The eagle had landed... quite messily indeed

The place was pretty green with vegetation all around. 5 or 6 high rises surrounded by 2 to 3 small buildings were visible from the big windows on the bus that carried me from Buona Vista to Kent ridge. Since I had seen a number of such buildings that belonged to HSBC, Singtel etc. on the way , I thought that these too were the office complexes of any other industrial giant. About a few minutes later I came across the sign : NUH. And then realization dawned, This is it Mate! This is the National University of Singapore! Looks more like a Five star resort :)

As I came closer, I realized one thing that set this University apart from any other that I had seen ( which is quite limited actually). This place was HUGE. Really HUGE. My seniors had warned me that I could easily get lost in the cornucopia of buildings and I was not too sure about it till I did get lost here. Finally, I managed to find my way into the registration centre and finished the procedures within 15 minutes. On my way out, I had to face about 5 to 6 stalls advertising their latest laptop brands. I thought about my dad back home and grinned… somebody is going to need a lot of money shortly. Making a mental note to come there the next day, I forced myself to go to my department. Here I made my first mistake, I thought that the department would be just 5 or 6 minutes away. It was a painful and tiring 20 minutes later( Painful coz my 100$ shoes were meeting my feet for the first time and I guess there was an ‘orientation’ problem :), that I came to a 6 storey building that proclaimed ‘Building : Science 2’ Huffing and puffing I made my way into the department office and finished some registration stuff. The job over, I thought of checking out the science canteen. The canteen is a misnomer actually. Its more like a hawker stall wherein you have 4 or 5 different stalls serving stuff ranging from sambar rice and vendakai curry to frozen mouth watering sushi and oyster sauce ( Being a vegetarian , I never got to eat the latter but still it did look delicious ) After gobbling up 2 more $ ( Don’t pick up your calculator yet, that’s 59 Rs) I went to the bus stop for a ride back home. On the way, something interesting happened, I had to cross 4 pedestrian crossings. At each one of them, the fast moving cars stopped and waited for me to cross the road before roaring off (these Singaporeans are crazy :). An otherwise uneventful hour later, I was home.

The next day, I went to the ICA to submit my visa application. That story is beyond the scope of this blog and so lemme skip it for something more interesting. After finishing my visa processing, I went to 2 places, Funan digital mall and Sim lim square. If you are a gadget freak … er.. a wealthy gadget freak , then this is the place to be. 5 floors each full of electronics stuff ranging from spy cameras and toys to the latest laptops and plasma TVs). I spent a joyful 3 hours in each of these 2 wonderful stores eyeing each and every gizmo with a sparkle in my eyes and 30$ in my wallet. I returned home (empty handed of course) and drowned my misery with a bottle of coke. ( After reading all this , do you still think i would be able to afford a Beer?)

The next day, I started my lab rotations in Dr. Cynthia He’s lab. She is a very good person and knows her stuff. She was in Yale and UPenn and so, her English is impeccable. That’s one worry out of the way. ( No! no! she is not reading this and they don’t have the system of internal marks). 5 days of rotation later, I have learnt a lot and now know my way around the whole place and even know where to get ice for the ice box.

Yesterday was an eventful day. Cynthia( She insists that we call her by her first name. By the way almost every prof here and in the USA insist that you call them by their first name) offered to take me and my lab mates for lunch at a costly Japanese restaurant. The drive to the restaurant was short and lasted just about 5 minutes. She paid the entry fee of 100$ for 4 ( Now is the time you should get out your calculator) and the waiter beckoned us inside. It was a total flop show. I drank 3 glasses of orange juice, a cup of durian flavoured icecream ( Durain is a fruit that’s extremely delicious but unfortunately so stinky that its not allowed on the buses or trains here ) and about 250 grams of uncooked carrot, cucumber and olives. Those were the only vegetarian stuff in the whole restaurant that had about 2 stories full of buffet items. My host was really sorry but I wasn’t fussy about food any day. 25$ for that ( if you still have not figured it out, its 640 Rs). Thank god she was paying :). We made our way through the ‘ 3 course dinner’ ( for them at least) talking about a whole lot of things and for more than once I was feeling as if I was talking to a friend and not to a prof. That’s the culture here. You get used to it very quickly indeed.

One thing though, I can not shake off the feeling that I am a visitor here. No matter what they have to offer me, no matter how hospitable they are, no matter how perfect the people here are, I still miss home. The perfection and orderliness here sometimes makes me long for the busy, dirty and loud mouthed streets of Madras. Lets hope I am able to sustain this feeling for the next 2 years.

More to follow. I will write when I am really busy of course :)