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Our last day together in Singapore was so bitter sweet. And crowded. It was very crowded.

We decided to spend our last day together by first visiting one of my favorite exhibits during the trip: the Red Dot Museum’s future technology exhibit. It put products that were already on the market on display and explained the amazing nature of the technology we take for granted everyday. Futuristic, self-driving motorcycles were placed in the same space as fitbits and iPhones. They also gave us all books that featured the items in the exhibit in greater detail (which I very much appreciated on the plane ride home).

Next up, we were on our way to our farewell lunch. We ate together at Pollen, a fancy restaurant inside of the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay. While the food was good, service and the amount of food where a little underwhelming. They did make for some pretty platters though!

Then, we explored the rest of the Flower Dome. This is what the Botanical Gardens should have been! There were gorgeous exhibits everywhere and wooden sculptures of tigers, bears, the Alice in Wonderland characters, and even a dragon! The only downside was that we explored this location during Hari Riya Puasa, a public holiday. This meant that the dome was crowded enough that we could hardly walk through the foliage. Which was a bummer, because it was absolutely, wonderfully gorgeous.

The Cloud Dome was also beautiful, but almost underwhelming compared to its gorgeous brother, the Flower Dome. There was a lovely waterfall and multiple levels where one could learn about cave formations, but it simply wasn’t as captivating as the flowers.

We all hugged goodbye and smiled for pictures. It was a sad realization that our trip was over.

BUT NOT YET! My friends and I from the DAC decided that there was no way that we could leave Singapore without having visited ILM. And even if they were working on the new Star Wars and couldn’t let us inside, we’d get lost in their garden. Just to say we were there. So we ordered a Grab (a Southeast Asian Uber) and we were off to the infamous ILM Yoda statue. It was an amazing feeling to be so close to magic. And it was an amazing feeling to have so much hope for our futures. What we wanted to be when we grew up wasn’t so far away anymore. I mean, we were right outside!

We went back to the hawker center by Mighty Bear and chowed down on some Pad Thai and some steak bowls. And then we were back at the hotel. It was tough to say goodbye to my friends and it was tough to say goodbye to the amazing country I was in and the life-changing trip I had been on. I cannot wait to someday visit Singapore again. Who knows, maybe I’ll score an internship there.

I’d like to thank the faculty at CU Denver that brought me 20 hours away from my home to make connections and to learn how to work hard and to appreciate what I had been given. Obviously Michelle and Travis made my experience amazing by loading our schedule to the brim with activities and visits. But Jeremy Brown got me excited about compositing and about parts of the Animation pipeline that I hadn’t considered before. That helped me really take Thibault’s presentation to heart. Jeffrey Schrader taught me how to understand Asian Art, and I saw the themes he taught me not only in the museums we visited, but the modern design and graphics firms we toured. Eric Waldemar taught me to see the energy and lines in everything in my field of view. He helped me to see the beauty in crowded, dirty hawker centers and even in the cultural differences I encountered, like Chinese squatty-potties.

I wouldn’t give this trip up for the world. Thank you to everyone that helped fund or prepare me to embark on this adventure. I couldn’t have done it without you. I look forward to returning someday.

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Tuesday was a fantastic final day of visits and activities.

We first visited an AMAZING place called FZD School. FZD school is a one-year intensive program that trains artists to create concept art for games, movies, etc. We saw their work and learned about their curriculum, which includes days of parallel line-drawing, perspective work, how to incorporate color, build a portfolio, etc. The students had something like an 80% placement rate which is unheard of, but seeing how labor intensive the work seemed to be, I understood the dedication that it must take to be a student at FZD School. They also have lots of YouTube videos, so I look forward to learning more from them!

Next, we were off to eat lunch at Clark Quay. I had fishball soup for the first time, and it wasn’t bad!

