I'm currently on the computer in the budget terminal of the Singapore airport waiting for my flight to Phuket (Southern Thailand) - I promised an update before the journey so I'll do a brief one. It seems like it has been forever since Vietnam - filled with food poisoning (thanks, Vietnam), late nights in the library and out on the town, packing up my room, and preparing for the travels which I am about to embark on (inculding almost being unable to obtain one of my visas, but thanks to my track skillz I was able to run to an internet cafe and back to that particular embassy in time). I got like no sleep last night as I was prepping for my business law final (which ended at 3 pm, almost 3 hours ago) - I'm a little bit out of it. Oh also we had to say goodbye to Simon and Katie, quite an eventful/emotional day.
So the point of the post: our itinerary. We are going to relax in Phuket, Thailand for a few days - go up to Bangkok (only for like 12 hours and I won't be wearing a red shirt/we'll be staying in the airport) so we can catch our flight to Burma aka Myanmar. I was planning on writing more but the computer is going to kick me off in half a minute so I'll just save the rest for after.
I miss all of you! and I'll see most of you so soon!!!!
I know that I probably say this every time I come back from a trip, but my trip to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as, and still known as to the locals, Saigon) and Mu Nei in Vietnam over reading week (from April 16th - 21st) has been my favorite trip so far. This may have been because I did not have to worry about my two finance classes which ended each with a final on the Monday before we left.
On Thursday morning (extremely early - we left PGP at around 5:45 am to make it to our 8:30 flight) we left Singapore and flew to Ho Chi Minh City (we being Kerry, Katie, Heather and I - unfortunately the other Katie had to stay in Singapore because she just got an internship and needed to fill out paperwork, but she gets to go work in Australia so I guess it evens out) - we spent the day walking around the city and seeing the Reunification Palace (home of the South Vietnamese Government during the Vietnam war - still in tact) and the War Remnants Museum (from the Vietnam War - or American war as it is called in Vietnam). We also discovered two places we would often return to during our stay in Saigon (basically all the locals still call HCMC Saigon). First was the night market (also functions as a day market), which is like any market that I've been to in Southeast Asia (or Asia, because they are similar in Hong Kong), the second place we found was Fanny's, an ice cream parlor which serves delicious sundaes (for like 4 USD, a little bit pricey for food in Vietnam, but we splurged).
A man napping on his motor bike amid the chaos that is Saigon
The reunification palace
Our Tour guide took us into the bunker below the palace
Friday morning, the three of us had booked tickets for a bus to Mui Ne, which is a coastal town (there are a ton of resorts - tourism has got to be a main/probably one of few industries there) on the South China Sea in Southern Vietnam. We got a tip to go there from one of our exchange student friends at NUS (did I mention before that there are like 700 exchange students at NUS this semester, so whenever you travel somewhere it is basically guaranteed that someone else has already been and can give you advice) as Mui Ne for some reason boasts sand dunes (both red and white) that you can sled down on. We went from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, it was nice to get away from the city in that time and bask in the hot sun, oh and Mui Ne was beautiful.
Our hostel - this is what 5 USD per night will get you (including an air conditioned room) - i think we could have stayed at the nicest resorts (which were probably really nice) for around 25$ per night
View of the South China Sea from the back of the jeep which took us to both the red and white sand dunes
Went to the white sand dunes first to go sledding - its really scary up on the top of the dunes because the wind blows really hard (we were SO sandy when we left) but we could not get the sleds to go very fast.
We went to the bathroom and found this - I included it because its like the Southeast Asian version of Aunt Kate and Uncle Barney's yard.
Red dunes for the sunset (couldn't see it because of clouds)
Night out where we found a bar with some other tourists (mostly far older than we are) -- Kerry won a limbo contest
A great thing about Southeast Asia is that in some places paying someone to drive you on the back of their scooter is the equivalent of taking a taxi.
A bad thing about Southeast Asia is that you can unknowingly purchase "hard seats" for a five hour long bus ride home - which are plastic lawn chairs that go in the aisle.
As the bus ride was about 5 hours long, we did not get back into Saigon until the evening, where we went back to our Hostel, My My Arthouse (which I would recommend for anyone traveling on a budget -- who doesn't mind that it is in an alley, a lot of buildings are in alleys in Saigon - the people here were so friendly, we got an air conditioned room for the 4 of us (later 6 of us) - and complementary breakfast!). Back at the hostel it was not long before Ben and Charles (also Americans- from UNC) arrived. Ben and Charles had left Singapore earlier than we had and had gone from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, then they came to HCMC to meet up with us and fly out of Vietnam. Obviously, a trip to Fanny's was in order to celebrate their arrival.
