The Weekend

Yeh, so I haven’t been able to keep at maintaining my diary as I had expected. Primarily because of the addiction that free high speed wi-fi connection in the comfort of one’s bedroom brings with itself. And partly due to the fact that I have been busy discovering the sights and sounds of Singapore to the fullest. It’s ironical that I have managed to find out time in the middle of office hours to write this blogpost but then workload has been almost inexistent for the past week or so. Barclays surely does treat it’s interns like toddlers helping them to figure out the A,B,C’s of the investment banking world with a lot of care and freedom.

The weekend was pretty colourful as expected. Clarke quay, where I stay , has an amazingly vibrant festive feel to it . With restaurants serving exotic seafood, bars with live bands playing,discos blaring out foot tapping numbers and the young crowd out to let their hairs down, the place is a tourist’s delight. Tired after our visit to the Marina Barrage, worthwhile though it was, we settled for a can of beer and our first tryst with the cigar. It turned out to be quite an intoxicating concoction!

After waking up at around 12 noon on Saturday, we decided to try out the Robin Hood movie at Plaza Singapura. To put it very mildly, both the multiplex and the movie was a disappointment. Only the hot dogs that we had at the Cineplex seemed like value for money. It was now time to head for the famed Night Safari which thankfully brought an otherwise lousy day to an exciting end. A trip to the Amazon rain forests, the grasslands of south east Asia, the Savannahs all at once was more than we could have asked for. Highlights would include spotting the snow leopard, the Malayan tiger, the giant ant eaters & the Asian Lion. The night safari tour on the tram with that typical sound of frogs quacking and crickets buzzing around us as we made our through swampy marshes generated a lot of excitement and ooohh and aaahs among us. The only dampener, so to say, was the fact that we could not capture the animals on film with flash photography prohibited. On our way back we were almost on the verge of being forced into a night safari of a different kind with us managing to lose our way to Clarke Quay. It was a miracle that we happened to board a bus which was to go to Clarke Quay and thus we were saved from burning a major crater hole in our packets.

I visited Little India yesterday and it really did feel like being back in homeland. Traffic jams courtesy no traffic rules, loud music, bright lights, hawkers and most certainly more people per square foot area. My heart soared with pride when I saw hoardings in Bengali and Bengali music playing on the speaker. Little India has this significant Bangladeshi population who run these grocery shops and restaurants where you get things really cheap. We had a bottle of water for $1 and Aamras for $2. Nice deal, I would say. Mustafa’s, the famed shopping mall is huge. You can step in owning nothing in this world with just your credit card and walk out ready to start a household. As for us, we bought GoGo sunglasses and some basic food stuff to last us the week. I promise to be back here before my internship ends for all the shopping that I need to do for people back home.

Other highlights would be the amazing two day training we had at 7city educational services. I only wish it would have stretched on a little longer. Sean King, the burly American guy who was taking our classes is one genius joker. He managed to keep us awake through the 7 hr lectures for two consecutive days, which when one s the fact that the class consisted mainly KGPians, is a big achievement. Raffles place where we had the classes can give downtown Manhattan a run for it’s money when it comes to skyscrapers. And our intimate relation with flesh and meat continued unabated with turkey being the latest prey. My Oh My, is the turkey and bacon grilled burger at Burger King sumptuous? Just have it and you’ll forget Mcdonalds and Subway.

And so my first week at Singapore came to an end. It’s been amazing to say the least. I have discovered so many places, tasted a plethora of gastronomic delights in such a short of a span of time and done so little work at office.! What more can one ask for. I only hope that the coming weeks are as enjoyable as the first with some real work at office interspersed in between though!