If I Had a Hammer...

[Flashback mode - I'm catching up... really!]

Monday, January 19th

We had another easy task today - drive downtown to meet with Deloitte Singapore to get a briefing on how the Singapore tax system works.  No biggie.  We had time.  We had the address.  We had a map.  Other than an argument in the car in downtown Singapore that severely tested the strength of our marriage (we could not find where to park), what was the most confusing part of the trip was.... the office building elevator.

After getting through the airport-like security in the Deloitte building, we knew we had to go to floor 32.  We found the elevator, boarded with about 10 others, the doors closed, and I pressed 32.  It didn't light.  I pressed it again.  No luck.  Oh well, the little indicator light must be out.  "Only ott flo..." an asian woman next to me said.  "Sorry?"  I asked.  "Only ott flo... the lift..."  After pondering this second, I understood.  Ah, this elevator only goes to odd floors.  Whoops, must have missed a sign.  No matter, we'll get off on floor 31 and walk.

After exiting on floor 31, we disovered... no stairwell.  Only the entrance to an office that was locked.  Now what?  If the elevators only go to odd floors, getting back on would only take us to floor 33.  What if there was no stairwell there, either?  We stood there for a minute, feeling completely... inept.  We had made it all the way around the world and all the way downtown in a foreign crowded city driving on the wrong side of the road.  Why can we not figure out how to get up one d%#m floor???

Finally, a group of individuals carrying huge boxes of files came out of the office door.  "How do we get to floor 32?" David asked.  They pointed.  The lift, of course.  "But doesn't it only go to odd floors."  They all looked confused.  "No, go to all floor."  David finally got it.  It's only odd floors from the first floor lobby, after that, the elevators go to any floor.  We entered the elevator, and went up one floor to 32.  Easy peasy.

Silly Americans, can't even figure out the lift.

The second big task for the day was putting together the TV  stand we bought at Ikea.  Let me introduce Immediate Gratification David from yesterday.  The tools required were a wrench, which we had thanks to the hardware store trip yesterday, and a hammer.  Which we did not have.  It was 9pm, and there is no Home Depot here.  Fine, we'll wait until tomorrow, there are a lot of things we need a hammer for, it would be silly to start without a necessary tool.  No, David disagreed, we have to have something.  So he found.... something.

Yes, that is a rock.  We pounded our TV console together with a rock from the garden.  He called it resourceful.  I called it ridiculous.  You decide.

Idiot Proof

[Reminder:  Flash Back!]

Sunday, January 18th

I have a love/hate relationship with Ikea.  The have such cool stuff, and it's fairly easy to put things together yourself but.... you have to put things together yourself.  I know they have a service where they deliver and install everything for you, but the directions are supposed to be so idiot-proof that paying for this service is almost like you're admitting you're a lazy knuckle-head.  We were two confident, smart, capable individuals.  We could do this.  The instructions, however, were 40 PAGES.  And required a screwdriver.  Which we did not have.

This was us:

This was not us, we were too proud:

Anyway, after a small argument with Immediate Gratification David, Responsible Patient Chris delayed the assembly to take a trip to the hardware store to buy a screwdriver, and we spent the rest of the day assembling the desks.  Anyway, here's the final result:

It's pretty much a mess right now, but look at all the space!  Now I don't have any excuses not to be productive.

We did take another break in the middle of the day to go to Dempsey.  For you Minneapolis folks, if Holland Village is like Uptown, then Dempsey is like Linden Hills.  They have upscale restraunts, but also some great teak furniture outlets.  We found a fantanstic patio set which we cannot yet afford, but determined not to leave empty handed, we purchased this:

Yes, this is in our front yard.  I show pictures like this not to brag about living in the tropics, but in order to entice ya'll to come and visit us.  This is a perfect place to relax with a glass of wine at night.  Or frozen pizza and Tiger Beer.  Whichever.  We have both.

Ikea Hell

[NOTE: Still in FlashBack Mode...]