Monday, we went out to the Cu Chi Tunnels - which was about an hour away but still considered a part of Ho Chi Minh City - it is a huge complex of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong (communists) during the Vietnam war. If I'm remembering correctly, I think he may have told us that 100,000 people lived down there during the Vietnam War. We actually went down through one of the tunnels (which have been widened for tourists) about 60 meters I think - We had to crouch and shuffle forward - I almost had a panic attack being down there but luckily I controlled myself. Also I'm slightly embarrassed/ashamed to say that we shot AK-47s at the tunnels.
A man demonstrating how to get into one of the hidden entrances of the tunnel
My turn, I was too scared to crouch down in here
Instead, we went in through a wider entrance, through a section of the tunnel which had been widened for tourists but was it was still a disturbingly tight fit.
This was terrifying
Monday also happened to be Katie's (UConn Katie who was in our Vietnam group) 21st birthday, so obviously we had to celebrate. Luckily, this gave us an occasion to drink the bottle of Bacardi that Kerry won in the limbo contest in Mui Ne, so we made cocktails in the hostel room in true TJ Donohue fashion. Then we went out to one of the restaurants that Anthony Bourdain raves about in either his book or his tv show - I'm not sure, this information was told to me - it is called Com Nieu Saigon. It is clearly one of the nicer restaurants in Vietnam (even though it was so nice, it still wasn't too expensive for us, or too expensive for us to pay for the birthday girl - a reason why I LOVE Southeast Asia). It is also famous for its claypot rice, which as it comes out of the kitchen, one server will break the claypot it is in and throw it to another server across the room who will do cool tricks with it - awesome.
We surprised her with a cake
Tuesday, we got up early for a day trip to the Mekong Delta (area in Southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches the sea). It was a little bit of a struggle for us to be awake, alert, and excited given the activities of the previous evening - but after an hour bus ride and a little of the first boat ride, we were able to enjoy the rest of our day (even though at this point I had a pretty bad head cold). The tour that we went on had a slightly disneyworld feel to it - as all the activities we did were pre planned - but it was still a really cool experience.
Being paddled around in the Mekong Delta - we were one of the few people from the group that we bussed over with that put our hats on
This reminded me of Apocalypse Now
Coconut candy factory which was DELICIOUS
Wednesday was our last day - we shopped for the morning and then went off in search of "the lunch lady" which is a woman who makes food on the side of the road (quite common) but she only makes one meal per day and its supposed to be amazing. We found her, and it was delicious, only problem is that it may have given two of us food poisoning...
And then we flew back to Singapore on Wednesday night, just in time for ladies' night.
I had my first official final (third actual final) yesterday, so I only have one more left on next Monday. I will post before then about my exciting travel plans which are not finalized yet but are so close! I cannot believe that I am almost done here time has literally flown by, faster than any other point in my life.
I haven't done any traveling since Hong Kong, but I thought I'd do a post to update you on what we have done in Singapore and let you know about my upcoming plans. Time is literally flying by, next week is the last week of class (we have a reading week after it devoted to studying for the locals and travelling for the exchange students, and then two weeks worth of finals), however I have two final tests next Monday (in both of my finance classes, dreadful) so I'll mostly be studying this week. Because we have limited class and crammed in studying and travelling I know that these 5 1/2 weeks are going to fly by -- some of my friends who are only taking upper level business classes that do not have finals during finals week are leaving to go home at the end of next week! I feel like I will be an emotional wreck at the end of this journey.
After HK, I tried to catch up on some work and enjoy life in SG. Kerry and I went to apply for our visas for Vietnam (a little bit of a process compared to the other countries we've been to) and Charles, Kerry, Ben, and I went to see the Asian Civilizations Museum -- one of Singapore's best museums. we get in free because we're at NUS (always more of an incentive to go) and we had a nice tour (much shorter than the one at the Peranekan Museum). The special exhibit was on the Mughal Empire and naturally, as inquisitive college students, we took full advantage of the special exhibit:
they are literally crouching as this is clearly made for children
my friends found out how bad my coloring skills are
The week was rather uneventful - although we did attend a business lecture where we got to meet the CEOs of Google and Oracle (Singapore/Southeast Asia) and another prominent local CEO who owns a bunch of night clubs. Also I helped my friend John interview a man from Hong Kong who does a lot of different technically related things (I know basically nothing about how computers work) and one of the projects he's working on is attempting to break down the great firewall of China. Pretty interesting to talk to him and the CEO of Google, Singapore in the span of a couple of days. Especially now that google.com.cn does not exist anymore (its redirected through HK).
