Small Lessons & Observations

Being in Singapore and being immersed in a multi-ethnic community provides many opportunities for learning, both about the environment and about myself.  Here are some of the small stuff.

1. The first place people in restaurants assume I'm from is the UK.  This means they really double check when I order something spicy.
2. The female clerk running the home delivery counter at Ikea was wearing blue jeans and a traditional muslim head scarf.  At first, seeing these really caught my attention -- it's now just part of the background scenery.
3. When I was running last weekend, I turned a corner and saw a beautiful golden retriever being taken for a walk.  Living in West Plano made me expect to see a caucasian expat woman walking the dog.  Instead, it was an elderly Chinese man.  Of course - what was I thinking?
4. There is a Philippine subculture.  Most of the live-in maids are Filipino.  On Sundays, the maid's day off, you find them congregating on the stairs of the OrchMRT station.  At the Lucky Shopping Plaza there are many store featuring Filipino foods and goods, along with banking services to wire the money back home.
5. Cell phones work practically everywhere, even when you're riding the subway.
6. You can tell which stalls at a Hawker Centre are good because they have queues.  Remember to mark your spot with a newspaper or book (nothing valuable) so you have somewhere to sit when you eventually get your food.
7. When you buy a movie ticket, it is a reserved seat.  You can book these on line and pick your seat in advance, or you can show up at the theater and they'll assign you the best available.  Popcorn and a soda costs S$6.90; a movie costs S$10.00 (US$7.36).
8. Gasoline costs S$2.10 per litre.  That's US$1.55 per litre or US$5.85/gallon.  They measure fuel economy as litres per 100 km.  Lower is better.  A Honda Civic hybrid is advertised as using 4.6 litres/100 km; that's 51 MPG.
9. There are two colors of license plates.  Black ones can use the roads 24/7.  The red ones can only use the roads between 7PM and 7AM, weekends, and public holidays.  The red ones are cheaper.
10. High traffic areas become toll roads during heavy usage times to help cut down on traffic congestion.  These are not highways; they are city streets.  Each car comes equipped with a "toll tag" that deducts value from a cash card that you buy and refill at a gas station (or at specific types of ATMs).  There's a big fine if you run out of value on your card.

Next weekend I begin moving into our rental condo.  The air shipment arrived this week and is ready to go through customs.  The sea shipment gets packed this week and will take about 4-6 weeks to get here.