1st day

It is hot.

Wikipedia tells me Singapore is only 137 kilometres north of the equator. Just so that you know :) WOW I am in the tropics.

The other thing that tells me this is the tropics is the bird call. I don't know how to describe it, but if you recall any movies shot in the tropics, this is what you hear from the jungle all the time!  

I almost couldn't go to sleep, but woke up around 7.30 anyway. If I turn on the aircon, it is loud, if I don't, it is hot. I already know it is going to be a great game. I turn it on, COLD, for a bit in the evening and go to sleep. Then when I wake up it is hot, so I turn it on again. Everybody in the house keeps their doors closed not because they are unfriendly but because the aircon is on when they are at home.

I saw the garbage collectors through the window. Saturday is the collection day?

Mrs Tan and her husband are at church for the morning.

I received a call that they will collect my damaged suitcase today. So I can only go out for a short while in the morning.

I have met Mata, the maid - she seems to spend her whole day in the house - and today is Saturday. She probably washes the floors in every room, every single day. She also does the laundry. Mata tells me I can cook here if I want. I will have to discuss this with Mrs Tan. When I started out I wore my sunglasses. Mata offered me an umbrella. People don't wear sunglasses here. If they do something, they carry an umbrella against the sun! Perhaps I should take up the habit!

 

I went shopping. Very close by there is a "supermarket". It is almost like the Asian shop next to Jumbo on Markt, except that they sell dairy and toiletry, etc. as well. Then I had lunch at a nearby foodmarket. This is a place with independent stalls rented out like shops in a mall. 

My first lunch was Chinese, but I saw Indian, Thai and Indonesian stalls as well, and probably some that I do not recognize :)

So now I have become one of those people who post a picture of their meal :)

And my observation is that people eat their own kind of food, Indians Indian, etc. Then I walked home in the midday heat. I am not sure now I want to go out later... But I wanted the explore the university...

I have met some of my housemates: Tommy, the Indonesian guy, who is an engineering PhD student at Nanyang. And Desmond, who is the son of Mrs Tan. They seem nice. I now only need to meet the Chinese guy who also works at Nanyang.

Mrs Tan has just come home (2.30). She wanted to know if I had lunch already. And I am allowed to cook!!! And she has changed the bus card she gave me yesterday, because she didn't know how much money was on the old one, but she has purposefully put money on the new one! This is my landlady!

Somebody has come to pick up my luggage. When I wanted to rush out with the luggage barefoot, Mrs Tan said to wear something on my feet when I get out of the shade, because the ground is hot... Small differences! (And this is my landlady!)

Another difference is that the traffic is on the right (wrong) side. I am not really surprised, it is is just unexpected. Why exactly? I don't know :) So overall Singapore is California (specifically LA: with the palm trees, suburban environment and good/luxury cars) and the UK (or London: traffic on the right, parks and greenery everywhere) in the tropics.

Again, I don't know why I am surprised, I have read that in January at least half the days are rainy (and for that matter in other months too)... I have just looked out of the window and it is raining (3pm)!!! Actually it is a thunderstorm. Scratch that, it is a storm with monsoon-type rain (lots of it, straight down) and occasional thunder. So I am changing my definition of Singapore: all of the above plus the Netherlands, because it rains here more days than not as well :)

This is the end of my first day: torrential rain for the last 3 hours, and I am starting to feel sleepy :)