Tuesday 24 June 2014

AC acclimatization

I have made an observation that the fancier a venue (be it a hotel, shopping mall or taxi) the colder they have set their air conditioning. I have to wonder if that is some kind of intentional demonstration of level of luxury. I am writing this blog entry from a conference venue in a hotel on Orchard road and my fingertips are turning white because it is horribly cold inside.

People with glasses have to deal with the situation here where glasses get foggy when going from indoors to outdoors. This is exactly the other way around back in Finland during winter. In Finland it can be always warm and cozy inside the buildings throughout the year. It is actually pretty strange how some of the coldest conditions I have ever had to survive have been indoors in countries like Singapore, Japan and Italy.

One would imagine that as a Finn I would have centuries of adapting to cold weather built into my very DNA. That may be the case, but Finns have also centuries of practical experience on building efficient central heating systems and proper insulation for their homes, offices and venues. Every winter there will be cold weather hitting Tokyo and cool air creeping through their paper thin (sometimes literally) doors and windows. Then again Singaporeans just want to create the winter conditions on their own.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Art of Queuing

Long time no post. I guess that's the novelty value wearing off and complacency settling in. I am glad I did capture the early findings in the beginning as it starts to be harder and harder to spot any interesting peculiarities. However, this topic I just need to cover. 

Local newspaper ran an article mentioning that one of the most popular tourist attractions in Korea is opening up a venue in Singapore. I had actually heard about the Trick Eye Museum already before and I was thoroughly interested. I remember being blown away by an exhibition portraying paintings by Escher and playing other tricks on audience's perception. Ever since I have wanted to experience more of similar kind of art.

I expected that perhaps a few more might have seen the same story on the paper, but if we were to venture forth early enough on Saturday morning we should be OK, right? While it is still something very new, I expected the hordes would not have found the place yet.

So there I was with my 2 kids standing on a not too long of a queue to the ticket counter. I was wondering why there was two queues, but I decided obviously to choose the shorter one. Once it was my turn to purchase the tickets, the chap at the ticket counter told me matter-of-factly that the waiting time today is 5 to 6 hours. Please proceed to the end of the other queue. Which was outside. With a measly fan moving the hot and humid air around the queue.

I had to make sure I had heard properly. "Yes, 5 to 6 hours today. You may want to try some other day. It might be only 2 hours then". I stared at the guy in disbelief. Then I stared at my 3 year old who was already pretty anxious about the 20 minute wait so far and the heat. Without much hesitation I made a graceful exit from the queue number 1, bought my kids a soda and went back to the taxi stand we just had came from.

Queuing truly seems to be a national past time in Singapore (along with eating, talking about food and spending time in the malls). If there are two similar stalls in a hawker center, the localites seemingly tend to patronize the one with longer queues. I assume the queuers expect they are serving better food since so many other people are already patiently waiting. Something that I still have hard time grasping are the queues of adults waiting for some little cheap plastic toys as part of the kids meal in some fast food chains ("This week only, you can have a purple Hello Kitty which has a tiara! Yay"). It is a common sight that the restaurants list outside which toys are already gone and what can be still purchased. Back in the 5 to 6 hour queue in front of the Museum there were number of families with little ones in prams probably there to get some good exposure and training in proper queuing behaviour.


PS. Finland's about to enter official Summer season and pretty much a period of closure of the full nation for the next ~2 months starting from Mid-Summer festivities this weekend. I just got pinged that it's right now snowing (!) at least in Central Finland. As you can expect, not too many queues in Finland. At least outside. Except always when waiting for a taxi after one of the pre-Christmas parties in the middle of coldest Winter.