The first week back in Singapore is over and after I overcame my jet lag, it was really awesome.

At my project I managed to write my first script that worked immediately in my entire life. (I love to have success!!)
On friday then there was - because the semester starts today - a information event for exchange students at NTU. I got to know lots of "caucasian" people from all over the world and had a interesting guided tour through the Chinese Heritage Center there.
- Caucasian actually is how Asian's call non-asian white people like Europeans, Americans etc.

In the evening I had again the best dumplings in the world and after that went to "Zouk", a quite famous club in Singapore, that also organized that festival in december. The DJane "Sister Bliss" was formerly one half of the group "Faithless" and it was quite amazing to listen to songs like "Insomnia" performed live.


After 1.5 hours of sleep I went for two days to "Bintan" together with Nadine. The journey by ferry that took one hour was a bit hard as to little sleep, no breakfast, very heavy sea, puking people all arround and a ferry company that showed the most disgusting Mr. Bean videos to us. (I don't know, whether they maybe want people to puke...) But I servived quite good.

Luckily we arrived at our really nice resort. As there it was a really strong wind it was not possible to go to the sea for swimming. But as we where in our room I first saw a really huge Iguana (about 50cm long) crawling on the street right infront of the room. We fell a little asleep then and I woke up by a really loud noise. As I looked to the window about 20 monkeys jumped one after another from the roof of our hotel to the tree infront of the room. Two of them seemed to be scared of jumping and therefor climbed down on our window bar, not without having a curious look inside the room.
In the evening we went to a nice Pub with live band and I did a huge mistake when I sang along the songs too ardent. Finally I head a microphone infront of my face and was forced to sing together with the band. REMEMBER: Don't sing along with a live band!!

On sunday we joined a organized full day tour around the island. We where in four - two japanese guys, Nadine and me - and an Indonesian driver who told as really a lot about the island. Outside of the resort area the island suddenly looke very different. Not clean at all, very small and poor houses in the middle of the forest, but it was really nice. We first went through the inner part of the island, passed by at Durian trees and pine-apple fields towards the island's eastcoast. Nearly the whole eastcoast is seamed by a beach wich is 65km long. There are small wooden houses built on stilts everywhere. And I went finally to the sea which was legendary. It was so nice to see a real landscape and not all the artificial Singaporean stuff. And guess how many people fit on a motor cicle? - At least five! The whole family and additionally some goods are packed on one cicle. Amazing.


For lunch we then went Bintan's main city called Tanjong Pinang. The restaurant where we ate had it's best time long ago and the plates where not clean at all. But I survived :-) The city itself is really, really dirty, you see waste everywhere you look arround and it's also kind of smelly. From the city's harbor we went further with a small wooden boat to a small island in front of the city visiting a mosque and some original houses there. There where loads of really huge butterflies. And on the way back to the city we saw - instead of seagulls - about 20 bold eagles ("Weißkopfseeadler") circling over the water and looking for some fish to eat.

The way back then from the island to Singapore was quite calm and for a nice ending we took a wheat beer at Singapore river together with Philip and Oli, two guys working for ARD in Singapore. In summery it was a really nice and worthwile weekend trip.

Singapore - Bintan