The end is nigh

My days are numbered. Twenty three months already done, only one more month to go and then it is all over. I booked one way trip back to Helsinki feeling pretty sad about it. I would have not have minded to continue for another year, which was an option on the table, but my family insisted on following the original plan A. 

October is pretty much the most miserable season to venture back into Finland. It is wet, dark and cold. When the snow comes, typically in December, then at least it is not as dark anymore due to snow reflecting some light. Also when it starts to be seriously cold outside people finally start to dress properly in their winter clothing. Until then folks go freezing in their half warm autumn wear.

I guess I have to shake these feelings away by going to the pool to read my book and recharge some of those vitamin D operated biological batteries while I still can.

Nerd at 4k (Extra curriculum activities part II)

This edition of the blog is going to be particularly lengthy description of the mountain hike excursion I concluded last weekend. This blog entry has very little to do with the relocation theme of the blog other than trips like these are perfectly doable on a long weekend when based in Singapore. So brace yourselves. Here comes easily the longest entry in the history of this blog. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Manjulah Singapura

Today marks the 49th birth day of Singapore. Many of the buildings - private and public alike - have been covered with red and white for the past few weeks to celebrate the occasion. Also many cars sport a little Singapore flag on the windows or colored pouches over rear view mirrors. In addition shops are heavily promoting Singapore t-shirts and related paraphernalia at this time. 

I actually find it rather charming this hype about a nation. The pleasant observation is that there is only a positive spin on the national pride from what I'm able to see.  Sadly nationalism has been somewhat smudged and owned by the right wing extremists in Finland and several other European countries. I wouldn't think of wearing a shirt with Finnish flag unless I intentionally wanted to risk being labeled as red neck neo-nazi. 

Big surprise for this year's birthday festivities was that it rained a little during the National Day Parade. From what I have heard they  actually seed the clouds to prevent rain on special days like NDP and formula one race day (!). Probably not something that you would see in Europe...

Finally cannot do much but to have a wry smile when reading the neverending bright eyed touting for the prime minister by the National news paper:

"The crowd's enthusiasm reached an all-time high with the arrival of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who received the loudest cheers from the audience. He arrived before Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long [current PM's father] . As the former prime minister took his seat, the audience gave him a standing ovation. - See more here"

But then again I have no doubt that that really took place earlier today. Singaporeans seem to be truly happy and proud of their nation and genuinely appreciate the work Lee family has done for this place over the past 49 years.

What is good "rye-ight" now?

I haven't really missed any food from Finland during all this time. Like I have mentioned before, you can find pretty much everything your heart might desire from the next door grocery store. However, after more than a year in between I just visited Finland briefly (it was actually warmer in Finland than in Singapore, imagine that!). On my way back I noticed that there is a proper grocery store inside Helsinki-Vantaa airport Arrivals hall. It is mostly catering for folks returning home in the evening flights, but realized then and there that it can also provide added value for departing passengers. I ended up buying a loaf of rye bread and some delicious cheese. I can get some Swedish rye bread in the local supermarket, but not the good everyday stuff. Also you can surely find various different cheese, but I am not sure if the Asians really appreciate the smelly goodness. It is a 12 hour direct flight from Helsinki to S'Pore, so any food will stay easily fresh in the cargo hold.

Now writing this particular blog entry with my mouth full of oh-so-familiar Finnish taste. It is actually pretty surreal feeling.

PS. As always it was a charm to waltz through the Changi airport with my multiple entry Visa permit. Having my fingerprint scanned and welcomed back home took me only few minutes.

PS2. BTW, while in Finland it did feel good to have access to proper toilet paper. Soft yet sturdy. Not the Singaporean fluffy stuff that easily gets all mushy in the wrong places.

Iced Volvo

Could you guess who happens to be the lucky owner of the car in front? And whether that person has a client meeting starting in 30 mins.

No, I don't still miss Finnish winter and the related shoveling. In fact I am off to do some wreck diving off the coast of Bali just now.

For the record, I have since these times invested into a warm parking garage and improved my quality of life immensely. 

Fiddler on the MRT

I imagine I am stating the obvious here, but easily 80 % of my fellow commuters (me among them obviously) have their necks tilted while tapping away on their smart(ish) devices. I guess that is now the new norm everywhere, but it did strike my eye when having just relocated over here. Of course you had people fiddling with their equipment in buses and metros in Helsinki, but not even close to this amount of people across all age groups. This might have changed in the past 21+ months though. Remains to be seen.

The constant fiddling is not limited to killing boredom while commuting. I have seen couples spending a romantic evening in a posh restaurant with stunning views from the 70th floor and both of them are deeply buried in their own devices. I took the liberty of noticing with certain sad happiness, that at least one of them was busy bringing more money to the Finnish mobile app phenomenon, Supercell.

While on the topic of commuting: I am not typically fond of allowing my social media existence to be used to promote any commercial products, but this time I need to give praise to Bose QC20 headphones. I just bought a new set over the last weekend to get me prepared for my next upcoming travels. I have grown so dependant on active noise cancellation headphones in planes that I was forced to replace my previous headphones (AKG NC 495) which broke during my business trip to China a month ago. I gave the Bose an acid test of ambient noises of Singapore in the morning and honestly was blown away. This is by far the most effective noise cancellation I have ever heard of. Or not heard of!? I was walking in true bubble of silence getting immersed in Portishead potpourri through Spotify and pretty much hearing nothing else. It was magically surreal to see people, buses, cars, trains, but not hearing anything but Beth Gibbons voice over trip hop beats drilling into my head. I didn't even feel the urge to fiddle my phone to pass the time.

PS. So that marketers don't have a field day on how social media affects buying behaviours, I need to state that the sound quality of these in-ear headphones is not as great as big over the ear model that I used to have. Especially the low bass sound I find is lacking. However it's the noise cancellation that is FTW.

PS2. The selection of Portishead was inspired by the fact that they had just performed live the other day in a Finnish music festival in Ilosaari. Wish I had been there.

PS3. With absolutely no relation to fiddling mobile devices, killing ambient sounds or really anything at all, I need to share the weirdest dream in a while which I just remembered by all of a sudden. My old client had drawn a donkey's head (!) as a failed rating on my exam for religion class (?!). I had refused to answer correctly because of the appallingly denominational way the questions were posed.

A blast from the past

This day goes down in history. I believe this was the first time ever that I have queued for a cashier and deposited a paper form cheque to my bank account. I am of the generation of people raised in Finland who never had to engage with check books or checking accounts. I had my first debit card when I was 15 and was later using a crude pre-internet bank over 36,6 Kbps modem connection (who remembers the infernal noise?) for all my bill payments and money transfers.

Honestly Singapore is not the worst place in terms of advances in banking. Actually there is a fierce competition between the regional and global banks to demonstrate who are seen as the most innovative and cutting edge with rolling out new services like NFC payments. I can get by using mostly my credit card including for small purchases like taxi trips. But still everyday bill payment through electronic means is not as straightforward and everywhere accepted as I have grown to expect.

Also there is some inherent weirdness and unnecessary level of complexity in the way electronic banking is set up here. I can pay a bill normally (provided that I have added a new payee) or choose to use GIRO, bank transfer, credit card, standing instruction, online cheque (!!! if I had a checking account)  or advance pay. All of these modes of payments are hidden in various parts of the navigational hierarchy of my internet bank UI. In Finland in my bills I have two pieces of information: recipients bank account and typically reference code and after that I set it to run automatically if it is a reoccurring payment. I see all transactions (past and upcoming) in one place. How hard can that be?