Biopolis

Today I'll show you my workplace. Believe it or not, the group of enormous buildings inclosing numerous research facilities is called 'Biopolis' (my mother thought I was kidding her when she asked for my work adress the first time. The fact that the building where I am doing my internship (on Immunity) was called 'Immunos' did not help to convince her either...). Be as it may, it is a very cool place. The buildings are really new and big with exotic plants(in my eyes, of course, for the people here they are probably regular trees)  in between. This is the entrance:

I am pretty shure each coloured block is one of the buildings seen from above (double check this before betting your life on it...). This is one of the first pictures I sent to my mother to prove that I was, indeed, working at the (existent) center Biopolis. 

 These huge dandelions can be found all over the place. At night some of them are illuminated. I have not seen a single one in the wild-life here, so I guess they are imported...

All the buildings are connected via glass bridges. This enables you to get to the other centers even during the rain-apocalypses (which is especially important at lunch time, since the food courts are spread over Biopolis and usually not on your building). But guess which building is the only one without such a connection. Exactly, Immunos. We are left out in a corner, so if it starts raining while we are eating we have to wait to get back (it's not like we ENJOY having 2 hour lunch breaks...!)

Here are a few of the plants (not the most buautiful though...). 

One of these days I'll show you the names of the buildings (they are all like 'Immunos', 'Proteos'... and written in huge letters on the buildings. Still everyone gets lost on their first day somehow...)

It's not exactly a bad place to work... :)

Building for two-dimentional people

This is one of the coolest buildings in Singapore. The corners have so sharp angles, that if you look at it from the right spot you would think that the front part is made out of paper (looks like a giant sheet that gets lost in the sky (Oh, so poetic!)) The two buildings are actually the same so you can get an impression of the corner-angles from the one in the back.

I looks a so surrealistic! ♥

I also wanted to show you a picture of the Batman-building at daylight. I am in love with it!

Dinner's ready!

Here's a good marketing idea: get a fish selling company and sell the fish. So far nothing extraordinary. But before you want to throw away the undesired body parts - think again! Maybe over here they will be someone interested in buying.. I don't know.. THE HEAD???!

I mean, not only is the head the weirdest part of the fish to buy separatedly, but also the least aesthetic by far. Not that fish are physically outstanding animals anyways, but THAT EXPRESSION. I mean can you look into those glassy, staring eyes and think "Mhhh, that's what I'm having for dinner. Can't wait!". Well apparently some people can, otherwise I would not have gotten the chance of taking this picture. Parents who have annoying little kinds that don't want to eat their food should print this out and display it on the fridge as a threat. The will eat anything.

Singapore Signs at their best 2

I warned you: tall buildings and good weather are not the only things Singapore has to offer. As I walk around the city I try to capture the best signs I can find while pretending I am not taking a picture of them at all (I mean, WHO would take a picture of an informative poster, right?). Here are some of my new favorites:

Every 5 minutes you can hear this announcement in the MRT "If you see any suspicious looking article or person (yes, person, I should watch out with my habit of taking pictures of weird things, or I'll see where I'll end up...) please inform our staff..." alternating between english, chinese, tamil and malay (I am guessing they are saying the same things in these languages, might as well be an ice-cream advertisement...). The matching poster for this message is in my opinion much more amusing than the recorded announcement. The most outstanding thing is probably the reenactment. It is a good thing the woman is pointing at the bag that is half a meter away from the security man, otherwise he might not have noticed it between all those ather things that are lying around on the platform. I love the expression of this man althoug I am not quite sure what he wants to tell us or if he is awake. In case he should be, he is probably thinking something like "Ok, here we go again... let's warn my colleges via walkie-talkie, then...". The outstanding naturalness, the breath-taking action and, of course, the catchy slogan have convinced me completely and without a doubt!

Ok, this time the Swedish are to blame, rather than the Singaporeans. I mean, Ikea is not especially famous for clarifying the identity of their products with well-chosen, explicative names (There is a reason for their neat division into household categories - that way at leas you will keep the product in the right room even though you don't have a clue what it is good for...). Finally they chose a name that did not contain any å or ö or any consonant several times in a row. And what is the word they go for to explain their new product? Exactly, produkt. I case you were wondering Produkt is a new product produced by Ikea. Who could possibly need mor explanations, right?

The last two are comics, again. They have so many around here! It is as if you were in a kindergarten because they explain very simple (and usually supposedly self-explicatory) everyday subjects. In my opinion it is a very good and expecially expressive way for the government to access all the different people with so diverse cultural backgrounds and spread the message. This comic can be found at my MRT (yeah, my and mine only) station "Lakeside". I see it every morning and it is the reason why I can never go to work in a bad mood! Haha! The lips of the man that get stuck together and the indian man telling the horrified woman. Also the creepy chinese person at the bottom, whose message I could never read and who I really don't know what he is smiling about (considering the dramatic situation).

