To-Go Cups, Visiting NUS, Chinatown, and Going Out with Friends

Chinatown Photo Gallery

After the late night safari adventure, I was finally able to sleep in. Granted it was only until 7am, but it felt like an improvement nonetheless.

I have a funny story about the picture posted to the right. For breakfast, I decided to try the Singapore set-meal at my local canteen. It basically involved eggs, soy sauce, buttered toast, and a drink called kopi. The kopi is similar to coffee, but much stronger – I took an immediate liking to it. So much so, that I asked for a to-go cup to get me through my upcoming Fluid Mechanics lecture. The “cup” is not exactly what I was expecting. To be perfectly honest, it is more of a “bag.” I asked other students about this incident and they said it is perfectly normal for this to happen, but I was supposed to get a straw to drink out of it with… Right. How silly of me. All I can remember is being so dumbfounded when she poured hot kopi in a bag that a straw was the last thing on my mind.

After my morning lectures I took public transportation to the other large campus in Singapore, National University of Singapore (NUS). Whereas my university, Nanyang (NTU), is focused on the Sciences and Engineering, NUS is a much more western-oriented university that focuses on business and the arts. There is a bit of heckling between students of the two universities as they both claim to be at the more prestigious university. In my mind, it is tit-for-tat because the students at both are top-class.

At NUS I met up with a couple of girls I met while studying in Hong Kong, and they showed me around for the day. I cannot begin to remember the many foods I tried, but some of the best ones came when they took me to the hawkers in Chinatown. There are long aisles of hawker stands that, according to the locals, “serve the best food in all of Singapore” – and all food is cheap. My favorite dish, lhaksa soup, was a spicy mix of bean curd, noodles, fish skin, a shellfish, and various vegetables.

By far the worst thing I tried was the “century egg” – a black egg cut into halves, soaked in vinegar for several days, and eaten with ginger to offset the taste. For whatever reason, locals love this food and view it as a delicacy. Perhaps it is the Singaporean equivalent of caviar, but of a much worse taste. I immediately had a gag reflex when I tried eating it, but spitting is illegal in Singapore. I was having a fit because there was no way I could swallow this mess filling my mouth (I was doing everything I could to keep it away from my tongue), but my friends were not at all eager to get me a drink or a trashcan. Eventually I began staggering from vendor to vendor until I found a rubbish bin to spit everything out. I apologized profusely for my rudeness (although the Chinese were laughing), and drank one of my friend’s drinks sugar cane juice. Although far less severe than the century egg, the sugar cane juice was not great either. In the end I bought a Coke, and felt surprisingly better. This might as well be a Coke commercial for ex-pats in Singapore.

We continued walking around downtown Singapore and they were always pointing out how clean the city is. As much as I hated to admit it, the city is a miracle. Nobody spits, litters, or even jaywalks (although I did see it a couple of times on small streets).

Later in the evening I went to one of the girl’s homes and met her family. Having a house on the island of Singapore is a fairly big deal as 70% of the population lives in government apartments. The per capita is similar to a western country, but land is Singapore’s second most valuable quantity. Water is the most valuable item, and in the past all of it had to be imported. Now they have ways of catching rain, using salt water, and even purifying toilet water. I did not find out about the toilet water part until after a few days of drinking the local tap so I figure it is too late now. Maybe I will come back with a third arm.