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So the day has come, that it’s Gunti’s leaving party. The atmosphere is great, there’s a lot of socializing, a lot of chatting, a lot of food, and in general, a really comfortable atmosphere. Gunti and Erin really made the place cozy, and the furnishing is great too. There are chips and alcohol, the usual lot, but if only taken one glass of beer and I only plan on taking one glass.

The day has come, that I say my thanks to a teacher who has given me my orientation into science. If Ninan was the principal who said, “Come in.”, then Gunti is the teacher who took me around the campus, gradually easing me in and then teaching me in one subject – one field in science.

His style of teaching was really hands off, letting me run with the experiments on my own and letting me figure things out. And when I had questions, he would sit down with me and “chat about it”, to use his own words. Usually, after listening to his explanation, I would get it, and that really pays tribute to the clarity with which he explained things. I think one thing that I really learned from him was that if you don’t know something, just go look it up, or else design an experiment to figure it out – the way real science is done.

I learned a lot more than just that though, and to go through them one by one would be way too tedious an entry for an iPhone. We are both football fans, and we had a lot of fun watching and supporting Germany through the Euros, talking about EPL and the Bundesliga, with myself getting poked fun at for being an England and best of all a Manchester United fan…

But all in all, I have to say, Gunti was one of the best teachers I have had by a long mile. I’ve had so much fun working with him, and I hope he does well in the future back home in Germany. Steph says I shouldn’t mope around and brood over this, and I guess I should take the grad student’s advice.

Off I go, to enjoy a bit more with my teacher, Professor Grassl.

Annalakshmi is an awesome place with great vegetarian Indian food. Having not gone out much while in Singapore, I definitely enjoyed eating at this place twice.

Two things distinguish this place from other conventional restaurants. Firstly, the food is entirely vegetarian and north Indian. Secondly, and most importantly, they only ask you to pay what you feel is worthwhile for the food, meaning that the food is effectively a buffet, regardless of whether it is an a la carte or traditional buffet.

The food selection includes a sweet and savory vegetable stew, lentil curry, and oothapam, a type of pancake for which I would definitely want to get the recipe for. It is fragrant, with the taste of the spices tantalizing one’s tastebuds. It’s a great way to end my time in Singapore.

Last photo: a ride down Singapore’s Scotts Road at night, taken on my iPhone. In a way, the quality of the photo is pretty darn goodfor a night shot.

It is way, way, way too hot here. 27ºC at night, but it really feels like 31. The minor jetlag doesn’t help either; I went to bed at 9 PM, the earliest I’ve done ever, and I woke up at 4AM. That’s really like sleeping at 5AM and waking up at 12PM in Vancouver. Well, it does seem like something I’d do, given that it’s the holiday break…

For some reason, flying off from Vancouver doesn’t bring a sense of excitement. It seems all normal. It doesn’t seem at all novel or exciting; I don’t sense myself feeling a gush of blood and adrenaline in my veins. Check-in felt normal, getting past security felt normal, and boarding seems like it’s going to be normal too. This is even weirder, given the fact that I’ve not flown anywhere since coming to Vancouver.

Maybe the road trip to Kelowna and the trip to Victoria prepped me well for all of this.

Interesting. Someone actually carved out a pond in the shape of a heart. Pity I don’t have a photo.

This is definite proof that Meritt is in the middle of nowhere.

Both of them must be gone by now. The bus was scheduled to leave at 2:30 pm, but then their bus 97 leaves at 2:30 as well, so they ought to have gone by now.

Goodbye Kelowna. In God’s hands, keep my two brothers safe.

We went for Greek food for dinner last night, and had this amazing platter mix of Greek roast. Now that was just simply amazing stuff. But A Gui and Junfeng insisted on treating me to the dinner, and not the other way around, so I feel quite bad for making them share $80 worth of food between them… It must be about half the amount they usually pay for a week’s worth of groceries.

Then we went to this ice cream store called moo lix and ordered ice cream. At first, I wanted to get the medium sized cone, but then in the end, I saw how big a small was and ordered a small instead. It was the first time in a long time that I ate a mint chocolate chip ice cream. Now I have to say, that I’m convinced that the concept of making the cones fresh must be Canadian.

After snoozing in for pretty much the whole morning (it was all due to the bus ride, I’m convinced), I went down to the beach with A Gui and Junfeng. It’s not a real beach, because Kelowna is landlocked.

There’s a beach volleyball competition going on as well. 2v2 as opposed to the usual 6v6, which changes the game’s dynamics a bit.

Tonight, there’ll be a French rock band concert at the waterfront, the prep stuff doesn’t look too bad.