Category 2014 IFTA Posts
There and back: Making the Singapore journey
As I lay comfortably on my family’s living room couch enjoying my time alone, I think back to my travels to and from Singapore. On May 22nd I caught a plane from Newark to Tokyo then from Tokyo to Singapore. When I arrived on my own in Singapore at around 12:30am I had to find […]
Saturday in Bishan
On Saturday June 7th, we had a free day to do whatever we pleased. I took a few hours to visit the neighborhood of Bishan, which is the neighborhood of a vlogger whom I studied for my research paper on youth mobility in Singapore. Bonny and I arrived in the neighborhood around 4PM. The weather reached […]
Of Mangoes and Much More: Reflecting on the IFTA 2014
A week ago the 2014 IFTA to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur came to a close. Yet, I can firmly say that the memories from our two week visit to both nations will last for years to come. It seemed like a dream: I could have blinked and I would have totally missed my experience as […]
White Team PowerPoint: Exploring Globalization and Westernization in 4 Neighborhoods
Below is a link to the White Team’s PowerPoint of which we used at our final research presentation to show some pictures and videos of the influence of globalization on a more visible Western identity in 4 neighborhoods: Chow Kit and Kampung Baru in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Little India and Geylang Serai in Singapore. […]
Sustainability of a city
After 10 days in Singapore, I become appreciate about the beauty of the city planning of Singapore. Singapore is definitely a “garden city”. From the airport to University town, the trees planted on three sides of the road that created a natural bridge surprised me. The Ficus Microcarpas along the road help to block the […]
Readjusting to Central Pennsylvania
I never really thought that reverse culture shock could be a thing, until now. Instead of going right back to Pittsburgh, I am spending the next week and a half in my hometown of Grantville, Pennsylvania, population 3,500 where there are probably more cows and chickens than people: This is certainly not Singapore or Kuala […]
Urban Greenery in Singapore
At the last day of the IFTA program, I spent an hour in One-North, where the creative clusters located. My personal research topic is the creative industries in Singapore. So I think I should go to the creative cluster in Singapore before I left. One North is the 200-hectare area around Buona Vista, which includes […]
Globalization and Westernization in Singapore’s Little India & Geylang Serai
On Friday, we entered Little India to examine the ways in which globalization has enhanced the visibility of a more Western identity in Singapore and Malaysia. We took the MRT to the Little India station and started our walk from Buffalo Road to explore how this area is autonomous and how it is impacted by […]
Urban Exclusivity in Mountbatten, Singapore: Residential Luxuriousness
This past Saturday afternoon I had the chance to visit my cousins at their apartment in Mountbatten, an urban planning area of Singapore that I previously did not even know existed. Perhaps, this may be due to the fact that I had to transfer two MRT trains to reach my final destination from the UTown […]
Pitt Urban Studies in Singapore and Malaysia 
New pictures added!
There are now several new pictures added that show the 2014 IFTA participants in action whilst conducting research in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur: http://wp.me/P2rLQx-dj.