Mosaic Music Festival: The Beatroots

Mosaic Music Festival is an annual music festival in Singapore. A 10-day feast for all music lovers! The range is quite impressive - you can find there almost everything from indie and folk to hip hop. The concerts take place in a couple of venus, however I only got to go to the ones at Esplanade Music Station - free of charge concerts of more local bands. There were also international artists performing (for instance Julia Stone), but these concerts were ticketed.

I made it to two concerts: The Beatroots on Tuesday and Arajua Saturday. As for the latter one - too heavy and emotional for a Saturday night, still good soundtrack music. As for the Beatroots - sooo good! The lead singer has an AMAZING voice and great energy. If you like 'Of Monster and Man' - you will love them! They are pretty new in the business, so go check them out! Trust me, it's worth it!

https://www.facebook.com/thebandbeatroots?fref=ts

The Beatroots 

Nadina's hidden talent

I missed playing piano!

xoxo
Ewa

Wonder Full: Light and Water Show at Marina Bay Sands

Wonder Full is a "spectacular light and water show just by the famous Marina Bay Sands". To my mind it's not the show itself that makes it spectacular, but the Singapore skyline and.. bubbles! Actually bubbles were the best part of the show, for about 5 minutes we were basically surronded with them! As for the show at some point it got a little boring, still it was a great free (!) entertainment!

The beginning of the show

Nice light effects

Singapore skyline

With lovely Nadina

Bubbles!

More bubbles!

Bubble attack

Blizzard in Singapore

xoxo

Ewa

NUS: Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library

There always comes a time when one just HAS to go to the library. There is a whole lot of downsides to that, but.. every cloud has a silver lining - we have a really nice business library! (I would still prefer not to spend time there, at all)

Almost like CIA

No more loans for 4 weeks, just 2 hours
or overnight (if you borrow the book after 8pm!)

One of the rooms in the library.
Love this comfy chairs!

Veeraj is pretending he is studying hard

Well, he is not pretending anymore...

Another room in the library,
it only gets full in the midterms/finals time

Local girls working on a group project in a discussion room

xoxo

Ewa

Ipoh: cave temples & white coffee

This is the rest of the pictures from the day we spent in Ipoh, Malaysia. After Ling Sen Tong we visited Kek Long Temple. It was enormous and therefore quite impressive! I will always remember great local people, who worked there - they helped us to get a taxi (so far we walked, but the city centre was too far). That's how we met a local taxi driver, who thankfully spoke really good English. He showed us where to eat, told us the history of the most famous sights and gave us an insight in the situation in Malaysia. So glad we met him!

The gate to Kek Long Tong Temple

The entrance to the temple

Enormous grotto inside the temple

Like a local - the foot refloxology
path on the other side of  the temple

With our driver of the day. Great man, we got to know
so much about Malaysia from him! White coffee
to go - it originated in Ipoh and is super delicious! 

Delicious soup in Old Town White Coffee restaurant.
A place to eat in Ipoh!

Railway station

Town Hall

In front of Wat Mek Prasit, Thai Buddhist Temple

The entrance to Perak Tong Temple

The view of Ipoh from the top of the hill
at Perak Tong Temple

This is the end of pictures from Ipoh. Next post will show the other side of an exchange, stay tuned!

xoxo
Ewa

Ipoh, Malaysia: Ling Sen Tong temple

Malaysia, day 1

We set off from Singapore around 10 pm and after 10 hours of super comfortable bus ride (after the Philippines anything that does not include sitting on the convertible seat in the cetral row is considered comfortable) we mafe it to Ipoh. Frankly speaking the buses to/from Malaysia are probably the best ones I've ever seen. The seats are enormous and look like business class on the plane. We arrived at 6 am and spent 2 hours in McDonalds waiting for the sunrise and eating breakfast. Then we set off to the cave temples - main attraction of Ipoh. First one was Ling Sen Tong.

Hello Malaysia! 

The gate to the Ling Sen Tong temple

As I am super busy with midterms and presentations that's it for now. More post coming soon (if I survive)!

xoxo

Ewa

Short break + sneak peek from Malaysia

Due to travelling, many group projects (yes, I'm studying here sometimes), changing residences (if you ever want to come to Singapore be aware of one not-so-nice aspect of living here - mould) I was super busy and away from blogging for a while. And I won't be here for another 12 days since I'm in Phillipines right now!  

Here's the sneak peek from Malaysia:

Tea plantation, Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

A lot (and I really mean it) pictures from both trips coming soon!

xoxo
Ewa

Chinese New Year Dinner

On the 9th February I was honoured (no exaggerating here) to attend a traditional Chinese New Year dinner at Tiffany's. I'm really grateful for your invitation - it was an amazing experience! If anyone ever has this opportunity do not hasitate to take it. 

Chinese New Year is the most important holidays in chinese culture. It is a celebration that lasts up to 15 (!) days, however in Singapore we only had 2 days off. On the first day families dine together, and on the others they do so called 'visiting'. They are visiting other family members, always carrying a box of oranges with them.
For me CNY felt like a mix of Christmas and New Year's Eve. It is very family holiday. And Tiffany made me feel like home, everybody was amazingly friendly and was making us eat incredible portions of food (just like in Poland!).

With Kuba, Tiffany and her Korean friend 

First we had sweets, lots of sweets

Some more sweets...

Even more sweets!

Delicious! Right in the middle (the yellow pastry)
is a pineapple minicookie. It is treaditionally eaten
during CNY. Not my favourite one :) 

Trying to eat melon seeds.
Probably not good for your teeth.

Steamboat (Hot pot). Traditional chinese dish eaten
 usually on major holidays. The concept is very
similar fondue, except for the fact
that you put all products to the boiling water. 

The choice of the products was enormous! We had
different kinds of meet, seafood, mushrooms and
salad. Steamboat is great for feasting together! We
spent more than 2 hours cooking, eating and talking.

With the family. The red envelopes are
an indispensable part of Chinese New Year.
They are usually  presented to children by the older
members of the family. Inside you can find money,
that is usually an even digit. Red colour (same as with
the ornaments) represents good luck.

xoxo

Ewa