This poster ist usually found at the dirtiest and oldest places (like the toilet from the "Door closing mechanism of the year"). It is a good move, because with this sign it does not matter how aweful the toilet looks like or wheter a giant rat is on the toilet, because all you care is about this poster and how you can't believe is an official sign. In case you cannot recognize it, the woman in the second picture is the mother of the guy (an arrow tells you so) and we are all very happy that she reminds him to flush the toilet. 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do and those of you who keep being loyal to this blog will certainly see more of them! Good night!

Look who I met

I have bad and good news. The bad news (always first!) is that I did not go to Malaysia in the end, because the busses were all either booked or very expensive and at the worst times. The reason for this is the muslim holiday called Hari Raya Haji  where they celebrate the end of the annual Haj (the pilgrimate to Mecca). Since Malaysia is a mainly muslim country apparently everyone wanted to go there from Singapore... My friend Isa went either way since she is continuing her journey from there. I am sure she is going to have the time of her life during the next month and wish her good luck from here! So that is the bad news. But thanks to karma I witnessed something pretty cool today. And the fact that I write this second post in a day proves that it must be quite awesome.  There is only one legitimate reason for posting twice. How about this:

A MONKEY!!! I have met A MONKEY on the street! Like when you run into a pigeon or a lizzard, only it's a MONKEY! I can rest in peace now.

It was the weirdest situation, I was just walking home when I see people taking pictures of this lamppost. And I am like "Pfff they are so touristy with their phones taking pictures of street lamps, thank god I will never sink to THAT level". Five seconds later I was the worst of them all with my camera jumping around, after realizing they werer actually taking pictures of this:

Even though it was very funny doing things like these:

... I was also a little afraid he might do some weird very fast move. Especially after seeing him yawn (just type "monkey teeth" into google pictures and you will see what I am talking about). 

Here is a pitcure of the situation so you can see, that I did not just go to the zoo... (how can people just walk by???). It scares me a little bit, though, that the monkey was some 200 m awayof my residence. No more bananas lying around in the kitchen for the next six months!

Blending in

I am in a bit of a hurry, because I am leaving to KL (that is what EVERYONE here calls Kuala Lumpur) in  like 10 minutes, so we'll do this quickly.  I told you about my trip to Little India but I had only shown pictures of the temple. Here are some impressions of the district:

The houses are very cute but sometimes a little bit overdecorated.

This is what all street signs look like... It's like being in fary-land!

This is a food court that caugh my attention because it was surrounded by this fence and it looked a little bit like a cage...

...especialy from inside (thank god for the colorful seats... xD)

There are many food stands around there but unfortunately we had already eaten so I can not tell you what the food tastes like (I'm not even sure I can tell you what the food was...)

So if you had not noticed by now the place was really crowded (this is due to the fact, that Sunday ist the only day most indian workers don't go to work so they all meet on the streets and eat) and pretty homogeneous. Except for one person of course, that was neither male, nor had black hair or dark skin (at least I was more or less their height...). Being the most obvious tourist on earth already I could take pictures as I wanted, becaus they probably would not expect any different anyway.

The streets were very beautifully decorated, because of some upcoming celebration I don't know the name of (it's such a delight to hear me talk when I am in a hurry!). Well I'm off to Malaysia, I might not post the next days depending of the existence of an internte connection, but after that I'll have great pictures (hopefully...). 

Meet mangosteen and passion fruit

The other day I found a bag on my desk at work. A look inside did not supply any further information for all I found inside were some spheres that I assumed were fruits, but that I had never seen before. It turned out my boss had bought some local fruits for me to try (we had been talking about them previously). Yay! 

The first fruit is mangosteen. It looks like taken out of some kind of videogame to me, it is very funny and it keeps getting weirder as you eat it...

You take off the leaves, that are hard and break off.

Then you have to press it in order to break the paring. As you can see there is a softer red layer underneath the hard outer layer.

So far, so good. You think. Until you see that the inner part looks like garlic!

It is amazing! How much weirder can a fruit get?? The pieces have a much softer texture than garlic, though. Of course this fruit has a pit per piece which is kind of unexpected, because it is not well defined. Its surroundings just get more and more fibrous...

Here's the pit:

xD Such a delightful picture...

Anyways, the second fruit turned out to be a passion fruit. I had heard of this one before (it is used in quite a number of juices in the western culture), but I had never actively eaten one. From the outside they do not look so impressive:

On the inside, however, they are quite interesting (such a deep fruit). I guess that is what the children of grape seeds and corn probably look like. They taste really good although they can be a bit bitter, too.

Apparently each seed is attached to the wall individually...

Both fruits are not only really curious but also very delicious (something that cannot necessarily be said about all fruits here (suspicious look at guava)). Good night!

Super serious conference stuff

I know I lost most of my credibility about being on a serious scientific conference on Sentosa with my last post. But believe me, the little that is left will vanish after this post. We grabbed the opportunity and walked around the island and ended up at the beach (unfortunately we were wearing formal clothes so not much to do there... :( )There is a special mini-train station for the beach and after alighting there all you have to do is walk down these stairs...