Saturday, January 16th

We had a list of "stuff" we "needed", so we decided to head to Ikea, which isn't too far away from our house. To sum up the experience, here's the quote of the day from David:


"The only thing worse than Ikea on a Saturday is Ikea on a Saturday in Asia."


I'll have to add, that even worse than that, is having to go back twice for missing parts. We bought a desk, but had failed to buy the legs which inexplicably came separately. We also assumed (incorrectly) that by waiting until 8pm, the store would have calmed down a tad. It was actally more crowded - so much that we had to wait in line to get in to the parking ramp. David swore he'd never go back again. I was just exited to qualify as an "Ikea Friend" - free sodas!

Yes, they basically have the same stuff at the Ikea Singapore store - furniture and room set ups on the main floor and all the accesories on the bottom floor, but the menu in the food area is a little different:

For example:

Curry Noodle A portion of spaghetti noodle in curry gravy, served with 2 pieces of potatoes, app. 120g of boneless chicken leg, fishcake and a whole egg.

Nasi Goreng A portion of fried rice with green peas, onions and egg, served app. 120g of fried chicken, otah fish cake and fish cake, with sambal tumis chilli, tomato ketchup and cucumber slices on the side.



Did I mention that I now get free sodas???

Day "Off"

[NOTE:  Still flashing back!!!!]

January 16th, 2009

David's working, and this is the last day of my week off.  I was supposed to relax, sleep in, etc., but here's what I ended up doing:

1.)  Trying to find our mail box.  It may seem obvious, but it was hidden in the big square posts by our driveway.  We also got our first piece of personal mail - thanks Chandra!!!!  BTW, it's $0.94 to mail a letter and takes a little less than a week to get here.

      

No, it's not here...             It's there.  See it?

2.)  Going to the nearby wet market to attempt to buy some food for the house.  The wet market is sort of an open air market, with everything from chicken and fish to vegetables to dried goods to flowers.  After wandering around and realizing I was pretty much the only white face in the bunch, I figured I should at least buy something to start fitting in.  There are no signs by any of the vegetables, telling you what they are, so I bought a packet of spices and then tried to find whatever the vegetable was on the picture of the spice packet.  I couldn't find anything that looked like the vegetable, so I bought something that looked somewhere between broccoli and baby bok choy and figured it should be edible.  I was also going to buy some prawns to go with it, but there was a slight problem.  These prawns were BIG, and they all had the heads still on.  Now, I know how to peel and de-vein a shrimp as well as anyone, but I wasn't quite ready to start chopping the heads off things.

Figuring this was enough newness for one day, for lunch I bought bread, PB and jelly from the little 7-11 that was nearby.  That should tide me over for a while.

2.)  After I got home, the washing machine guy stopped by again to replace a switch that I think really didn't need replacing.  I think he was just trying to make me feel better about the whole the-door-just-wasn't-shut-properly situation.

3.)  Listened TO THE GOPHER MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM BEAT WISCONSIN IN OVERTIME!!!!  I love the internet.

4.)  Unpacked clothes.  Why I thought I'd need any of my fall jackets is beyond me.  Or my cowboy boots.

5.)  The curtain repair guy also stopped by to fix one of the curtains in the guest room that wouldn't close.  (Did you hear that?  Guest room.  For guests.  Like you.  Come visit.)

6.)  Two assessors stopped by to evaluate the house for taxes or something.

7.)  I tried to set up a sort of make-shift office for work on Monday.  As long as I have internet we should be good to go.

After that, I took the usual bus to visit Millie with David, and we had our usual dinner out.  A day of no rest, but there was accomplishment, which is sometimes all you can hope for.

Brrrr....

NOTE:  Still flashing back.... I haven't caught up to real time yet!