We then were off to The Bureau, a small design studio that created everything from machetes to books to balloons in the shape of male genitalia. While they didn’t really have a presentation for us, it was a treat to explore their body of work and to pick the brains of designers working in the field. Lastly, after lots of walking and a terribly long bus ride, we were off to Genesis, a motion graphics studio somwhat similar to Crave. However, Genesis also specialized in 2D animation work in addition to their 3D. They took us through the process of meeting with clients and creating a storyboard, a mood board, and everything else they needed to ensure that their client was receiving everything they wanted from their motion graphics.

At the end of the long day, a few of us bought some henna from a vendor near our hotel. It was crazy that the next day would be our last as a group in Singapore. We excitedly came back to the hotel and reminisced about our experiences in the lobby. Some of us were homesick, but I felt like I could stay forever.

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Monday was another nice, restful day.

We all enjoyed breakfast at various places around the hotel and met up at LaSalle (which happened to be right next to Little India!) before heading off to have some Indian food and to stop by the Great Madras, a hotel that FARM had renovated and branded. Then, we went off to visit the Sri Veeramakaliamman temple, although to our dismay, it wouldn’t be open for a few more hours. And it started raining like CRAZY. Most of the group went off to see Mustafa, a 24 hour market, but my small group decided that the rain looked a little too violent to walk in, and we stopped by a souvenir shop in Little India before heading back to the hotel. We had planned to go on a boat ride until the rain started, so once the rain stopped and all of us were well fed, we met up in Clark Quay to take a boat ride in the center of Marina Bay. The boat took us back to see the spots that we had explored through our two weeks abroad. I felt as though I had experienced almost everything available to me in Singapore, and I felt quite a bit of closure and pride in my experiences.

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Saturday was another amazing day. In fact, it might be my favorite day so far.

A small group of us started the day off by going out for some amazingly fluffy, jiggly, Japanese-style pancakes. In the afternoon, Thibault Guairau from the FX department at ILM met with us at the Cocoon Space to talk about the industry. We ended our day at the Floating Utopia exhibit.

Thibault blew my mind. I had always thought about partial simulation as a technical part of the pipeline that would be math-y and not creative enough for my taste. Although I have yet to take the Dynamic Simulation DAC course, I can see now the value in putting creative intent in every project. Thibault showed us his own personal resume, gave incredible advice about what to do before, during, and after a job, and even shared personal stories with us. Coming out of his presentation, my mind is open to learn about all different parts of the pipeline and I’m so excited for whatever comes next in my future.

The Floating Utopia exhibit was underwhelming. The information and graphics were very cool, but compared to the interactive Future World and Alice in Wonderland exhibits we had seen in the same museum, the exhibit was not curated as creatively or in a way that would engage the audience as much. But then again, I may have just been too used to going to museums at this point. Ha!

That night, we stopped at the Super Tree Grove at Gardens by the Bay. My, was the light show and the view from the trees gorgeous. I have never had an experience like that before. It gave us a beautiful view of the treetops and of the gardens that made up Gardens by the Bay. Night time in Singapore is beautiful because it combines the beauty of the rainforest at night and of the lights that twinkle in dark urban spaces. I was star struck by my environment.

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I think we all really needed Sunday to rest.

I am so grateful that our trip has been so jam-packed with stuff, but my body wasn’t keeping up by the end of week 2. On Sunday, we got to sleep in, spend some hard-earned time by the pool, explore the city, eat cheesecake at Starbucks, and anything else we could ever want to do. Cal and I considered going back to Sentosa or sailing away to Indonesia, but at the end of the day, all we wanted to do was kick back and relax. Turns out, through it’s bustling economy and creative innovation side, Singapore is great for leisure too.

At dinner time, I decided to go solo to Bugis junction and let myself get lost in the seemingly endless mall. I’m not normally great with directions, but a place so massive as Bugis helped me dissolve into the shops and eateries. I brought back food after two hours of searching to the hotel room to lazily watch some TV with my roomie and chow down on some more delicious chicken, rice, Calamari, and something else I can’t pronounce.

