Spontaneous Trip (Week 5-6)

School Life

As the coronavirus situation escalated, the university decided to increase their preventative measures on campus. Students and professors were notified that all classes exceeding 50 students must be broken up into smaller sections or be conducted online. I think that it will be harder to learn through online lectures since it requires more self discipline. I hope that the virus situation won't get worse.

Adventures

Macritchie Treetop Walk

At the Treetop Walk, I saw monkeys up close for the first time! They were very calm but still cautious about people. During the walk, I felt very close with nature. It was fascinating to see how the monkeys interacted and took care of one another. For example, they would help each other look after the baby and check each other for fleas. There was one monkey that was eating seeds and studying humans, it was as if it was enjoying a movie.

Haji Lane

This spot was a great change of scenery, instead of tall buildings, there were small shops and restaurants lined up closely along side the streets. There was street art painted on some of the buildings. I saw that some local people brought their dogs with them to take pictures next to the colorful buildings. The food here was slightly more expensive and they had a wide range of Indian and Thai cuisines. I tried an ice cream spot called Overrun, their specialty was chendol ice cream. It had an amazing flavor but I couldn't figure out what it was made of.

ArtScience Museum

This art museum had a Disney exhibition. Inside of it there were many displays of how Disney animations came to life. It was really interesting to see how the early animations were sketched on paper with notes showing what the artists were thinking back when they were drawing. For the animations that are more recent, it went from pencil and paper to digital art. My favorite display was Beauty and the Beast, I found out that the beast was originally drawn as a baboon.

Novena Square

My friend Kelli and I went to try out the bak kuh teh (pork rib cooked in broth) dish at Song Fa. We saw that the restaurant had one michelin star. I was very satisfied with the dish, the broth was rich (servers always refilled) and the pork was tender. Eating this dish reminded me of home, my parents always made soup using pork rib. I will definitely come back here if I am craving soup.

Newton Food Centre

This hawker center was featured in Crazy Rich Asians! There were many seafood options available at the stalls. My friends and I did family style so that we could try the different dishes. My favorite was the oyster egg, we got it from a stall that was famous for it. The oyster egg was cooked so that the inside was fluffy while the outside was crispy. I didn't know that oyster would go so well with egg.

Malaysia

My friends and I decided to go on a spontaneous weekend trip to Malaysia. We went to Kuala Lumpur which is the capital. We did lots of shopping, visited the sky tower, and went to Din Tai Fung for xiao long bao. Malaysia is really good for shopping and eating because everything is pretty cheap! I wish that I was able to stay longer, there are still many things that I haven't done because of time restrictions. I plan to visit Johor Bahru (another city in Malaysia) sometime!