January 15th, 2009

I've been getting more messages from home about how cold it is in Minnesota today!  More specifically, -21F.  Painfully cold, though I do miss it.  A little.  Or rather, I miss not sweating profusely everytime I walk outside for more than 60 seconds.  It's amazing how much brain space is freed up when you don't have to think about the weather.  David and my discussions about the weather used to take up a good 10 minutes every morning, mostly after I'd been out walking the dog before work.  Here, I still walk the dog before work in the morning, but our conversations go something like this:

David:  What's the weather like?  Is it humid?

Chris:  [Sarcastically] What do you think?

After that, there's pretty much nothing left to say.  It rains sometimes in the afternoon, but nothing else really changes.  I remarked to a native Singaporean once about how great it is to always have nice warm evenings to sit outside, and he said, "I suppose, but it can get monotonous."  Spoiled native.

I took the bus up to Woodlands where David works to meet him for lunch and to open a bank account.  We were running late, so I ran into Long John Silvers (funny I've never been until we arrived in Singapore), wondering why there were so many Muslim women in the place, and then I read that LJS is Halal!  Who knew?

After that we went and opened a bank account.  We had some cash, but most of our money was in the form of a cashier's check from our bank in the US.  There is a $3000 minimum to open a bank account, and not wanting to bring all our money in cash form, we brought the cashier's check.  We then found out it will take 21 days to clear.  Crap. 

After we signed everything and recieved our starter checks, the person who was helping us showed us where to deposit the check.  She pointed to a small slot in an obscure wall that was sort of like where you put your mail in the post office.  But it didn't even have a sign.

"In there?"  I asked.

"Yes, in there."

"Don't I need to sign it?"

"No"

"No envelope?"

"No"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, it's very safe."

"And I don't need to sign it."

"No."

"And you know that this is a cashier's check, not a regular check.  This is actual money."

"Yes."

So in it went - all our money.  No electronic assurances, a hole in the wall doesn't give receipts.  We felt like we just threw away $10,000.

2/4/09 update:  We're still waiting for the money.

Later that evening, we went for drinks with people from David's work group.  I title it:  "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others".  Can you spot it?

McShame

Wednesday, January 14th

Woo hoo, we're out of the hotel!  David has to work today, so I'm in charge of packing up the rest of our stuff and hauling it to the new house.  I'm still not quite comfortable with driving, but the house is a only short drive from the hotel, so it was fine.  We complain about having to drive the Honday Odyssey, but you can certainly pack a lot of stuff in the back.

Sidenote:  Price of a new Honda Odyssey in Singapore:  S$95,000 (about $65, 000 USD).  And that's not including the price of the Certificate of Entitlement you need in order to drive any car, S$16,000 - S$90,000 ($11,000 - 64,000USD) depending on the car and how many people have COE's at the time.  It's the reason the traffic isn't horrendous.  Imagine what would result if we tried to fit the entire population of the state of Minnesota inside the 494/694 loop and gave them all cars.  It's about the same population/size here, but there are rarely any traffic jams.

As I was waiting for the air shipment to show, I called the cable company and had our selection upgraded.  It took less than 5 minutes and then I had Forensic Files to keep me company.  No MTV or Bravo, though.  I know, it's probably better that way, but I am going to miss Top Chef until David gets the Apple TV hooked up.

The washing machine repairman came and "fixed" the washing machine.  It turns out that all he did was jiggle the door, and it starting working!  Now I really felt like an idiot.  I swore to him that I tried that, I really did, and he just kind of looked at me.  Silly American housewife.

The air shipment finally came with our sheets, towels, pillows, and a few dishes and such, about 10-12 boxes of things.  But by this time it was 1pm and I was hot and starving with absolutely no food in the house.  For those of you who know me, when my bloodsugar gets low, it's not a pretty picture.  So I did what I swore I would never do here in Singapore.  I went to...  McDonald's.  Not only did I go to McDonald's, I drove the six blocks there.  McDonald's delivers here 24/7, and if I thought I could of gotten the food faster that way, I would have.  I had a Big Mac and a Diet Coke.  And it was great.

