jw and i were talking about traveling, and i remembered i kept a personal e-diary in the early days of mauritius. so i decided to delve into my laptop (the same one i brought to mauritius) to look for the personal diary. and i found this entry that i had typed on word, ready to be posted on my blog when our internet in the little apartment was set up. but i guess i forgot to post it up on my blog when my internet was up, because there was just too much to blog about then. so here it is now, two years late, but i can still sense the joy and ecstasy bursting from within...

3rd August 2006

I'M IN MAURITIUS and LOVIN' IT!

the weather here is fantastic. constant air-conditioning, but does get a bit chilly at nights though.

i managed to get a great apartment with a great view. out of my balcony, i see this great big hill that puts bukit timah (mole)hill to shame. and when evenings come, i can see the sun setting. a very spectacular view. the apartment is very nice and spacious. 3 bedrooms, 1 living and 1 dining room, joined together, kitchen and two bathrooms. and definitely room for people who want to come visit mauritius to come stay with me! i charge 20 sgd a nite! i might waiver the charge for great friends though.. hahaha. no, seriously, if you're interested to come to mauritius, now would be a great time. lodging is FREE! just tell me the dates so there won't be a jam-up in the apartment.

i've been up to my neck with all the administrative and paperwork and settling down. spending quite a bit of money and feeling damn bad towards the mothership. i'm just glad and thankful that she's so supportive of my decisions and all she wants of me is to be a good daughter and study hard. -sigh- i miss her already.

but to me, i must say that the money is really worth the experience. there's nothing like going overseas, getting thrown out of your comfort zone, missing familiarities blah blah blah. it's just a very different experience, and i might say, essential experience. i think it really makes you think and behave like a responsible adult. you really have to do everything yourself, watch your own back, learn to discern the friendlies from the untrustworthies, be on the constant look-out. i admit sometimes i do get scared, so i'm very thankful that le boyfriend and jiawen is with me. but like i said, i think it’s really very much different than staying in sg, where your parents are close by and you can just rely on them to help you out in situations. wheras when you’re overseas, your parents are not there to help you, you really need to just help yourself, if not no one will.

so we went down the the university yesterday to settle all the admin work. beautiful campus! very much like our old campus, just a bit older and worn out and bigger, but very nice all the same. oh oh, and we saw a HUGE rainbow on our way there and back. you can imagine the look of glee and delight on mine and jiawen's face when we saw the rainbow and started snapping multiple pictures of it. rainbows here are very common. remember my squirrel entry sometime back, on how i squealed when i saw squirrels in new york? well... heh. you can't blame me cos there are hardly ANY rainbows in singapore. which reminds me, on my way back from bangkok the last trip, i saw a rainbow below the plane, but le boyfriend was too slow in taking out his camera and by the time he did, we flew past it already. -shakes head- not star team material lah...

right now, we're all still trying to adjust to mauritius time. it's 4 hours behind singapore, so we go to bed at 10 pm here (which is 2 am sg time) and wake up at 7 am here (11 am sg time). the town i'm staying in is called quatre bornes. which means four boundaries in english. oh, the people here speak french. supermarket labels are in french. so i expect myself to speak colloquially by the time i leave this place. the problem is, people understand english too. so i just reply 'hello' when they say 'bonjour' to me, so they'll start speaking to me in english. so there's less motivation to learn to speak it. my apartment is about 5 minutes from school, and very accessible by bus. we're still a little confused by the bus routes, but anyhow, when in doubt, we just ask. though sometimes we get differing responses from people...

oh, the flight here was fine. i think i'm born to fly business class. hahaha. okay, so i didn't even need ANY medication or wristbands to curb my motion sickness, and enjoying my smoked salmon (and jiawen's as well) and drinking white wine and champagne. i thought i was going to get motion sickness from eating too much. but all i did was lower the back of my seat, stretch out my legs, and rested a bit, and i was fine. and i could even watch a movie without feeling sick. i think i don't suffer from motion sickness when i fly. i suffer from economy syndrome. hahaha.

all in all, i'm very thankful that we managed to find and move into an nice apartment. although it's a little over our budget, but it's a very secure place in a nice town. so far, haven't done any sightseeing. just waiting to sort out bits and pieces of details before we start exploring the island. like right now, i'm stuck at the apartment cos we're waiting for them to deliver the bed and wardrobes. and then we need to set up the internet. and the things to do just keeps coming in. good thing we came slightly early. although, orientation is just HALF A DAY. so that leaves us almost the entire of next week to go around the island. can't wait to explore other parts, hopefully climb up some of the hills. oh, it rains occasionally here, but the rain is fine like mist, and it's always just passing showers. very nice, but when it gets too heavy, you freeze up into an ice cube.

okay, that's all for now! and oh, if you didn't already notice, i'm just typing this without internet, so it's a bit backdated.