Last week was the Singapore trip. Aside from all the foot sore and almost sleepless nights, it was fun! You may thought an architectural excursion with 41 other architects, mostly grown-up men (only 6 girls out of 41 participants) would be boring. But no. I can't care less, though the jokes are going to "that" directions, but the whole journey was fun. I will bore you with architectural facts. So get your.... I don't know.
Meeting up at the airport at 4 am, is well... not a problem at first. Not until 18 hours later that is. I couldn't sleep on the plane, since I was too excited. And so we landed at Singapore around 9 or 10 am and straight to the first place, the
BCA Academy. It's a school and research center (if I am not mistaken). The building is an application of various technology on how to save energy. It was really cool. How they use room cooling from the floor instead of from the ceiling (because actually people need cooling on the lower part of the room where they stand), the use of solar panel almost in every area possible, the window system, and even the wall uses greenery for the cooling system. It's super energy efficient. The building it self was not really aesthetic, but I can tell, even the weird roof with light ducts popping out, the slightly awkward beam system, they are made for a cause.
After lunch, we went to URA,
Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore. I must say, for a very small country like Singapore, their urban planning is pretty strict and well planned. Old buildings are preserved very well, still works, and still used. Abandoned buildings are very less seen. With very little land to build, they force their building going above the ground and also make spaces below the ground. The urban spaces have a very nice human scaling. The road and the pedestrian way is well separated by greenery, and pedestrian way is covered by the overhang of the floor above. If we compare with Jakarta, it's not really that comfortable walking in the pedestrian way, with motorcycles passing through recklessly and carelessly, no coverage from rain, etc etc etc. It's really nice to have a civic center that provides information about what's the plan for the future of the country that educates and also entertain.
After that we went to
Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. A very nice hospital, with only 70 % of it air-conditioned and amazingly still cool. A bunker which will serve as a bunker and an isolation ward, said to be nuclear proof. It has those bunker doors with 40cm thick walls!! Very nice garden, facing the Yishun pond, with it's own roof farm where I got to taste a very sweet leaf that's used for diabetic patients as sugar substitutes. The tour around the hospital was very nice.
And that's where the foot sore begins. After a long day of walking and touring, I found my flats are not very nice for a too-long walk. The palm start to become numb and I just wish I could glide. Thankfully, after we grab dinner we checked in at the hotel. The hotel we stayed in was super nice. After changing clothes, I switch to another pair of flats I brought and off we go explore Singapore. Well... since it's already 10pm, we just met a couple college friends who are working at Singapore and had some coffee at Clarke Quay.
2nd day, Universal Studios. Bad timing is bad timing. It was saturday, and it was just the start of the school holiday. Great. Each rides was an hour queueing. After Madagaskar (excitement level 1), we continue to Shrek (excitement level 2), and then it was already lunch time. Dang. And then we watched the awesome Waterworld. I had been to the California Universal Studios, and this visit to waterworld was beyond fun. The guys spent almost 15 minutes splashing everyone. You're still wet even you sat on the dry zone.
Then, we were torn between, Jurassic, The Mummy Returns, and Human-Cylon. And since it just stopped raining (and also a little bit of chicken-ny looking at the Human-Cylon rollercoaster), I decided to go on Mummy Returns. IT WAS BEYOND THE UNIVERSE AWESOME. Too bad the Transformer ride was not open for public yet, so I couldn't give it a try. Then we walk along the New York area taking PICTURES. Then it's where I met Frankensteiiiiiinnnn...... Geez, Frankenstein was really tall, and the fake hands were gigantic. I wonder if it's an asian or a caucasian inside of it.
Then, it was sore-foot-day number two. My flats were made of cloth so after the rain, it went all wet and cold. And, after getting back to the hotel, it was still wet, so I used the other flats, which just made my feet felt even worse. Thank God, there are still shoe store open!!! Bought a sandal and off we go.
Me and my friends went to this place called Spize. I ordered Roti John Mutton Special. It's basically a very delicious sandwich with the size of my forearm. Too bad I could only ate half and the other guys couldn't finish mine.
3rd day. Before going home, we went to Merlion Park and the Marina Bay Sands skypark. The skypark was at the 57th floor, with the view of Singapore and a tremendous feel of the 57th floor hahaha. The very interesting part was, my phone sim-card got an Indonesian local signal and every messages was popping. THAT is how close Singapore and Indonesia are.
The flight home, I was already very tired. Went to stop by at the foot massaging chair for a while to boost my feet to run to the gate, it helped a bit. In plane, I already slept even when the plane was still in taxi.
So all of the above is how I spell fun :) Still need to sort the pictures, hang on there.
Can't wait for another trip!!!
