| Singapore Airport in Changi |
Traveling to Singapore and Initial impressions.
| Campus Map for Year 5-6 at Raffles Institute |
6:30 in the morning at Nashville International Airport, I meet Falkner Werkhaven and George Swenson at the gate to go to the Minneapolis Airport for our international flight to Japan. At the time we had no real understanding of how long our trip was actually going to be. 27 hours later we arrived in Singapore at 12:20 in the morning on the 22nd of July. The tremendous difference in time change was a huge initial shock to all of us. We had basically flown for two days. It wasn't until about an after we landed that we didn't spend a minute on the ground on the 21st, it was almost as if we had skipped it. Once we landed we literally walked through customs without even having our bags screened. It seemed very relaxed. We knew that we were supposed to find Rachel, the woman who was going to be helping us throughout the trip. It took about a half hour to find her, but it wasn't a problem. We waited in line for a taxi and I remember saying to myself remembering taxis in New York "Oh goodness, after a 27 hour plane ride we are going to get into a nasty cab". Once I saw the taxis, they were nice Mercedes and I knew this country was going to be nothing like I had ever experienced in my life.
We got to our dorm at about 2:30 in the morning. Falkner and I were given room 12.10. The twelve was for the 12th floor. Our dorm building was thirteen stories tall! Both Falkner and I were so tired that we fell asleep in our clothes almost immediately. We woke up five hours later for breakfast. I don't know if it was getting off of airplane food or something else but the Indian breakfast with pan our first morning really set the standards high. We didn't do too much that day except for sleep; however, we did take a walk around the campus. The campus is enormous. If MBA's campus were to be placed inside of the Raffles Institute campus, it would take three MBA campuses to fill just the one of the Raffles Institute. The picture on the right is just half of the campus committed to only two grade levels.
Singaporean Culture
| Merlion |
Singapore is a country that prides itself on its diverse culture and deep history. Singapore got its name from an ancient name Singa-pura. Singa being lion and pura being city, and putting the two together you get lion city. The name is ironic because there has never been lions on the island. This accounts for half of the history behind Singapore's perhaps most known feature, the Merlion. This statue has the head of a lion and the body of a fish. The fish comes from the historic economy of Singapore. Singapore has historically been a fishing village and that is where the second half of the Merlion comes from. The other aspect to Singapore that is unique is its cultural diversity. Singapore is split up into three ethnic quarters (Chinatown, Kampong Glam, and Little India). The most interesting of the three from my perspective was Kampong Glam. This is the Muslim quarter of the city. Right in the middle of Kampong Glam there is an elegant mosque covered in gold. There was also a lot of local food vendors there so we got an excellent taste of Singaporean food.
| Buddha Temple in Singapore |
| Mosque in Kampong Glam |
Thanks
I learned so much from my trip to Singapore and I can not express how grateful I am for being able to experience this once in a life time trip. Thank you so much to Mr. and Mrs. Warner, Mr. Gioia, the Raffles Institute, our classmates in Singapore Gladys, Jess, Deborah, Jean, Emily, Kendra, Niki, and Joey, and to Rachel who did an excellent job showing us the country of Singapore.
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| Myself, Falkner and George enjoy one of our last full days in the gardens in Singapore. |
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