Friday

Today was a really long day...We woke up early, and I got off to a wrong start this morning for I was rushed and didn't have time to get lunch for the day, which we were supposed to take with us on our journey. The humidity here is getting to me, and I'm trying to drink a lot of water, but you just have to get used to places like this. We are right on the equater, and every day is hot and humid. Alas..

First we took the ferry to St. John's Island where their marine laboratories and aquaculture facilities are. It was gorgeous - green, green, green. It smelled like foliage and outdoors and goodness. I don't know if I could live in a place like this where the city is all you see and even when you can escape to a green place, you still see skyscrapers on the horizon. We had a couple lectures at the marine lab, one on the lab and its projects in general and another lecture on water flow around the island, which went over my head a little. It was very technical and confusing. We had a short tour of some of the tanks and such. They are trying to culture corals and sponges, etc. and find ways to keep the biodiversity high and contained to the places it already is. Sometimes it's confusing to understand the concepts and ideas they present to you. They talk to you as they would other student groups or the general public, yet we ask more questions than Singaporeans, I'm sure. Once we express our confusion or question certain things, the answers become more vague and conflicting. This was actually more so at the landfill, which is where we went next...

Yes, a landfill. A small island-type place where they dump all their waste. Why would we visit? Well, they have this amazing way of doing it - they incinerate everything and take all the waste from Singapore every day to this island once it's incinerated into ash. They dump the ash (wetted, so it doesn't blow dust everywhere) into cells blocked off in this spaced. Eventually, when a cell is filled, they put earth on top of it and start growing vegetation. This place was also very pretty and had a wide variety of birds and wildlife - we saw a couple monitor lizards. You would never know it was a landfill. It's completely clean and all these inspection and water quality tests go into it to make sure the environment and water around the island is not harmed. The entire section is layered with this lining that keeps anything bad from leaching into the outside water. It's so very complex and intriguing, and must have taken lots and lots of minds and engineering to come up with and build (as do most things here, I've noticed). Singapore seems to be the place where, if you can think it up, it can be done..and it is done.

The trip on the boat out to these islands was nice, because we got to feel the ocean spray and be on the water. Well, it was nice for me. Passing through the strait, too, we could see all the anchored tankers and hugs ships. There are 800 ships anchored in the waters near Singapore's ports on any given day. It's crazy...

I was rather exhausted today, as well as other people, so we didn't really do anything exciting once we got back. I had dinner downstairs at the inn, and I've been sitting here relaxing, on the verge of falling asleep! I still have a stupid little cough, so I walked to the 7/11 for some kind of cough drops or allergy medicine. Plenty of cough drops - no allergy medicine. Mm..But it was the first time I've walked anywhere by myself. I feel comfortable here, and everything is very safe. I don't think I would walk around at night alone - but if you know where you're going and you walk there with a purpose and don't look like an idiot, nobody even gives you a second glance.

Green tea flavored cough drops are lovely..

Singapore Photos Day Five