Newsletter 07: Repeat of NL06 (but with clicakble images)

This is some stuff that turned up at various points. It didn't fit in particularly well anywhere.

Words I keep hearing surprisingly often:

• compulsory (I think I'd say "[verb]ing is mandatory" or "you have to [verb]."
• booking (I'd say "reservation")
• alight (I'd say "get off the train/bus" or "leave the train/bus"; the closest synonym I can come up with is "disembark," which just sounds silly, though not as silly as "alight," which sounds like an adjective for something that's burning)
• queue (a culturally important activity; a verb, a noun; a place, a thing)

Words I keep seeing surprisingly often:

• Q (meaning "queue")
• No Smoking
• Less (as in, "Less 20%," whereas in the US you'd see "20% Off.")
• lift (meaning "elevator"; the plural of "lift" comes out "liffs"; "elevators" is much easier. But then, Singaporeans, speaking English under the influence of Chinese, sometimes don't bother adding "s" for plurals anyway.)

Acronyms:

• MRT (Mass rapid transit? I don't know; it's the train, anyway.)
• SBS (The other public transit company thing. Has a lot of busses.)
• PIE (One of the highways.)
• CBD (Central Business District)
• POSB (a bank)
• UOB (another bank)
• NETS (a cash card)

Strange signs:

• Beware of Pedestrian
  (He's even fiercer than the dog!)
• Raised Zebra Crossing
  (domesticated zebras are allowed to cross the street here)

• Works
  (meaning "construction")

Common apartment features:

• A common feature is air conditioning (or "aircon," rather) that is built in, but can be controlled with a remote control in each room. Here's a typical remote (bottom left corner), in a holder attached to the wall.

  

  And here's a typical wall unit. With wiring for a light fixture dangling in front of it, but never mind. The point is, nobody, not even in the Sail, has built-in aircon with one thermostat and little open vents all over the place. It's just not practical to pay to cool your whole apartment all the time.

  

  So you have these wall units. The power and condensation is all hooked up inside the wall somewhere, and the big noisy motor thing is outside, or on the roof or something, like central air in the US. You subscribe to some aircon servicing service, so that all your machines can have their filters cleaned regularly and whatnot. These things need tending; they run all year, not just in "summer."
  
  
• Apartments also tend to have built-in wardrobes, which are somehow conceptually different than the closets I'm used to.

  

  Is it a cabinet? A closet? A dresser? A piece of furniture? A wall? Shelves? Or what?
   
• Snake showers are very popular. I don't get why people want to hold the water dispenser while showering, but it doesn't bother me as long as there's a sturdy cradle up on the wall so I can pretend it's just a fixed shower head.

Views:

• A view from Central Green, showing the mall that sits on top of the Tiong Bahru MRT station.

• The back of a shophouse conservation apartment, seen from Emerald Green. Gotta love fire escapes that look like DNA. Or maybe RNA; I only really see one strand.

  

• A view from the Sail. You can see the top of another building on the right; it's got this crane thing on a built-in track; it took me a while to figure out that it's for hanging a window-washer over the side. Any side.

• Another view from the Sail. I like the building on the left, with the garden terrace in the side. I'm not sure whether I like the UFO building or not, but someone likes it enough to do major renovation to it. It *so* looks like it should move up and down like a carnival ride.

• At the Sail, even the floor has a view.

• A view from International Plaza, showing rows and rows of shophouses.

• A view from Empire Lofts. A shophouse that needs an owner like the owner of Empire Lofts.

  

Packages:

• I bet *your* SevenEleven store doesn't carry this stuff. For those of you who can't read the fine print, that's preserved cuttlefish, alongside seasoned seaweed and cod fish snacks.

• Are these cans or bottles? Since when is aluminum transparent?!

Let's call it a cabottle. Or a bottan. Or not! There's nothing more awkward than a bad portmanteau.

• A Japanese snack. Like Goldfish, only, with more calories.

  

  With ingredient information in, among other things, Arabic.

  

• Looks like Clairol Herbal Essences. Almost certainly *is* Clairol Herbal Essences.

  

  Just doesn't quack like Clairol Herbal Essences. (I think that's Thai, but then I'm just guessing.)

  

• These are very important. You need them to eat at hawker centers, because there aren't any napkins. But never fear; if you forget to bring your own, someone will come along and offer to sell you some at a substantial markup.

• Japanese thingies for chair feet.

  

  

• German felt feet. Will I ever see anything in one language again? Okay, I admit that even in the US, stuff at WalMart is in English and Spanish, and basically all our soaps and shampoos and stuff have French on them. And no, it's not a bad thing; it just leaves me feeling a bit schizophrenic.

  

  

Random:

• Okay, so here's a lousy picture. I was trying to take a picture of these black birds I keep seeing. Here, you can see everything but the head of one bird, and nothing but the head of the one hiding behind the pot. The first one seems to be playing the "if I can't see you, you can't see me" game; the other one is hiding pretty well, but has perhaps underestimated how much his beak sticks out.

• I don't know whether this chandelier is really cool or really creepy. (Some people would probably say "both," but for me these are mutually exclusive concepts.) At any rate, it looks more like science fiction than interior decor.

• Aquinas was intrigued. Behold a place where you can send your child to improve his or her morals. Or maybe this is a place where *parents* are taught about moral child development... At any rate, in the US, I think we call these places "churches."

•  Crazy tree at the Copthorne Orchid Hotel. Or, heck, it's multiple trees, for all I know.

  

• Orchids at the Copthorne Orchid Hotel. Apparently, Singapore has a great climate for orchids. At any rate, they're popular, especially, it seems, this pinky purple kind.

  

• I have two reasons for sharing this photo: 1. The store is called Mr. Bean, and sells what look like desserts, complete with vaguely anthropomorphosized bean character mascot/logo. 2. The danger sign in the foreground is in four languages. If I don't learn any other words in Malay, I will at least have learned the word for "danger." Singapore believes in equal-opportunity hazard avoidance, so the Malay word crops up equally as often as the English one, and, unlike the words for "danger" in Tamil and Chinese, is written in a way I have a hope of prounouncing.

• Guard cat is bored. And lonely. And just a little [yawn] sleepy.

• Don' drink and smoke.

  

• Roofbirds at Empire Lofts

  

  

Floor plans:

• I have to say, I love floor plans. There's something so concise, so logical and insightful about them. They instantly tell you critical things about where you are; things you can't learn any other way. At least if you're me. Maybe other people have better spatial skills...
• Emerald Garden (condo in Chinatown)

• Empire Lofts (2nd reprise)

• The recreational floor of the Sail (the building's not very big, actually)

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