Afterwards, I went to Cold Storage, which is a local grocery store chain.  I bought milk, cereal, OJ bananas, peanut butter, parmesian cheese, and a bottle of wine.  To my surprise, the total was $72.  The orange juice was $2, so why the high price?  The milk was $16.50, and the cheese was $19, I kid you not.  Looks like I'll be cutting down on dairy.

Cha Cha Cha

[Still in flashback mode]

Monday, January 12th

The cable guy came today!  HBO!  E!  Crime Investigation Network!  Too bad we're still in the hotel because our air shipment isn't here yet, and I have to go back to watching the Time Warp marathon on the Discovery Channel back at the hotel.  

David took a cab to work and I have the week off, so after a solid nap at the hotel, I drove up to see Millie and met David.  She was thrilled to see us as usual, and gave us one of those pathetic whine-barks when we left.

We wandered around Holland Villiage looking for dinner.  Holland Village is sort of like an Uptown for you Minneapolis folks - lots of bars and restraunts, shopping and the like.  David spied a Mexican food restraunt, and though we expected to be pretty disappointed, we gave it a shot.  My cheese enchilada left a bit to be desired, but the chips and salsa were fantastic, and so was the margarita.  

We ate a ton, and as we were on our second basket of chips, David said:  "Okay, we can live here..."

Tuesday, January 13th

I cannot figure out how to use the washing machine.  We'be been at the hotel a lot longer than we thought we would and I really need to do a load of laundry.  Is it plugged in?  Check.  Power button on?  Check.  Dial turned to the right setting?  Check.  Water on?  Check.  There's nothing like not being able to run a basic appliance to make me feel like an idiot.  I called our real estate agent and she tried to talk me through it, but no luck.  The repairman will come tomorrow, when our air shipment is supposed to come.  David's yoga gear will have to fester a day longer.

I sat down on our rented couch to watch some good cable on our rented TV, and found out that Crime Investigation Network had disappeared, along with a few other favorite channels.  Drat, the fact that I could see them yesterday must have been a teaser.  I looked on the order slip and saw that we didn't get the "Upsize" on our package, so that must be it.

I met David at the kennel to visit Millie, and then we headed back to Holland Village and picked pizza this time.  It was a nice place, the cloth-napkin and tealight candle kind, gorgonzola as an option on the pizzas.  It also had a whole wall of wine, so I was pretty excited.  But after sitting down and looking at the wine list, there was one (count it) wine-by-the-glass option, and it was $14.  And it came cold.  I tried to ask about all the wine on the wall, and was this really the only option, but the waitress didn't seem to understand my question, so I gave up.

This day was a bust.  At least we'll be out of the hotel tomorrow...

Sa-nook

I'm starting to dig into the backlog, so some of the next few posts may be confusing.  Think of it as a movie flashback....

[Insert flashback visual and sound effects here]

Sunday, January 11th

After a long walk and lots of picture taking around the Civic Historical area, I went and collected David from yoga.  We wandered around the Raffles City Shopping Centre.  I was curious to see what stores they had, and found out they pretty much had what we do back in the states.  Tommy Hilfinger, Kate Spade, The Body Shop, etc.  But here, there are two big differences.  First of all, the size of these places.  Four floors are the minimum, and we've even been to one with more than eight.  Since it's a small country and space is at a premium, all the malls go up, not out.  There are a lot of escalators.

Second, the floors of shopping tend to have a theme.  No, I don't mean theme like Seasons, Holidays, Color schemes.  I mean, all the stores of a certain type are usually grouped together.  At home, all the similar stores will be spread out - you will not have a Body Shop right next to Bath and Body Works, or an ALDO shoe store right next to Nine West right next to Payless.  Here, you will have all the cell phone stores on one level, all the salons on the next, all the restraunts on the next, and so forth.  It's not a hard and fast rule though, occasionally the Nike store will be up by the Food Court, or the Persian Rug place with be with all the Kid's clothing shops.  It's sort of a good thing if you can't find the map though, you can say, "Oh, we're by all the tailor's shops, we are not going to find the Birkenstock store here...".

