Nanyang Techniological Univeristy

Good morning! Yesterday, after realizing it was Monday, not Sunday (major jet lag!), I checked into my dorms, or hostel's as everyone likes to call them. I am staying on the 7th floor in Hall 3, one of 9 undergraduate halls. The halls here are BEAUTIFUL! The campus really looks more like a resort than a school. The building are all very new (my dorm was built in 2006), but the shrubbery and trees look like they've been here for decades.

My roommate is a local who has been studying the US, as I found out from the help desk. I met up with a former EP Riddle student and his girlfriend who are on their second year of their Ph. D here at NTU. We met up with their group of friends (Hungarian, Brit, and American) and had lunch. I discovered when paying for lunch, that just like a lot of other places around Singapore, credit/debit cards are not accepted, only cash and “nets”. Nets is a tap or swipe card that is like a gift card, you put cash on it and can use it a lot of places. This is also how I had to pay my student fees. Went to the international office this morning at 9am, I was greeted by “why are you up so early!”. Everyone here starts later than in the US. Even the gym, which you only need your room key to enter, doesn’t open until 9am. This has been very disappointing, as this was the 3^rd day in a row I woke up before 6am since I’m still trying to adjust. 

I’m off to explore the near by MRT station, which is a bus ride away. There are so many free buses to everywhere on campus, its wonderful. I’m going to a ‘mall’. There is no Walmart, or Walmart-like store, to this ‘mall’ is where I can buy thing I forgot, like extra transformers, laundry bag, toiletry basket, etc.

I’m too anxious to get out of my room to type any more, but I will later!