On Thursday Philipp and me went to explore the town's cultural centres. To get to the different spots you need tickets for the Singaporean Mass Rapid Transport (SMRT). It is actually pretty similar to the London Underground but much cheaper! Most trips cost you less than 1,30€! Additionally, it is quite comfortable due to the available air conditioning in every train and station. The first place we visited was China town... But it is not really comparable to any similar place in Western Europe. The China town in Singapore is very big and offers much more products, services and dishes. We tried some! The first thing was a sugar cane juice! You can find a picture of it on the "Pictures"-site. There is no way to explain what it tastes like! It is of course sweet, but besides that never tasted anything similar before! Nevertheless it is worth a try, because it tastes awesome!! The other thing we tried was BBQ Pork strips that have been cured over apple tree wood. Sounds weird but is yummy! We then left China town and visited Little India. There you could smell the curry in every street! Additionally you can get a few hundred different mobile phones and complementary sim cards at many stores in that area. But there are also quite a few temples in little India that we did not yet visit since we felt like wearing improper clothes.
The Friday was mainly about registering at the NUS. This was quite time consuming and did not work out completely since the university underestimated the number of students that had to register. Therefore I still need to go there on Monday in order to complete everything. In the afternoon I visited my faculty (NUS School of Business) for the first time. It looks quite good and the people seemed to be very nice so far. I will find out more about it when I meet my professors for the first time! In the evening I met up with some of my friends and we managed to enter the free gym! It is so great there.... it is big enough and they offer much equipment to exercise. We did another session this morning and I can feel all my muscles now! Nevertheless, this day was great. I went to town to take some pictures and explore the southern part of Singapore. So far I only went inside the Marina Bay Sands hotel, but did not yet go up. Besides that, the area is great! Many nice malls and shops and also good locations to eat lunch or dinner. One of the best things that happened was that I took part in small competition on the street and won tickets for visiting the pit lane of the Formula 1 Grand Prix in September one day before the training sessions start. Even though it doesn't give my access to the track on race day, I am still looking forward to it because I think it is a great chance to see what is going on there.
Now I am very tired and will catch some sleep before continuing my exploration of Singapore tomorrow morning..