And as for the dozens and dozens of restraunts in the malls, they all have their menu's on a stand out front, so you can sort of browse before deciding where to eat.  Most people eat out at least once a day, so there's brisk business around meal times.  Here's our usual pre-meal conversation:

"What do you want to eat?" 

"I don't care, what do you want?"  

"I'm not really hungry, so you pick."  

"No, you pick this time, I picked last time."  

"Fine, how about the Dim Sum place?"  

"No, it's too complicated to order."

 - Insert exasperated sigh here - 

"Well, how about the Korean BBQ place?"

"No, I had that for lunch."

"You said you didn't care!!"

"I don't, you're just picking bad places!"

And we finally end up somewhere that has lots of pictures on the menu so we can tell what we're actually ordering.  Here's another conversation that also often takes place when the food comes:

"What did you order?"

"I'm not really sure."

"What kind of meat is in there?"

"I have no idea."

For the first couple of weeks we had every meal at a different place, but we've started going to this place fairly often:

It's close enough to Noodles or Chin's Asia Fresh that ordering isn't stressful, but far enough away that we still need pictures to tell what we're ordering.  And it's Thai, which mean they have spicy food.  As David said the first time I asked him if he really wanted extra spicy:  "I'm trying to test my limits.  I need to know where my threshold is."  As far as I can tell, he hasn't reached it yet.

P.S.  Sa-nook means "have fun" in Thai....

History Lesson Part III

At the risk of boring everyone, I'm going to do one last History post before I head into the minutae of day to day living here in Singapore. I took the trouble of taking all these pictures, so I have to show somebody! I'll be quick, I promise, and then tomorrow we'll switch gears...

No, that is not a UFO that has landed on the City Hall.  The juxtiposition of modern and classic is a common sight here in Singapore. I have no idea what the building with the round top is, probably something like a bank. I was tired by this time and didn't want to walk all the way over there to figure it out, sorry.

This is the Indian National Army Monument. "In the final months of the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, a memorial dedicated to the 'Unknown Warrior' of the Indian National Army (INA) was constructed on this site. The local INA was formed in 1942 with Japanese support. It sought to liberate India from the British and consisted mainly of prisoners-of-war from the British Indian Army. Subhas Chandra Bose, who led the INA from 1943 onwards, laid a foundation stone at the monument in July 1945. The Urdu words inscribed on the monument read: ITTEFAQ (unity), ITMAD (faith) ad KURBANI (sacrifice). When the British returned to Singapore, they demolished the memorial barely two months after it's installment."

That last sentence, to me, seems like it's trying to say somthing without really saying it.  And then so this is a memorial to a demolished memorial?  I took a look at the back of the sculpture, decided it looked like WALL-E's fingers, and moved on.

Next were another two memorials, almost right next to each other. The first is for Major General Lim Bo Seng.

"Major-General Lim Bo Seng was born on the 27th of April, 1909 in Non-An, Fukien, China. He came to Singapore at the age of 16. Since 1937 he became prominent in anti-Japanese activities. When Singapore fell in 1942 he went to Chungking and on instructions from the Chinese Government, he joined the underground resistance under the Supreme Allied Command Southeast Asia. But he was discovered and arrested by the Japanese military police on 27th March 1944. He manfully endured repeated tortures to which he ultimately succomed on 29th June 1944 at the age of 35. He died in the Batu Gajah prison a martyr to the cause of a liberated Malaya and to his loyalty to the comrades..."

And then there's this memorial, right across the path:

It's much bigger, and has a more prominant location. Let's see wht this inscription says:

"Erected by the European Chinese and native inhabitants of Singapore to commemorate the visit in the month of February 1850 of the the most noble The Marquis of Dalhouse. K.T.  Governer General of British India on which occasion he emphatically recognized the wisdom of liberating commerce from all restraints, under which enlightened policy this settlement has rapidly attained it's present rank among British possessions and with which it's future prosperity must ever be identified."