For me, Easter weekend was filled with church -- I probably have been to church more in these past three days than I have in the past three years (that's kind of a joke). Oh and I should point out all none of them were Catholic -- it was a pretty cool learning experience.
so quick run down
Good Friday - woke up and went to an Evangel Baptist Church - I did not realize that there are people who when referring to themselves as "Christians" they mean born-again Christians and not any type of Christians. It was pretty interesting I went with two people who were members of the church (one is my friend who interviews people for his blog and the other who took us is someone I have helped him interview twice who is an alum of NUS Bschool) and a British woman who is the widow of a former Dean of NUS who was visiting. I was told pre going that one of the beliefs is that anyone who is not born again is going to hell, so that's good news for probably everyone reading this blog. The ceremony wasn't too different from what I was used to (although it wasn't a traditional Good Friday Mass). We did have great Dim Sum afterwards.
Saturday - Out of the blue our friend Saro invited us to the Armenian Church which is the oldest church in Singapore (built in 1835, not still in use today) where the Armenian community in Singapore met to celebrate Easter (approx 35 individuals -- most of them not related to each other, there were some very cute kids running around). We had delicious Armenian baked goods and played this game where you try to crack each others' hard boiled eggs (I guess a lot of countries have that tradition) - Sadly I don't have any pictures because we thought it was going to be more of a mass. Oh and we went into the old church and two women and my friend Saro sang some hymns which were really beautiful. Saro was absolutely amazing - we had no idea he could sing so well. It was a moment that would have made my mom cry for sure.
Easter Sunday - Charles, Kerry, and I got up and went to St. Andrew's Cathedral - at this point I was done with keeping track of what type of religious ceremony was taking place. It was certainly interesting - there was a mass baptism at the end (we left before that) and two of the people getting baptized stood up and talked about how they found god -- to be honest it was nice but a tad bit on the crazy side (the man talked about run ins with the mafia and losing one million dollars...) -- and to add to it, during the middle of these talks pop music started blaring somewhere outside and would continue for the rest of the mass. During this period of time I was laughing so hard/uncontrollably (as silently as I could) into the hymn book that tears started rolling down my face.
Kerry artistically captures Charles and I in front of church.
After mass, we were going to a western brunch, but I had to come back to campus for a group meeting. The meeting was about a presentation I just gave about Korean Chaebols -- which I would have had no idea what they were had I not come to Asia.
So that brings me to today -- time to start studying for my two finals next Monday.
Things I'm looking forward to:
MRT Pub Crawl on Wednesday night
Getting my two finals out of the way
Vietnam a week from Friday!
Whatever is going to happen after final week and before I come home (plans keep getting jumbled) I know I get to spend at least one day lounging on a beach in Southern Thailand, so I'm happy about that
The fact that Mary Grace and I fly home on the same date and arrive at JFK within an hour of each other!
In case any one has been counting, you can go ahead and add Hong Kong (and Macao) to the list of places that I love (there aren't any places on the list of places I don't love...yet, just kidding there probably won't be any places added onto the second list). We went to HK from last Thursday (18th) until Sunday (21st), it was one of the more expensive trips, but we flew on a budget airline (tiger) so it cost nothing compared to how much you would spend flying across America.
Thursday was a little bit stressful as we barely made it to the airport on time, this wound up happening again on Sunday evening (really need to not do that next time I fly, although at this age I'd probably prefer running through the airport to having to wait an excessive amount of time for the airplane). Kerry and I flew together and met three of our friends in Hong Kong, but as it turned out there were several exchange students on our flight who we didn't know were traveling that weekend -- we must have gotten a special Tiger Airways deal.
First a little run down on Hong Kong -- its like Singapore in that its a very international Asian city, and there are a lot of people who speak English (more than in in Bangkok, but less than in Singapore where virtually everyone speaks English, except for the cab driver who couldn't take mom to Singapore's most famous museum) -- and its a hub of international business and kind of an outpost for China. But its different from Singapore in that it felt a lot bigger, the financial district is definitely a lot bigger (and more prominent on the global stage) than Singapore's (it reminded us more of NYC a little bit in that it was always busy and there was so much to see and do), and of course its a lot further north than Singapore so the weather felt like late spring in CT -- I was able to wear shorts, sneakers, and a sweatshirt (greatest combination ever) for most of the day and be totally comfortable.
