As my lovely cousin Sam informed me, some of you may not know the full story of why I am here in Asia so I thought the first thing I could do would be to clear that up. As many of you know, I have spent the last academic year at University of Virginia working on a Masters of Commerce with a concentration in Financial Services.
As part of my graduation requirements, we must study global business and this includes a study abroad component. We were able to choose between travelling to China, Southeast Asia, Western Europe and Eastern Europe. I chose Southeast Asia for three reasons:
1: because I felt that it would be amazing to experience cultures so different from anything I'd ever been exposed to
2: because I wanted to get a contrast between countries
3: because I had learned how important emerging markets are in the global business environment we now live in.
The Southeast Asia Trip travels to Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. We study global business within the context of this region by taking classes at a partner university (in my case National University of Singapore) and by visiting companies that have operations here.
In addition to these group class experiences, each person has been working in a team on a capstone project. My capstone project involves studying Procter and Gambles' strategy in Asia. More on this project will come as I make my discoveries abroad.
This is my team for my capstone project. From left to right, Me, Laura, Lisa, and Amy.
So, It is the morning of my second day in Singapore and as my friends get ready, I am taking a moment to reflect on my plane ride and first day. My plane ride was much better than expected for 20 hours of travelling. I was able to sit next to one of my friends, Trevor. This was wonderful because I rarely get to travel with people and having someone to talk to made the trip that much faster. We flew to Singapore from New York with a stopover in Frankfurt. We flew Singapore Airlines, one of the most well regarded airlines and youngest airlines in operation today. It was interesting to have this experience before we reached Singapore because we will be studying a case on Singapore Airlines. The service was impeccable but 20 hours on any flight is obviously grueling.
After arriving in Singapore and making it through an efficiently run immigration and customs, we hopped in a cab and zipped across one side of the island to the other. We passed the financial district, new casinos, and giant port area. We traveled during rush hour but, as our cab driver informed us, there is rarely much traffic because Singapore charges incremental car taxes and has an ERP system. ERP stands for electronic road pricing and charges cars for passing through certain checkpoints depending on the time of day. We drove from one side of the island to the other in nearly twenty minutes. We checked into the National University of Singapore's Visitors Lodge before going out to explore the city. Below is the Visitor's Lodge and the red arrow points to our room.
We walked a ton the first day because we wanted to stay in the sun, stay active, and soak in every second of Singapore culture. I was amazed by how many American brands I recognized. I saw Starbucks, McDonald's, Carl's Jr., 7 Eleven, Chili's, Subway to name just a few. Yesterday was kind of a struggle because we got in at 6am and had to stay up all day but my favorite part of the day was our lunch. We went to a hawker center. A hawker center is what Singaporeans call an open-air food court where street food booths offer delectable but often times extremely strange treats. We all tried the most interesting foods including a gelatin rice patty covered in roasted garlic and chili paste. Delicious! It was also interesting because the booths are literally graded (A,B,C etc.) by some government authority for the quality of their cleanliness and safety. Don't worry Dad, we only visited A and B booths. Below you can see what they look like.
I must sign off now because everyone is getting ready to leave to explore the ethnic centers of the city...
More soon,
Much Love,
Maddy
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