Doing Business in Singapore trip | Part 1

So earlier this year I had the opportunity to finish my undergraduate degree doing study abroad at the University of Maryland. If you you love traveling I highly recommend doing a study abroad course.

the horses represent the year of the horse

In this five part traveling series I will write about the strongest lessons learned while travelling from Singapore to Malaysia, on through Thailand. And back to Singapore.

DAY 1 | Singapore

Day 1, I made it 25 hours across the globe. When you’re 6’5” and sitting in coach, you gain a whole new perception and understanding of why people fly business. I eventually met 30 other students that I never met before. They would eventually become my Singapore family for the next 12 days. We headed straight to the Dorsett hotel in Singapore (Awesome hotel by the way if you ever visit Singapore).  After we all got settled in, we made our way to the local money exchanges. 

Getting great exchange rates is hard FYI.

Remember to do your research about the U.S dollar when traveling.

Looking for great exchange rates turned into a quest itself until it came to a point that we just absolutely did not care anymore who gave the best rate.

us.. not caring

We then made our way to the local hawkers and food market. Alvin Ho, our tour coordinator, gave us advice on where to eat. He always said that “the best food is the one with long queues,” so after searching far and wide and waiting in long queues, I decided to just got to the one with the shortest line. (Yes, I know. I was lazy)

I should’ve of taken Alvin’s advice

We then headed back to the hotel to catch our bus to the Singapore zoo. which was recently named the world's best zoo and number 1 zoo in Asia by TripAdviser.com.

At the zoo, the animals were definitely a step up compared DC National Zoo. (Yes, DC Zoo I am low blowing you) In DC much of the animals are not active. Emotionless, flaccid, and boring. The most memorable animals in my opinion were the monkeys, the polar bear, and the white tiger.

the future of the passionate tortoises at the zoo

And of course the tortoises who were overly intimate for over an hour and bringing a mass of viewers to watch the male tortoise matching his male parts into the future mother of his baby tortoises.

Everything in Singapore is all about making that money. Even the animals had sponsors. One of the white tigers is sponsored by Coke, and the other I do not recall.

the crew

After the zoo we made our way to the Singapore flyer where we split our group into two. Half of our group went on the duck tour, while the other half went to see the 5D show and ride the Singapore flyer.

The duck tour was cool because we got to see the bay in a different perception.

I honestly thought a duck tour was us going to see some dumbass ducks. I was wrong.

This huge boat shaped truck was the duck tour. We went from a tour on land to this truck driving into the bay and turning into a boat. We saw the Marina Bay Sands building, the art gallery, the floating stadium, and saw all the wished left by the people of Singapore on the floating balloons. After the boat tour, we got onto the Singapore flyer.

the flyers is the Ferris wheel in the back ground

In my opinion it was interesting for the first ten minutes. But just for that ten minutes.

It seemed like it kept stopping and we were on it for more than half an hour. But once you reached the peak, you could see pretty much the entire country including the cargo ships that were resting in the sea. It was an awesome scene since in the bay, it seemed like there was a team practicing sound and lighting for the New Year’s Eve show.

That night we preceded to our food trail where we ate one of Singapore’s top dishes. At the Jumbo Seafood at Dempsey hill, we tried the delicacy known as Chili crab and Black pepper crab. It was delicious, it needed some rice on the side but other than that was scrumptious.

major noms went down here

Lessons learned on Day 1

Not too much, more of a tourist kind of day of meeting new people and trying out new dishes. The infrastructure of Singapore is similar to that of a city in the United States. It is very well developed in a short period of time since the inception of Singapore as a country independent of Malaysia.

The country’s zoo is a huge attraction to visitors with is unique style of flower and plant gardens throughout the zoo and beautiful water front views. The Singapore flyer is also a major attraction since it is currently the tallest contraption of its kind. With a 360 degree view, one can see the city in its entirety. All in all, day one was wrapped up and in the books.