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We spent Friday exploring another round of museums. First, we were off to the National Museum (not to be confused with the national Gallery). Then, we took a very long bus ride to the NUS Museum, and while some people tagged along at the end of an exhausting day to see Gillman Berricks (another gallery), a few of us decided to skip ahead to a treetop walk in the jungle to end the day with a scenic hike. I’m not completely sure why today was so exhausting when it was spent primarily looking through air-conditioned galleries, but I think all of the amazing days we have had thus far were starting to catch up with me.

The National Museum was a beautifully curated gallery. We learned through a personal tour about the process of planning and organizing a storyline around artifacts in a space. The museum took us through the rich and recent history of Singapore and truly transported us through time with the scenic rooms in the gallery. The gallery was dark and filled with the sounds of nature as we explored the ancient times of Southeast Asia and bright and rigid during the times of British colonization.

If there is one dessert I’ll miss dearly back in the States, it’s gelato on waffles. I still can’t figure out why this combination is so popular here, but it’s genius and I wish we had it back home.

The free top walk was absolutely gorgeous! We didn’t see many monkeys, but we did get a new perspective of a tropical, urban environment. Seeing the roads and buildings from so high up helped me appreciate yet again how closely balanced the rainforest and the urban jungle are in Singapore.

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Today moved so quickly that I hardly had time for photos!

First thing, we headed out to a Batik-making studio to learn the ancient Indonesian art of cloth-dying. Then, we were off to grab lunch at the Ramadan Bazaar down the road. To kick off the end of the day, we met at Masonry Studios to get a tour of their work and their facility.

The Batik-making studio was a lot of fun! In Indonesian tradition, a Batik cloth is used throughout a woman’s life in many significant moments. The Batik is what a midwife catches a newborn in, what the baby is carried in through infant hood, and eventually what covers the body of the dead after their passing. Different patterns signify different meaning, but in recent years, Batik has become a new medium for fine art as well. The cloth is stenciled in hot wax and then painted over in dye. The wax is melted out of the cloth and the lines are preserved.

What our group didn’t realize in time was that Ramadan is a celebration which involves Muslim men and women to fast from sunup to sundown. Therefore the Bazaar didn’t offer any food options for lunch, but it was still very fun to walk through the blocks and blocked of closed stalls to see the quiet environment before the party would start at the end of the day!

Masonry Studios was by far the best studio visit we have taken thus far for motion graphics. Their work is sleek and fun-looking, and it is obvious that every part of their team is proud to be working where they are. The two heads of the company knew exactly what would benefit a room of students to hear. They gave great advice about customer relations, how to grow your freelance business in a direction that works for you, and how to keep everyone happy all the time. They stressed the importance of balancing work and pleasure, while acknowledging that this type of work encourages people to throw away their personal lives. I was inspired as I left the studio.

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Today, we visited Cocoon Space, the Buddha Tooth Temple, and another hawker center!

Even before I hopped on a plane for the other side of the world, I had heard rumors about Singapore’s growing importance in the Southeastern fashion industry. But in all the days I’ve been here, I hadn’t seen any signs of high fashion other than Gucci stores and Louis Vuitton bags on people’s shoulders. I didn’t notice any local, independent fashion companies on the island. Until today. Although our time at Cocoon Space was fairly brief compared to the design/tech firms we had visited before, there was a lot to learn while we were there. Firstly, the Singaporean government seems to support start-ups like crazy. They “incubate” tech companies and fund their early development in hopes that they grow into successful corporations. The ladies at Cocoon are trying to set up something similar with fashion, which leads to the second most interesting thing I learned: Singaporean fashion designers can’t fathom layering up for winter because they’ve never experienced any season aside from summer. The international fashion industry is based on the four seasons and having a collection of clothes ready for winter just as consumers are finishing up the autumn months. But what if seasons didn’t exist? For someone living in eternal summer, the four-season fashion cycle is like designing clothes for aliens. It is important for any sort of designer to truly understand their audience. If that is impossible, find another audience.

