Final Relocation Summary (part 3 of 3) - What I wont miss

Now that I am firmly back in the place the Sun doesn't shine into -- ie. Finland, it is time to look back one more time. This entry would be the final in the summary series and potentially the very last topic into this blog. It has been one wonderful ride -- not only the excursion itself, but also this reflection bit through the blogging exercise. Check out also the first and the second entry to this series.

What I wont miss

• Some particularly blur (*) Singaporeans in various service professions. "Can not, lah!" Especially the lady "helping" residents in the management office of our Condominium. Good riddance! (See also this long winding article describing various forms of Singaporean retardation)
• Getting stuck somewhere because no taxis are available. Why on earth would they change shifts at 5 PM on Friday afternoon?! Also many taxis stop driving when it rains because drivers are worried about ending in an accident and being responsible to cover the expenses. Thus when the demand is the highest, the supply is the lowest
• Being separated from my dog
• Obnoxious amounts of bureaucracy and seemingly inherent inability to think outside the process even when it makes perfect sense (need to add that the process typically works if you just bite the bullet and go by the norm)
• Occasionally the feeling of being suffocated by the crowds of people
• I will get so crucified over this and I will regret ever uttering the words, but sometimes it can get just a little bit too hot. I received no condolences when making the mistake and saying so in a chat discussion with a friend from Germany.
• Hordes of animals attacking any little food crumbs left on the table. Within few hours any bread or fruit left on the kitchen counter starts attracting at least ants. Before long also house geckos.
• Just before I left Singapore it turned out that there was a nest of snakes sharing the condominium yard with me. One had apparently slithered its way into our very doorsteps as well. Apparently not the most venomous type but nevertheless very aggressive.
• Occasional haze coming from Sumatra when they are burning rain forests. I don't think I could survive living in Beijing if that's what they have to go through every day.



This was the day haze started to creep on us back in June 2013.
Houses both sides on Marine Parade Road got lost in the mist.

• Being stingy when it comes to providing paper tissues in restaurants. Some of the spicy food still makes my nose run and there is never enough (if any at all) tissues available at many eateries.
• Freezing myself to death when going to movies and forgetting my winter gear. One weird experience was to go see a movie in an exclusive cinema which provided blankets to tuck into.
• Having to cope with measly 42 inch tv and mediocre soundbar for sounds. Feels good to be once again listening to music from my substantial speaker setup and watching movies on 106" projection screen.

*) blur = It is most commonly used by Singaporeans as an adjective to describe people who never seem to know what’s going on! An example would be the question: “Eh, why are you so blur?”
1 Ignorant, stupid, slow to catch on.  2 Confused, muddle-headed.
Source: Singlish Dictionary

Final relocation summary (Part 2 of 3) - What I will miss

This is the penultimate (one of the fancy new words I learned while working all the time in English) entry in this concluding series. Previously I listed things things that I achieved or ended up with after 24 months in Singapore.This time I will cover items...

What I will miss

• Fresh juice as promised (I did invest in a cool machine called a slow juicer so I can take some of that juicy goodness with me.)
• Never ending warmth. Eating outside while wearing shorts and flop flops year round. In Finland that is limited to odd number of days around July and August and that's pretty much it.
• True metropolitan city to live in (The concrete jungle of Central Business District blows me away every time I am taking a taxi through the downtown)
• Short distances to everywhere with no real traffic jams to speak of. Inexpensive taxis and well oiled public transportation could be added to this category.
• Excellent food starting from the succulent shrimps and extending to things like soup filled xiao long baos.
• Possibility to dip into the pool at any time of the day or year. (Now I will start hitting myself on why didn't I make it into a habit to do it everyday while I still could)

• Gym & tennis facilities in our back yard (see the above comment about the usage of pool). Also cost of having private coaches for both activities was temptingly low.
• Possibility to hop on a plane and get anywhere in South-East Asia in matter of few hours for typically a nominal price. If I feel like learning to surf I can do a quick weekend getaway to Bali or perhaps I would fancy outdoor rock climbing over Andaman sea in Krabi. There are 4 low cost airlines operating from Singapore so any of these quick trips do not even cost anything.
• Having a full time helper around. Now getting back used to walking up early just to fix  breakfast for the kids, getting them dressed (and re-dressed to survive the arctic weather), washing their teeth and taking them to school and walking the dog feels like a true chore on top of a normal work day...
• Effectively the full list of achievements could be also translated into what-will-I-miss statements. For example for the first time in my career in my current company I had a fixed desk and fixed set of colleagues, which was truly nice after having been the very definition of a mobile worker for 10+ years. 

