Newsletter 02: Arrival and apartment search

Wednesday, 22 October: We couldn't check into the hotel right away because the hotel was pretty full, and because it was still morning.

 

Having not slept well in a week, and having not slept horizontally since Sunday night, we still had the whole day ahead of us... We waited in the restaurant (which had some tables outside around a fountain) and had breakfast.

 

The hotel's logo, perhaps like one of those ambiguous ink blots, reminds me of the logo of the MIT Press. Sort of.

They upgraded us to a nicer room for free, perhaps because all the cheaper rooms were occupied.

 

After much-needed showers, we took a cab to the nearby Botanic Gardens and had lunch at a Singaporean-style food court. (It feels really weird to leave your dishes and trash on the table, but that's what you do; it's someone's job to come clean up after you.) Then, in spite of some light rain, we wandered around the gardens. There's a giant rotating sphere fountain.

 

We saw some really huge trees. Especially in their patch of preserved rainforest.

Painstaking Singaporean cleanliness dictates that the path through the rainforest must be swept; we saw two guys with brooms tidying the leaves here:

 

From the inner sanctum of the enclave of primitive nature, we traveled to the inner sanctum of the enclave of advanced technology: Sim Lim Square. An electronics mall. Several floors of shops, all selling cameras, cell phones, televisions, computers, and all the batteries, memory, cords, add-ons, attachments, cases, software and gadgets that go with them.

 

Philips, Samsung, and LG are widely popular here; other known brands are Apple, Nokia, DLink, and APC, to name a few. After what was probably too much deliberation, though it felt like too little, I bought a 19" Philips flat panel monitor (and a battery/surge protector), so that I'd be able to use my desktop computer at the hotel.

I was annoyed that most of the screens for sale are wide; I would prefer two smaller screens to one large one. The market doesn't agree with me; perhaps it would be better if I agreed with it.

We tried to eat at a restaurant on Orchard Road called Chatterbox; it's on the 38th and 39th floors of the Meritus Mandarin Hotel, and is more difficult to reach than it would be if they weren't doing construction on the front of the hotel to turn it into retail space. When we reached it, it was busy with a private function.

So instead we ate across the street at a Thai restaurant in the Ngee Ann City mall, also home to, among other things, the Japanese department store Takashimaya, a branch of the Japanese bookstore Kinokuya, and a variety of designer stores.

Thursday, 23 October: We went to the National University of Singapore (NUS), School of Computing, to retrieve some paperwork. We then went downtown to the Ministry of Manpower (which sounds a lot less sinister when you call it MOM) to claim our official employment and dependent passes. We entered an elaborate queuing system that has the NJDMV beat hands down. Plus, the place was very clean, calm, and quiet. Our waiting room was color-coded orange; work passes and other matters were allocated to blue and green areas. Once we submitted our papers, we had to go away and wait for them to be processed, and come back in a few hours.

We walked around Chinatown, peered into one of the condo complexes we'd seen online, and became thoroughly hot, sweaty, and tired from walking around. The MOM, when we returned, was a blessed cool relief. And they had our passes, on schedule. We returned to the University, and I talked with Aquinas's next-door officemate, another LKY fellow from the US. When we left, we went and ate at a Chinese restaurant called Fatty's, which has been in operation for several generations.

Friday, 24 October: Aquinas returned to NUS for more orientation and setup. After doing some laundry at the hotel, I took the hotel shuttle to Orchard Road, the city's deluxe shopping district. I bought a freshly-squeezed Mango juice drink for about SG$3; they have a machine that seals a plastic film onto the edge of the plastic cup, and then they give you a pointy straw to break a hole in the top. An interesting type of lid. The very next thing I did was accidentally find a new/used bookstore.

This dense bookstore buys, sells, and, yes, *rents* books, which are really expensive in Singapore. It seems that books in English are typically 150% or 200% of the US or UK list price printed on the cover. Maybe books that come from China aren't as expensive (I didn't check). Though I don't know how we'll house it all, I'm beginning to be glad I brought plenty of reading material with me. More than likely, my book collection's insane rate of growth will slow to half a trickle, or maybe stop; even used books are expensive, and many of those (though not the ones pictured above) have pages that are brown and spotted from exposure to damp air. Tragic.

I walked all the way from the hotel shuttle dropoff in Orchard Road to Arab Street, where I was to meet Aquinas for dinner at Cafe Le Caire. On the way, I fell in love with the imposing, art-deco office building called Parkview Square. Whether it is to everyone's taste or not, it is truly an amazing construction. (Note that this is not an amazing photo.)

 

When Aquinas arrived at Le Caire, we were taken to the second floor, which had air-conditioning, via the kitchen, a back alley, and a sticky-carpet staircase. Food was good. Service was slow.

Saturday, 25 October: We met with a real estate agent to look at some apartments for rent. We saw 6 condo complexes. The first apartment we visited (Maplewood) had interesting built-in furniture, but was not in a good location.

 

The second place (Cavendish) also was not in a good place for someone without a car. The third complex (Central Green) was actually quite nice in a number of ways. The fourth (Queens) had nice apartments, and was next to a train station, but wasn't really next to anything else; also, it was farther from the city (but closer to NUS). The fifth (Dover) and sixth (?) complexes were also relatively inaccessible by train.

We went with the real estate agent to the Newton hawker center and had some very tasty tea. After he left, we had satay sticks for dinner. 

Sunday, 26 October: We went back to the neighborhoods near some of the condo complexes from Saturday (and some others) to check out the transportation and retail available. After wearing ourselves out with walking, we finally had dinner at a dumpling restaurant recommended by our Lonely Planet Singapore guidebook and by the fact that there was a short line on the sidewalk to get in. After we had our tea and delicious dumplings, I ordered a "red bean pancake" for dessert. It was like nothing so much as a giant Chinese Pop Tart. It was tasty.

Monday, 27 October: A public holiday for Divali/Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights. I hung out at the hotel with my book while Aquinas went back to Sim Lim Square in search of a wireless router (ours was only 110 volts, a fact that was discovered, sadly, *after* we plugged it in and smelled something burning).

 

We took the hotel shuttle to Orchard Road and saw Brideshead Revisited at Shaw House. The movie theater was like US theaters in its offerings of popcorn, candy, and drinks, but offered a choice of sweet (glazed) popcorn (which is what I selected) or salty popcorn. The ticket prices were also at about the level of US movie ticket prices, but in Singapore, you buy a particular seat in the theater! You don't have to arrive early to physically occupy the seat you want.

We wandered around Orchard Road some more; at Far East Plaza I got a haircut for SG$5.80 at a shop that had just opened. No more layers!

Then we ate at the Japanese Yakitori restaurant at Far East Plaza. I had never had a meal like this; it involved an unfamiliar sequence of actions using an unfamiliar set of equipment and conventions. But the food was good; basically, you order a bunch of different items on sticks that are grilled by chefs over a fire on the other side of the bar you're eating at. I got one of the combination meals, which meant I didn't have to pick out individual things. My combo included "lady fingers" (aka okra) wrapped in bacon, as well as mushrooms, ginko nuts, chicken, beef with red bean sauce, chicken liver, chicken meatballs, and quail eggs.

Tuesday, 28 October: Aquinas again reported to NUS, this time for a meeting with the department supervisor. I did some more laundry and then caught the hotel shuttle to Orchard Road to explore along the MRT line again. I explored the area around the Bugis MRT station, and was pleased to find interesting bookstores at the Bras Basah complex. I walked back to Orchard Road to meet Aquinas at the Chatterbox restaurant at the Mandarin Hotel for a successful dinner.

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