The Buddha Tooth temple was gorgeous. All of the decor inside was beautifully ornate and there was no doubt in my mind that it was constructed in worship for a diety. I was surprised, however, at how many items were being sold there. Coming from a Christian background, I’ve never seen anything being sold in a church. It was a reminder for me again that Eastern culture is very different from what I am used to.

We visited a historic street in Singapore which somewhat resembled Larimer Square in Denver, which was an interesting find. And the Hawker center was massive and muggy and loud as always. But the food— although the Hawkers were running out of it—was wonderful as always!

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I’ve always heard from people that aren’t native to the United States that the amount of options in American grocery stores is overwhelming compared to the rest of the world. Visiting Giant Supermarket in Singapore has only reinforced this stereotype for me. However, the thing that stood out most to me was the Ramadan-inspired advertising around the market. I have never seen marketing featuring the Muslim population in the States, but the market flew banners with cartoon girls in hijabs buying food and snacks in the aisles. The music in the store was sang in a different language, and the products didn’t always appeal just to an English audience. Ramadan seems to equate to Christmas or Easter in the Southeastern Asian culture. The experience gave me a new perspective on how advertisers target our holiday cheer to sell products and to make us feel important and included.

We also stopped by Mighty Bear Games and LASALLE today. Mighty Bear was interesting as I had never really thought about developing mobile games. While I unfortunately didn’t get to learn about the technical process, the experience sparked a question in my mind — how do you know which aspects of art and animation to sacrifice for the sake of computer power? Obviously phone games can’t handle amazing graphics and intense gameplay, so what does an artist have to sacrifice after making low poly models with basic textures? How does an artist continue to capture the heart of a game when it must be stripped of probably 60% of the visual language that a traditional game is capable of?

LASALLE opened my eyes to different ways of thinking across the globe. Because Singapore is so STEM oriented in its education system, art students must be taught to have a free thinking, artsy mindset. The way that the animation program is taught at LASALLE is engineered around the needs of the students. The other DAC students and I were talking about whether or not the program was better than ours, and I realized that the programs are apples and oranges. CU Denver’s digital animation center is perfect for students like me who already have an artsy or technically artsy mindset. We focus on developing skills to harness the passion instead of developing ways to articulate it. I find it fascinating how two schools can aim to teach the same thing but must take completely different paths to do so.

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(I don’t know why I accidentally made two blogs. Whoops!)

The past two days have been a blur of food and information. Yesterday, we headed down to the National Gallery and enjoyed a guided tour of Singaporean and Chinese/Malay artwork. The artwork was distinct from the Western art that I am accustomed to, but Jeffrey Schrader has more than prepared me to analyze Eastern techniques and trends through his Art History Survey I and II courses. The artwork focused on energy and feeling rather than realism and visual perspective. In many policitally charged artworks, the feeling of passion was vivid through the paintings. And as Singapore became a people with an identity, the pieces emphasized the struggle of the city-state to find itself culturally. Such a new country, the portrait artist responsible for the artwork present on Singapore’s currency is still alive today.

After our exploration through the galleries, we found ourselves in the Botanic Gardens. If I remember anything from this location, it’s that it was HOT. I’m sure the lizards, roosters, and turtles we saw inhabiting the gardens loved the heat, but if there hadn’t been giant tropical leaves to shade the pathway, I’m not sure any of us would have survived. Thank goodness for the foliage—which leads me to my next notable course experience, which happened this morning. At FARM design studios, an architect noted that Singapore is an especially green city because the weather requires lots of shade. Unlike Denver, Singapore welcomes lots of trees and foliage to cover pathways for the benefit of the people. And the outdoor furniture also often encourages this. FARM showed us that design should exist to support ideas and values. Singapore, as a new nation, is still finding a common identity. The design industry is actively working to create public art that supports this search and develops a new melting-pot culture.

