A Journey To A Land Never Seen

Ever since I could remember, I was always excited about learning something new. The unquenchable thirst for knowledge and the endless curiosity that would almost always get me into trouble. One of the reasons why I actually enrolled in a Tourism course was because I want to travel the world someday and it could greatly improve my knowledge about the world. That's why I was really happy when I was able to go to Singapoe during sembreak. 

The time of many firsts, PART 1: My first time riding on a plane, my first time using my passport, my first time to use my phones "flight mode" while on a plane,  my first time in NAIA, my first time getting a boarding pass, my first time to hold a certain "amount" of cash, my first time eating the Burger King Whopper, my first time to win a prize while playing a game on an airplane (pouch with pancit canton). To be continued..

First time riding a plane

Above is the picture of the very first plane I have ever ridden, and the ride was filled with mixtures of joy, anxiety, and the occasional deafening of the ears. 

The last sunset in Naga

As I watched the sunset before I boarded the plane, I thought to myself that this was going to be the beginning of something awesome...

As the plane started, i began to feel nervous all of a sudden. I'm afraid of heights, so when the plane started to rise, I clenched my armrest so hard that I felt like it was going to break. But by the time it turned around and began to get to a high enough altitude, there was less turbulence and I could enjoy the views.

Part of Naga City seen from above

As I arrived in NAIA, I was greeted by my cousin who was waiting for me. I stayed at his boarding house for the night for my flight wasn't for until noon the next day. The travel from the airport to his boarding house took almost 3 hours due to the heavy traffic and constant flooding of people in the streets. It was longer than the plane ride which only took 45 minutes. I hated it and it was really tiring, I never wanted to experience that again.

Burger King Whopper

I went back to NAIA the next day early in the morning. My flight wasn't until 1:30pm and I was already at the airport by 7am. After my breakfast at Burger King, all I had to pass the time was my iPod. I already went back and forth throughout the terminal, and I still had plenty of time to spare. There was a lot of waiting.

When it was time to board, I had a little problem with immigration because of a letter of some sort, but fortunately the head of the immigrations office was nice enough to prioritize my case because he thought that I looked like an artist (due to my long hair at that time), he said that I would have no problem getting in now. So it was a really interesting twist of development.

Second plane ride

It was now time to board the second and now bigger aircraft. With its giant turbine engines, these were going to take me to Singapore. This time, the plane was scarier taking off because it was faster and higher than what the domestic plane could fly over. What really made my teeth clinch was when the plan turned around. It was almost tilting to its sides, and i was actually staring straight at the ground looking through my window seat.

 Here are some pictures on the way

First photo in Singapore

After the three hour flight, I finally arrived in Singapore. I was greeted by my brother, and he took this photo. After we left our stuff over at his place, we then proceeded to have dinner at this food court at the mall.

The food court at this place look just what an ordinary one that you could find anywhere. But if you observe around a little, there are different types of cuisines that you could think of, and also have special cuisines of local and international place. You could smell the aroma of different delicacies engulfing the food court that could make any mouth water. The dishes ranges from Japanese foods, Malay, Indian, Indonesian, Thai, Chinese, Korean, America, and even Filipino foods! The chicken rice from Chicken Rice was one of the best steamed and roasted chicken that I have ever tasted.

One thing that I've already noticed by this time was that, people in Singapore are really nice. Their courteous by the way they speak and that the people there always talk you with a smile. Their way of life and discipline are what really astounds me the most about this place. It was very clear that this is not Philippines anymore. Even if the races here are mainly Chinese, Indians, Malays (and the rest are the minorities), people here get along fine. Well, in public view at least.

The time of many firsts, PART 2: My first time to use foreign currency, my first time to shave, my first time to ride a bus that uses a card as payment, my first time to ride a subway, my first time to ride a double-decker bus, my first time to have a boat tour, my first time to eat at Hooters, my first time to visit a Buddhist temple, my first time to eat ice cream on bread,  and my first time to watch an Anime movie in theater! To be continued...

Me and my brother going on a city tour. (Double-Decker bus)

The double-decker bus

Top side

The city tour was very educational and we got to see a lot of significant and historical sites. One of the things that I did notice though was that at any part of the city, there seems to be construction going on. Whether their making a new subway rout, or leveling the soil for a condo building. As a developed nation, they're still developing very much.

