Singapore!

First of all, I’d like to thank Michelle for asking me to blog about going to Singapore. With this in mind, I could keep my mind open to things that I could write about. The only problem is that now I don’t know where to start.

This past July, I went to Singapore, which is here:

We were in Singapore for the Baptist World Alliance Youth Conference, so I’m going to talk about my experience both at the conference and in Singapore itself.

Starting Monday morning, we drove to Charlotte to get on a flight to LaGuardia, then we took a bus to JFK and flew to Frankfurt, then reboarded the same plane after it had maintenance to get to Singapore. By the time we landed, it was early Wednesday morning, and I was super jet-lagged. I just didn’t feel it too bad until later that day.

We did some sightseeing on Wednesday, but I’m pretty sure everyone in our group would say that they were too tired to retain very much of it. One thing I do remember pretty well was our trip to Chinatown. There, we went in a Buddhist temple, and I got kicked out. In my tired state, I didn’t realize that my shorts needed to reach my knees to enter, so I hadn’t put on the skirt-like covering that they had for visitors. Once I realized this, I felt bad about my accidental lack of respect. But it was definitely an interesting experience. Our guide told us that in the Chinatown in Singapore, there were four different places of worship in a very small area. There was the Buddhist temple that I visited, a Muslim mosque, a Hindu temple, and a Christian church. For me, this was a pretty good representation of the diversity in Singapore. It was one of those places that seems to have cultural elements of many different places in the world, and yet they can coexist peacefully. I was really pretty amazed by the country and my entire experience there in this respect. Everything was in a state of coexistence.

At dinner, the jet-lag hit me like a train. I felt absolutely terrible, so I actually missed the opening celebration of the Conference (which I had been really excited about going to) so that I could sleep it off. 😦 But as a result, I was rested and ready for the rest of the trip, and in the end, that was probably worth it.

As I said, I was well rested when I woke up on Thursday and headed to breakfast at our hotel. Food options included, but were not limited to, salads, pastries, rice, noodles, fruits (including some that I had never had before), pancakes, and French toast. Even breakfast was a diversified experience, and I got a little adventurous. But only a little.

Our schedules on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Conference were largely the same. We started the morning in a worship service with all the others who were attending the conferences. From there we broke up into family groups. My sister and I were in the same group, which was not exactly what either of us had in mind, but we both really enjoyed our small group, so it was perfectly fine in the end. There were lots of great moments at the conference, but one of my favorite things from the whole trip happened in small group on Friday. Our group split into smaller groups to pray for one another. After we prayed, my smaller group started talking, and the conversation wound up being extremely encouraging for me. Many of the same issues that I’ve been having with the church and, as a result, sometimes my faith, were things that concerned people from all over the world. Despite the fact that seeing these concerns as an issue all over the world might seem like it would be discouraging, it was actually encouraging to know that there were others who felt the same way I do. Even though the world is big and diverse, we’re all human and have basic things in common, and that’s beautiful.

All three days we had an evening worship, which was amazing. Some of the songs we sang during worship were sung in multiple languages (the primary language of the conference was English) which was super cool (I’m running out of ways to say that something was awesome, so bear with me), and all of our speakers came from all over the world.

On Thursday and Friday afternoon, there were various seminars for people to attend. My favorite one was one on women in the sex trade. It wasn’t uplifting, obviously, but it was very interesting and definitely stirred something inside me. I’ve found that I care about this topic more and more, and I definitely found value in what was said on the topic. I’m not sure what all this means for me yet, but I know it means something for my life.

On Saturday afternoon, we did something that was very familiar to our group: we packaged food for Stop Hunger Now. I feel like this is everywhere now, and it was really cool to even do it so far from home. I can’t remember exactly how many meals we packaged, but it was A LOT.

Also on Saturday, our church group went to the Singapore Flyer (which is the big ferris wheel in Singapore). Unfortunately for me, I don’t do heights, so I chose not to ride it. Instead, I waited alone at the bottom for everyone else to get done, which was an interesting experience. Basically, I was alone in a foreign country, without a phone or any internet or any way of contacting anyone I knew. It’s not like I’ve never been alone or without any access to a phone or internet, but never all at once quite like this. I was also surrounded by some things I wasn’t used to. That was actually one of the most interesting experiences I had while there. Most all the stores around the Flyer were closed at that time, so I had to just chill out somewhere and not be vulnerable. I’m always fairly aware of my surroundings but I was hyper-aware while waiting for the rest of my church group.

Sunday morning was the closing of the conference, so after that we had the rest of the trip for sightseeing. We spent most of our afternoon in Little India. I got a henna tattoo there (which is gone now). The most interesting thing about Little India for me was how crowded the streets were, and there were very few Indian women out. Apparently Sundays are like that in Little India, but it was actually pretty overwhelming. It was as crowded as the inside of the Dean Dome after a basketball game and everyone is trying to get outside. Everywhere a person could fit and walk, there was somebody there. I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the number of people around me anywhere except here.

Monday was our last day, but we didn’t leave until late that night, so we explored some more during the day. The highlight of that day for me was going to the Gardens by the Bay. We only walked through a small portion of these gardens, but it was beautiful.

Our return trip began Monday night in Singapore and ended Tuesday night at home. We were delayed a bit, but all was well and we got back home safely!

Singapore was amazing because while I was there, I feel like I learned more about my faith, myself, and another culture. I knew next to nothing about Singapore before I went, but now I know a few more interesting facts about it, such as the fact that the country turns 48 this month (August)–so Happy Birthday Singapore! I absolutely love learning about the rest of the world, and I hope that I can learn more about Singapore and the region of the world it’s in. I could talk about even more that happened on my trip, so please ask me to!