Crave FX was also a wonderful experience. It’s interesting to see how simple and aesthetically pleasing a 3D firm can be while supporting so many clients and being so effecient. While Motion Graphics work is necessary to pay bills and keep clients happy, it seems that 3D Animation can also be produced somewhat quickly for commercial purposes while still fulfilling creative needs of artists. This experience gave me hope for my future (just in case I don’t end up at Pixar or another fun, big company).

And lastly, THE FOOD! It seems I’m going to be trying new things until I fly back home. But man, I could drink Boba and eat Nasi Lemak for days on end. And I hope I do!

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Today we took a tour of Pulau Ubin Island! If I could describe today in three words I’d say it was wet, green, and so exhausting. But if I could only keep one experience I’ve had here so far, it would be the bike tour.

I started off the day with some kaya toast from a local toast cafe (because everything else doesn’t open until at least 9ish at the earliest). I didn’t know what kaya was at the time, but it is a very popular traditional breakfast here in Singapore. Kaya toast consists of toasted bread, coconut egg jam and softened butter. I’m glad I didn’t know that before as I wouldn’t have tried it. But it’s not bad!

Then, we made our way to the island. A dozen train stops and a half hour on the bus later and we made it to the ferry. The cargo boat was rickety and old, as were the bikes we would be taking through the jungle. But that just made the experience all the more fun! The air here is thick and moist and didn’t dry out my nose when I breathe heavy like the air does in Colorado. Even on the steep hills, I kept up with the guide closely. All those hours on the stair master came in handy!

We saw monkeys and wild boars and monitor lizards and spiders the size of US dollar coins. The monkeys were walking around us and even threatening a family exploring on their own. One of the GIFs I included featured a money running off with one of our water bottles. This has been by far the closest I have been with wildlife other than domestic animals and rodents.

We were sweating so hard that it was a mystery what was sun block, DEET, and sweat. All of us were dripping and there wasn’t a chance that anyone would dry off until we were on the bus back home. We hit the Hawker Center near the ferry and took off. A few of us dipped in the cool hotel pool during the evening and did our laundry (at an INSANE prince of S$13) before coming back to the hotel and settling in.

Until now, I haven’t really felt the impact of being an entire hemisphere away from home. Maybe it was the Ramadan celebration happening around us tonight or the people yelling at the monkeys in a tongue I didn’t understand, but today made me feel like I was experiencing something completely new.

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My first few days in Singapore have made me feel a little bit out of place, as expected. From suddenly running into people when I walk on the right side of sidewalks to my Visa card being a hassle to use, the culture shock I’ve experienced has been minor but noteworthy. Part of me almost wants to say that it is a different kind of shock than visiting a culture completely different than the one that I am used to. It’s as if I were in the United States in an alternate universe. Everything is different, but only slightly. I’m almost comfortable in my skin, but then something small reminds me that I am not so used to the culture and that I do sort of stand out. It is a humbling experience to truly not intuitively know what is expected of me by others around me.

This all being said, I have had a lot of fun so far! We’ve experienced a lot of fun interactive art at the Museum of Art and Science. The Future World and Wonderland exhibits were both exciting in that I felt as though we were walking through the art instead of simply looking at it. Wonderland in particular paid tribute to original Alice in Wonderland texts and artwork. The Hawker Centers that we’ve eaten at have been amazing and terrifying. Everything is simple yet fast paced and delicious. Take-away containers always cost extra and nobody has time for lots of questions. I also found out from a local that by leaving any small personal item on a table- even just a chapstick- signifies that someone is saving that seat and EVERYONE respects it. Nobody steals the table. There is so much respect involved.

The two major things that I continue to notice as we walk through the streets are how beautiful and diverse the architecture is (I mean seriously, it looks like the future) and how freakin’ hot it is!