We stayed in a hostel at the Chungking Mansions (I think over 17 floors there are over 100 hostels in this building) which is kind of notorious in HK -- its right down Nathan Road from the Peninsula Hotel (in a James Bond movie) but is a little shady...here's an article I found which is about an American anthropologist who spent some time in the Chungking Mansions. Kerry and I got our own room with a TV and bathroom (no window) and it wasn't too bad, aside from a cockroach we found crawling in Kerry's hair on Saturday morning -- I would like to point out that this did in no way discourage us from staying there again on Saturday night (I'm getting to be quite a traveler I suppose). Oh and this....
That looks like a bullet hole in the window by the stairs to me...
We arrived around 10 pm on Thursday, so we only went on a short walk around the area where we were staying and were pleased at the busyness of the neighborhood.
Friday was a busy one, we met up with Charles , Alex, and David (all were also staying in Chungking Mansions) and headed to Lantau to see the large Buddha on the hill. Hong Kong is made up of a bunch of connected islands -- we stayed on Kowloon...the financial district is on Hong Kong Island (so is Victoria Peak), which was right across the water from our hostel. Lantau was cool because it has a lot of hills/mountains which aren't developed at all (almost no residences in sight) so it felt like we had left HK all together.
Cable Car for the ride up
This continued well up and over this hill
The Buddha from afar. We didn't realize it at the time, but this Buddha may have been built as recently as 20 years ago...not as cool, but still a fun trip out to see it
Kerry and I try to apply sunscreen on our noses by looking into each other's fake rayban lenses
Me in front of the big Buddha
a pretty cool religious ceremony was going on inside of this temple involving both men and women, something I hadn't seen before -- we watched it for a while but were not allowed to take pictures
Big Buddha up close
Charles and I in front of a mountain, up at the big Buddha
After going to see the Buddha, we took a bus down the mountain and stopped at Tai O which is a fishing village with many stilted houses on the water (for this reason it is sometimes referred to as the Venice of Hong Kong). We met a local man there who showed us around a little bit and then took us to lunch. He was really nice and his name is Pi Ki (which he told us means miracle), he also told us that there are only around 4000 people living in the village now but there had been 10X that amount before a fire wiped out a large number of houses in 2000.
Boats at Tai O
Houses on stilts. Most of the people that live in Tai O are fishermen.
More houses
Kerry talking to Pi Ki
The restaurant he took us to
After Tai O, we headed back to Kowloon and checked out a market.
Look at all of that meat. At several places like this, we kept seeing meat that looked like a sponge, found out later it was tripe (which is stomach), I hate to not be adventurous, but I'm pretty glad that I didn't eat it.
She basically performed an infomercial for Kerry and I. She was so good I almost bought one of these.
After the market, we walked back to Nathan Ave near our hostel and walked through the famous Peninsula Hotel.
Hong Kong has one of the most famous skylines in the world and we first saw it lit up at night.
Kerry, Charles, and I
They have a walk of stars by the water similar to the one in Hollywood, the two most notable stars are Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. I made the mistake of putting my hands in Jackie Chan's hand prints...
...without looking at the grease from people who had done the same thing.
Hong Kong also boasts the longest running light show in the world (which happens at night) where all these buildings light up and flash from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, during the show we took a star ferry (cheap way to get across the water) to Hong Kong Island and were able to see the light show on both sides of the water.
View of one side lit up from the star ferry
Eating dinner in the red light district
Saturday Morning, we woke up and headed to a temple where we heard that if you walk over a bridge you can gain 3 extra days of life.
Kerry and I look at turtles swimming in a small pond from what we believe to be the life-extending bridge
Occasionally we (usually Katie, Kerry, and I) will get people who ask to take their picture with us, it's always kind of bizzare (definitely flattering though, one woman asked Katie to take her picture with her because and told her it was because she thought she was so beautiful) and we always mean to ask them to take their picture with us, but we always forget...this time we remembered! This group of women kept coming over to us to have individual pictures with Kerry and I (Kerry is in higher demand than I am because of her blonde hair, or at least thats what I tell myself).