... and you are here:

Not too bad right? Apparently the sand on the beach has been imported (there is no white sand on sentosa), so it really looks like a paradise island. There is not much I need to say with those pictures (they would steal my thunder anyways...)

There were some huts in the back but I did not manage to find out if one can visit them. Seems like I have to go again to get that straight. Damn!

Of course laying around at the beach does not give you the opportunity to spend money so in order to offer you this service there are several, very beautifuls bars, alog the beaches.

If all conferences were on places like this...

How to get diabetes through your eyes

As I had told you I went on a conference to Sentosa this weekend. Luckily the break (we took) was long enough to visit a few places on tourist's-heaven on hearth. Being in a conference building you don't expect many cool places near-by, but in this case you could not be more wrong (already proven by the fact that the Hard Rock Cafe Singapore was located directly above the convention center). About 50 m away there was a little and incosiderable candy shop. I am not sure how we ever noticed it (somebody should talk with the owner about their lack of publicity), but let's be honest, is anyone able to find anything related to candy in this picture?: 

So apparently the store is at the right side of the picture, just for the ones that were wondering. Ok, jokes apart... Now think of any kind of sweet that is commercialized (preferably in America). They have it. I don't care what you were thinking, they have it. Because it is imposible that it was not in that store It is pure logic. On earth there is just a limited number of combinations of  the different sweets that can be produced. Since this shop was (as you can see in the picture) infinite, every one of these options is represented (theoretically in all imaginable representations, just saying). Q.e.d.

What do you say? You want Jelly Beans?

Well, name the color, please!

 If what you rather want is to die of cutenes overkill, then here you go!:

Who said those Lollipops only existed in the cartoons?

And I did not even take pictures of the M&M's vending machine with separated colors, the shelves each dedicated to a chocolate company and other weird things I had never seen in my life before.

Of course the shop was scandalously expensive, so the only thing we took from it was the extraodinary experience and a last look at their singular back-door.

'How did we end up here?' level: Hindu mass

Today I went to see Little India with a friend of mine (finally, I have been wanting to go there from day 1). Since Sunday is apparently the only day off for most indian workers the place was completely crowded. The streets were full of male indians, a setting in which I blended in perfectly. We happened to walk by a hindu temple and decided to look inside. (What else would you do if you encountered a building like this?:)

Once we got inside we tried to figure out what to do in order to offend these people the least, but there was no pattern or distinguishable logic behind the actions of the men in the building. The seemingly fortuite structure of the temple itself was as clear as the sun compared to the moves of the people that varied from sitting around looking in all possible directions, to lying face down on the floor or running around without an apparent concrete destination. The ringing of the little bells we did not dare to touch and the different statues dedicated to different gods(?) did a good job distracting us so we basically stood in everyone's way.

So when we just thought that we were getting some control over the situation this appeared around the corner:

We went back to total confusion as these musicians approached us (we always stood in the right spot as you can see...) followed by a mass of indian men. Bevor we knew what was happening we were surrounded by them (again I was harder to spot  in the crowd than any ninja) and the priests had gathered around this curtain. The loudspeakers of the temple (I am assuming those were loudspeakers, they might as well have been a bunch of guys singing in the background) were now playing hindu prayers to which some of our neighbours sang along. 

The curtain is lifted and we see this altar (?) to which the priest starts blowing  all kinds of incenses while some other priest lights on about 7000 candles. After 10 minutes of incenses and indian prayers we decide to try and get out of the crowd in order to look around. We got out after a few minutes as the crowd was dissolving, in fact the priest had given up the incense a few minutes ago and was now throwing flower buds at the statues. Getting out was easier than I thought for I was taller than most man there. 

Notice the beautiful necklaces made out of flowers that people sacrifice for the statues. (They sold them on the streets, too, but I was not sure if buying them and not giving them to the statues would be considered an offense, so I'll have to ask...). In the main part of the temple a priest was handing out the white powder that they put on ther foreheads (I am so well informed, this is a pleasure to read...). Another frequent move caught my attention. People would put their hands over the fire from the priest that was walking around and then hold their palms against their faces. I don't know what it means but they did so very fervently.

Here are some pictures of the very colourful statues:

(I really need that many arms, to be able to finish all the stuff I have to do right now...)

This is the outer decoration of the temple. By the way, people were asked to take their shoes of at the entrance, so we were doing all this barefoot:

The amount of shoes found in front of the temple was therefore immense. I am pretty sure not everyone finds their shoes after being there, especially because they all looked the same (standard sandals, in which case it probably does not even mater if you get ones that are not your own, as long as the size is correct...). Being one of about 3 women in the temple I was not very worried about my sandals, though.

Here is a picture of me and my friend. I know this is a tourist overkill, but I wanted to show you how litte we (and specially I) stood out there. 

Important note: It was permitted to take pictures inside of the temple and I really started taking them after I saw that some of the indians themselves took some with their cellphones. I know that I am a big fat tourist at the moment, but the respect for other religions is an important priority.