Study Tour Days 5 & 6 – A Weekend in Singapore

The weekend began with a MUCH needed sleep in.  In fact, seeing as I didn’t go to the alumni event on Friday evening (and apparently didn’t miss much), I actually slept from around 6pm until 9:30am! Clearly I was a lot more exhausted than I realised…

 

If you’re hoping my weekend was filled with hectic sightseeing, you’re going to be disappointed.

 

Saturday morning consisted of brunch at Dean & DeLuca, which was VERY welcome after a week of mediocre breakfast from the restaurant next door to the hotel. A glorious plate of scrambled eggs on buttery crunchy ciabatta toast was definitely what the doctor ordered.  I’m all for eating other foods, but nothing beats a good old English/Aussie brekky of some cooked eggs!

After moseying around some of the numerous shopping malls that line Orchard Road, we headed back to the hotel for some studying…which quickly turned into my friends studying and me lying in bed after getting distracted by washing my hair.  The monsoon storm came and went, and we ducked out for some Starbucks and very early dinner before setting up camp by the hotel pool for an evening of work.  After a productive few hours and a 10pm cheese break, I headed up to bed.  I do love my sleep.

Brass band playing Christmas carols on the way to said cheese

 

Today (Sunday), I spent most of the day alone, which I do quite enjoy.  Friends are super awesome, but sometimes I need some time by myself to recharge a little bit.  I headed out to Orchard Road relatively early (around 10am), and returned to the hotel at 3pm after a few successful purchases at Sephora (the excitement was real), Forever21, and the Body Shop.  It’s amazing how much people in Singapore embrace Christmas.  The streets are lined with decorations that put Australian ones to shame, and it’s almost impossible to escape the cheery sound of repetitive Christmas carols.  It makes sense considering Singapore’s focus on economic pragmatism – it would be absurd to ignore Christmas.  But it’s still interesting to see how fully it is embraced considering Christianity isn’t the dominant religion.

Christmas Trees in ION Orchard

I spent around an hour in the afternoon in Chinatown hunting for gifts.  My hunt was unsuccessful though, I’d rather come back with nothing than cheap trickety gifts that will either break or be thrown away.  I did however buy a little red Chinese Lion who I have named Cecil and am already rather fond of.

Internet, meet Cecil.  Cecil, meet the internet.

Most of the evening was spent doing laundry.  It was around a 15minute SMRT ride to get there, but the actually laundry probably took about an hour to do.  At least I wasn’t alone!

Stolen from Cecil’s twitter

This week is going to be hectic, filled with politics and tours of important buildings and sightseeing in awesome places.  So I’m glad that this weekend at least was a bit more chilled.  Just a bit.