Then we visited the Hong Kong Art Museum (in typical TJ Donohue fashion) -- there was some pretty cool stuff to be seen there, including an intricately carved ivory fan, a ton of impressive ceramics, and my favorite was a wooden carved statue of Buddha which did not look like wood.
Only picture from the art museum
After the art museum, we made our way into the city where we ate dim sum. I've had dim sum before, but this place had exceptionally good dim sum, the pork one was in a light and fluffy bun and we had another one which was blueberry and pork and one which was sweet potato and pumpkin. The highlight was trying chicken claw, which was fine (even though you have to constantly pick little bone pieces out of your mouth while eating it), but I probably won't be craving it anytime soon.
Saturday night we took a ferry (its only an hour long) over to Macao -- known as the Las Vegas of Asia and the gambling age is only 18, so I gambled my savings. Just kidding but I did lose like 10 HKD -- a little over one American.
We arrived around 5 pm -- just enough time to see some sights, it was a former Portuguese Colony so there was some really cool architecture to be seen. Oh and we had Portuguese egg tarts which were good.
The center, we loved the architecture and the pretty colors on the buildings
The front of the church of St. Paul -- story is kind of confusing, built by the Portuguese in the 1600s, the Jesuits were eventually banished (lonely planet left out why that happened) and I think the church wasn't really used after that and later everything but the front was destroyed by a fire in 1835. One of the biggest Christian monuments in Asia. Pretty cool motifs, including one with the virgin mary and a seven-headed hydra (didn't realize that was in the bible...)
Candid picture of me standing awkwardly
Kerry and I facing St. Pauls, note the casinos in the background
Quizzing people on Macao facts which they haven't learned about with the lonely planet guide book
We ate at a Portuguese restaurant as well before hitting the casinos, it is one of the oldest in Macao and was pretty good.
Then we hit the casinos -- this trip I determined that I like being in casinos (maybe once every ten years at most) but strongly dislike gambling. I don't know if any of you watch Entourage, but when we got to the Wynn casino, we went straight to the roulette table and put 5$ on red (something they do in the show whenever they go to a casino to determine if they're going to have a good night or not) -- I was extremely nervous for what would happen if it landed on black or green (this bothered me earlier in the day), but luckily it landed on red.
I don't really understand why people go to casinos, especially when the casinos are not bashful (AT ALL) about the fact that they take in far more money than they give out...
The Wynn casino even had a thing at 10 pm where a chandelier came down from the ceiling and then a money tree came up from the floor and people through coins at it... I was caught off guard in the heat of the moment I also threw a coin. Kerry was dissapointed in me. This was bizzare.
The Venetian
That night we spent in Italy
Exhausted by the canal/shopping center
We headed back to HK at around 1 am and everyone was passed out on the ferry when we got there.
Sunday we woke up and went to Hong Kong Island to go up to Victoria Peak (by way of tram which is on such a steep incline that you feel like you are getting an ab workout on the way). There were some great views up there:
Ride on the way up
We found some interesting signs in the gift shop: And this one...
The HK skyline from above
Rich people have apartments up here
Kerry and I
Kind of overcast because of smog...
Tram home, can you spot me?
Charles with some interesting propaganda about American secret agents... I think he approves!
I was excited to eat a sandwich
View from the star ferry
Afterwards, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in various street markets. It seems like the shopping culture may be to Hong Kong as the obsession with food is to Singapore.
As mentioned before, we had another close call with the airplane home---but no one on our way through the airport (we were told a half an hour walk from where we checked in, actually took about a half an hour to run/borderline sprint though) told us it was delayed so we made it to the gate with PLENTY of time to spare.
About to get off the shuttle and run to the terminal...arriving within five minutes of when the plane was scheduled to take off.
Victory!
As far as homework goes this week, I only had a group presentation on Monday and a couple of homework assignments due tomorrow and next week, so I've been focusing on non school related things and relaxing a little bit. I finally moved my flight home back, so currently I'm going to travel home on the 14th of May (instead of the 9th) -- this hopefully will allow me to travel through Cambodia -- put to the top of my list, especially after the recommendation from Aunt Kate and a couple of her friends who have been there.
No trips planned until Vietnam now (middle/end of April), but I'll be sure to keep you posted!
Hope everyone is enjoying some spring weather and no one is too upset that UConn men's basketball has been such a disappointment this season, at least the women are unbelievable.
A man napping on his motor bike amid the chaos that is Saigon
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