Day 2: Morning Excursion

After falling into and deep and satisfying sleep at 8:30 pm Singapore time, I woke up at 5 am and found I had very little desire to go back to bed.  Instead I decided to tour University town in cool early morning and take some pics of this awesome part of NUS.

This is the SingTel building (affectionately dubbed the Tetris Building by the Undergrads) as seen from the dorm.  Next came the elephants...

These big guys/gals are in the region of the four Utown dorms.  They were our meeting spot yesterday but sadly our new meeting spot is just the Utown bus stop.  Next up, views from the quad.

Here you can see a couple of vantage point of what I am calling the Utown Quad.  Here in Utown we have access to a rooftop pool, a full service gym, two food courts, computer labs, restaurants, two quickie marts, and more.  Next up, the plaza.

Although I did take a tour of Utown, I still am not sure what to call this part, so I'll call it the plaza.  Located between the Quad and the bus stop is a beautiful walkway with several restaurants and outdoor seating lined with fountains.  That is all I had time for this morning.  Much more to come as I learn more about NUS and Singapore!

After saying a tearful goodbye to Colleen and Java (miss you both) I got started on my four-leg airline tour to   Singapore.  First was Raleigh to Charlotte, a measly hour long flight.  Then Charlotte to JFK, a meager 2.5ish hour flight.  Then came JFK airport.  The only airport I have ever been in that requires you to go through security AGAIN, when changing terminals.  Suddenly, the 6 hour layover in JFK was making more sense.  After an unfortunate experience with a mostly cooked cheeseburger (missed food poisoning by an inch), I got to board the monster Airbus A380.  A plane that weighs over a million pounds and has two levels.

Then it was an 8 hour flight to Frankfurt Germany where I saw grown men in tweed jackets riding bicycles in tweed coats.  After a quick layover it was on to the behemoth 14 hour flight.  Luckily I was pretty tired by this point, as I didn't get much rest on the Frankfurt journey.  After an amazing dinner of Asian-style roast pork and a viewing of the new 'Oz the Great and Powerful,' it was off to a fitful sleep.

After disembarking, came the largest and most luxurious airport I have ever seen.  It has a jungle replica complete with a statue of a giant nut.  It also boasted a slide, but sadly that was closed.  Then it was on to NUS to see my new dorm room and a tour of campus.  It is truly a beautiful place.  More to come, but now picture of my dorm and the view.

The spare but very clean dorm room on the 19th floor.

The amazing view from my window.