We got off at the stop at Little China, there we visited the Buddhist temple. It was really big and was like 7-8 stories high. Below was where you burn incense, and as you proceed upward, you go through the history and artifacts about Buddha, a library, a wishing well, and even get to see the actual tooth of Buddha itself. There were monks chanting, and some people were even meditating.

At the top floor, there is the Vairacona Buddha prayer wheel. It's suppose to be the largest one in the world. The description is below.

By Mark Ignatius S. Balace

End of Part 1




PART 2

 After we were finished with visiting the temple, we hoped on the tour next tour bus and went to Clarke Quay for our river tour. But while waiting for the boat to come back, we went exploring for a while.

Those things at the back with the holes in them are air vents. They act as a sort of air conditioning to keep the place cool. If stand close enough to them, you could actually feel the cool air going out of them.

Clarke Quay air cooler. They have a weird shape to them....

Here's a closer look at it at the back. It has a weird shape to it that we really couldn't help but notice. We really pondered on who designed this kind of shape in the first place...

Me happily enjoying the ice cream on a piece of bread.
(You can see how big the ice cream is)

One of my most memorable experience that I've had was eating the famous one-dollar ice cream. It's famous for 3 reasons; 1. it only costs a dollar which is basically the cheapest ice cream around 2. it's a pretty big slice of ice cream for that price and 3. it can be served between 2 wafers or a big slice of bread. Yes. a slice of bread.

The ice cream comes from a giant brick of ice cream and the vendor slices a large part of it and puts it in you wafer or bread. Flavors come in Chocolate, Cookies n Cream and Vanilla.

Although it is kind of weird, and as a matter of fact, in the Philippines (Manila) vendors also serve their ice cream on hamburger buns. So it's not really that uncommon, but from a person who has never really experienced it before, it's really interesting and somewhat weird.

Different names of Unilever ice creams

Here's some more interesting facts; the brand of ice cream that they use is SELECTA chocolate ice cream. But! It's not called SELECTA in SIngapore but the brand is actually called WALL'S. This is because they are all owned by the same brand which is Unilever. And different name brands may differ from country to country but is still under the same mother company.

Actually, it tastes better on bread than on the wafer. And eating it could get addictive.

After some time to explore, and eating more of that ice cream. We then proceeded to our river cruise tour.

Looks like rain though..

The tour actually started out pretty great, and we got a seat at the front row too. But that soon ended pretty quickly as the rain started to pour, and got stronger and stronger, and stronger. What's even worse was that the boat couldn't turn around to go back because the river was just to narrow. We had to wait until the river was near at the end with the open area so that the boat could turn around and go back. That was probably the longest river cruise ever while we stood there helpless and compressed together along with everybody else in that boat. Even when  I was  already at the center of the boat, I couldn't escape the sudden burst leak that ultimately lead to my untimely shower.

It was actually really interesting and somehow funny the way people reacted to the situation. We were traveling mostly along with foreigners and some were just laughing along, some were a bit worried,  baby's were crying, and some were really pissed off. When we got back we saw one of the passengers of the other boat throwing their umbrellas, that the staff have given to them to help them across the bridge, back at the staff. He was really pissed. Probably because he had their baby with them and I suppose the baby might have gotten wet. And seriously, the rain was really strong. The wind wasn't much help either.

Rain was pouring!

When the roof of the boat gave in and poured water all over my back

In the end, we never really got to finish the tour due to this inconvenience. So we just asked for a refund and they said that we could take the river cruise again the next day. In the mean time, we were basically drenched and needed to dry off. We decided to eat until we could dry off then.

Filipina Waitress
(My hair still wet from the rain)

Beef Fondue
(Hair is now dry)

We decided to eat at Hooters. Their Beef fondue was great. And the girls, you'd be surprised that they were mostly Filipinas. Their Beef Fondue was great. It was basically Beef slices with 3 different kinds of dipping sauce; cheese, barbeque, and steak sauce, and companied with a hefty serving of fries.

Our first anime movie - Naruto: Road To Ninja

The next day, my brother and i decided to watch a movie that just came out. We were excited because it was our first time watching a anime film in a movie theater. This was a pretty awesome experience, considering the fact that the movie only got to play in one specific theater in all of Singapore, so it only made us wanted to watch it more.

Theaters in Singapore are similar to the ones in Manila, which has no balcony and only seats to about 100-130 people. It's not that large but you get to seat closer to the screen which means that you could literally get close to the action as you watch the film.



















END OF PART 2.