Morning
Afternoon
Night life
Our day started with an alarm set at 7:00, the same as yesterday. This normally isn’t a problem unless you decide that your need to support the Netherlands in football trumps your need for sleep, as the semi-final match of the Europa League was played at 03:00 local time.
Our morning program consisted of visiting the Shell headquarters where we arrived just on time, and by just on time I mean half an hour early. This allowed us to get some well-needed coffee until we waited for our first speaker, the chairwoman of Shell Singapore. She told us a bit about the history of Shell in Singapore and how Singapore was dealing with the same carbon emission issues we face in Europe. After the chairwoman, we had a short lecture from the head of public relations on what Shell is generally doing in Singapore.
After this, we got a lecture from a project manager on his Closed Carbon Storage (CCS) project. This normally would be a bit boring as we have seen this concept quite often as it is one of the main plans to tackle carbon emissions. However, this was quite interesting as the content was aimed more at the logistical, diplomatic, and legal problems with doing CCS in Singapore. A well-deserved coffee break followed and then we went on to the last lecture, which was from the trading division within Shell. Normally trading is something that is associated with an economics study, however, as the electrical engineer in the division put it. In the end, it is just solving a big puzzle, which is what engineers do.
After the visit to Shell, a bunch of hungry and hangry Japies went to change clothes and rushed to the food court to get some lunch. With our stomachs filled we went on to hike in Southern Ridges Park. Which, started with the staircase from hell, at the peak temperature of the day. At the top the group split in multiple smaller groups, mostly based on the time needed to recuperate from the climb. To the astonishment of some, the professor ended up in the first group, showing that age hasn’t slowed him down that much. After southern ridges park, people were free to go where they pleased. Most ended up going into the adjacent Hort Park and Kent ridge park, others decided to catch the metro to the Botanical gardens. Some even wanted to torture their feet further and did both.
Written by:
Maurits Mulder & Sander van den Brink