What!?  Unlike that first INA memorial, this one says someting without really saying anything.  Mr. Lim Bo Seng's memorial was much more interesting - 100 years later we're way more interested in the gory details.  Or at least willing to admit it.

And last but not least, we're finally getting to the most important guy here, and that's Mr. Stamford Raffles.

"Raffles declared the foundation of what was to become modern Singapore on 6 February, securing the transfer of control of the island to the East India Company. Much pomp and ceremony was done, and the official treaty was read aloud in languages representing all nations present, as well as the Malay and Chinese inhabitants. Hussien Shah was paid $5000 a year while the local Temenggong received $3000 a year, both massive sums at the time, equivalent to several hundred thousand dollars now. Farquhar was officially named the Resident of Singapore as Raffles was named as "Agent to the Most Noble the Governor-General with the States of Rhio, Lingin and Johor".

In 1823, Raffles drafted the first constitution for Singapore, which followed a fairly moralistic stance, outlawing gaming and slavery. A specific regulation in the constitution called for the multiethnic population of Singapore to remain as is, and there shall be no crimes based on being a race. He then went to work drafting laws, defining on exactly "what" constituted a crime. Finally, on 9 July 1823, feeling that his work on establishing Singapore was finished, he boarded a ship for home. His longest tenure in Singapore was only eight months, but he was considered the founder of Singapore nevertheless.

His plaque says:  "To the memory of Sir Stamford Raffles to whose foresight and genius Singapore owes its existance and prosperity...".  I want to be called genius on my memorial plaque.  Assuming I'll have one, of course.

After a long afternoon of walking around, David and I walked around some more, trying to decide where to eat.  There are so many restraunts here, and until we get some groceries, it's been a nightly argument on who has to pick where to go for dinner.  I suppose I've had worse problems, but I'm looking forward to digging out the cookbooks and cooking my own dinner!

History Lesson, Part II

Let's go back to the Thursday before last, when I was taking a leisurely tour of some of Singapore's historical sites while David was at yoga.  Nothing was quite as impressive as the Civilians memorial I posted earlier, but there were a few things that may be of interest.

First, a shot of nothing that has anything to do with history.  Crossing the street isn't always easy here in Singapore.  Jaywalking is illegal (and has a hefty fine, of course), so in order to cross the busier streets, there are often pedestrian overpasses, or in this case, tunnels.  Here's a shot of what goes on in some of the tunnel...

Free entertainment from Singapore's Best Dance Crew!  This tunnel was right next to a Performing Arts Center, so I guess it wasn't too much of a surprise to see this, but they were pretty fun to watch.  Also, there were several other groups of performers, but most of them were sitting in circles singing, or weirdly - line dancing, which wasn't quite as riveting so I didn't try to take any pictures.

Next on the tour is the Tan Kim Seng Fountain, which "was constructed to commemorate Mr. Tam Kim Seng for his donation made on 18 November 1857 toward the cost of Singapore Water Works...'   Apparently at the time there was a lot of discussion about what to do about reliably getting water to Singapore, but no one was actually doing anything about it until rich Mr. Seng came around.  He threw some money at the problem and Got 'Er Done, as they say.  I did a little research and found a bit on Mr. Seng, but nothing about who actually designed this fountain.  I want one for my yard.

I don't quite get the Zeus Spitting Water part, but it must have had some signficiance back in the day.  As a side note, Singapore still does not have their own water supply - they get all their water piped in from Malaysia.  There is a 3 - 6 month supply on the island in case Singapore and Malaysia start fighting, but after that, they're pretty much SOL.

We finally make it to the Cenotaph, which commemorated soldiers that gave their lives in World War I and World War II.

Let's zoom in and see how much the boarders using the monument a skate ramp care about this piece of history.  Not much, it appears.

Though I do like how they didn't erect a whole new memorial for WWII, they simply added the new dates to the back:

There's enough for one more post, but it's late, so I'm going to take a break.  I'll leave you with this shot from the downtown skyline, which you can also see on the History Tour.