Howdy! My name is Amanda Ngo and I am currently a M.S. Finance student here at Texas A&M from Plano, Texas. I also completed my undergraduate degree at Texas A&M in Chemical Engineering this past May. I never got a chance to go on a study abroad during my time here because of COVID, but I’m glad this opportunity came along to travel to Singapore. We gathered at IAH at 3 am on Thursday, December 28th and our flight took off at 5 am to SFO, which we waited about 1-2 hours before we got onto our 17-hour flight to Singapore. I had never flown overseas before, so it was definitely an experience. I tried to sleep on the plane, but ended up just passing out as soon as we got to the hotel.
On the first day, we had an orientation by GAV and got to explore Singapore. The next day we went on a tour around Arab Street and Little India. Our tour guide Trisha was so nice and gave us great recommendations. The next day, we went to Sentosa Island and got to walk around the island the whole day. I, unfortunately, was bitten by mosquitoes and am still suffering from swollen bites 4 days later. We then went to the Asian Civilization Museum. They had a whole section in the museum for religion. I am Buddhist and loved seeing all the different Buddhas from all over SouthEast Asia; from Thailand to Vietnam to India to Indonesia.
The next day we went to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Our tour guide, Miss Nora, was so sweet and gave us perfume recommendations for the Oud scent from the Agar tree that we saw that would not involve harming the tree. After that, we went to Gardens by the Bay and got to see the light show at night. The next day, we went to Maybank and got to hear from the Global Head of Banking, Gregory Seow. We did another tour with Trisha, this time in the heart of Chinatown.
So far, I’ve loved everything about Singapore. I was in New York City this past summer for an internship and Singapore is a much cleaner and safer NYC. The public transit and food are amazing and everything is much cheaper than in America. I’ve eaten at a couple of hawker centers and tried scrumptious local cuisines. I can’t wait to see what another week brings to the table!
