickup. At customs I was asked to provide my offer letter which I did not have. Luckily the officer let me through with a 30day tourist stamp. After picking up my 53lb suitcase, I was asked to get the suitcase scanned. No trafficking of drugs (death penalty) or anything illegal, so I was able to get to the arrival hall where I quickly located Benny, my welcome buddy.
Benny brought a friend and they quickly showed me around the airport and brought me on the shuttle to Terminal 3. I got a SIM card with SingTel and activated my phone. I was quickly convinced to test out the 019 feature of the SIM by calling my mom in HK. Everything went smoothly and we took a taxi to PGPR - the residence I was staying at. The taxi fare, just under $33 came with a tarriff for taking a taxi after 11pm, but it was still a cheap fare. Benny knew exactly where to checkin and found my room :)

After a restless night, I found Tom early in the morning and went to orientation. Luckily I bumped into another classmate, Irfan on the intra-university shuttle. We all proceeded to the orientation, found lunch and went to registration. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete my registration with ICA but at least I had my student card. Here we met many other exchange students from mostly Canada, including Kyra who is also from Waterloo.

After registration, we (Tom, Irfan, Kyra and me) took the 183 bus to Clementi (MRT) station where we got EZ-link cards, similar to Octopus cards in HK. I like their tap on and off feature on buses which I couldn't find in HK. Basically one can pay a fare that is based on the distance traveled on the bus by tapping their card while getting on and off the bus. For the first time, we then proceeded to explore the subway (MRT) system. We went from the green line to some other line and arrived at Farrer station, one station after Little India. Here we found a big shopping mall and got a bunch of necessities.

By the time we returned to PGPR, it was already 8pm. We dropped off our groceries and proceeded to the "big stairs" where we met up at 8:30 to visit West Coast Park. On the way I found two 500ml tigers for $7.90 total. Around 10:30, Tom, Irfan and I went to go eat dessert at "the dessert place" where Irfan got a mango ice and I got a waffle with ice cream for $3.50 each. Not a bad start to Singapore but definitely a long and exhausting first 24 hours. A more interesting Day 2 up ahead, with a lot less paperwork and more exploring!