 Once again there must be tons of other things to be missing, but these came to my head first.

The final installment in the series will deal with things that I do NOT miss.

Ship ahoy!

Through the turbulent oceans and horrible sea monsters my earthly belonings have just landed into the port of Helsinki. 1 full month ahead of the original pessimistic schedule. I finally get to sleep in my own bed next week! \o/

Final relocation summary (part 1 of 3) - List of accomplishments

This is the first of the 3 part blog series listing final summary of the 2 year excursion. First entry lists all the new skills and achievements I ended up with. The second installment into the series discusses about things that I am missing from Singapore. Final topic (potentially the very last entry into this blog altogether (snif)) will be about things that I do NOT miss.  

Achievements / trophies / outcomes 

• 3 ice cream bar mayorships and level 5 mall rat badge in Foursquare (I had to list the most cherished achievement first. I'll have serious trouble making sure I stay on the top in the upcoming months/years -- Actually I think I can. Foursquare did totally stupid update into their previously cool app and removed this gamification aspect completely.)

• Plenty of gained experiences from living and working abroad. Working in a massive conglomerate, working abroad was not so big of a shock. The corporate culture actually runs much deeper than working differences of various nationalities. Having worked in a truly global role with worldwide visibility makes it so much harder to get used to regional level business after this. 
• A great group of colleagues to have worked with. A few new true friends in addition. 

• Further improved English skills (I remember in the beginning it was half scary to find myself thinking in English during weekend).

• Enough vitamin D to survive couple of dark Finnish winters.

• New color into the map of visited countries: Philippines, Australia, Cambodia, Indonesia (and Ireland). Also number of revisits to countries I had been to before, but more stamps into the passport: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and US. Number of the countries visited as of today: 45.

• Some money left over from very friendly taxation percentage

Also gained new ability to stick to shadows to avoid
scorching sun. In the picture there is still the best place available
to wait for the pedestrian light to change.
This skill will surely come in demand in Finland!

• Two amazing kids who have had their first true dip into global world and understanding how very similar yet fascinatingly different we all are over the various country borders. Both of them speak fluent English and some Mandarin to top that off. Both of them have learned to swim there as well.

• 80 odd blog posts documenting the course of past 2 years for 3000+ page views globally.

• 100+ kilometers of running away from Zombie hordes in this cool augmented reality app. For the record though: I never acclimatized properly to be comfortably running outside during day time. 

• Successfully completing one of the sixweeks.com projects (200 situps done, 20 pullups &  100 push-ups still to come!) 

• 2 playlists of commuting music. One list for each year.

• Full set of furniture which unfortunately ended up being needed after the home coming. My earthly goods are floating somewhere in the Suez channel at the time of writing this.  
 

• Learned little bit more than just basics of tennis. I can occasionally hit one mean forehand. 

• Mastered the skill of chitchatting about weather when the only real change is whether it is very hot or really hot (once again I remember that in the beginning the very first weather related discussion made no sense whatsoever to me). 

• 926 PowerPoint files and 745 Excel files on my laptop hard disk drive. Honestly (perhaps unfortunately) majority of these are created by me! All these files got deleted during standard disk wipe on my last day at the office. Perhaps I need to clarify that I practice pretty nihilistic version control system, which leaves a wake of copies of the same file.
  
  
• Life long immunity to one specific serotype of dengue fever.

There are most probably several other achievements, which I don't remember right now. Thus perhaps these are the most important ones. (EDIT: OK, just a few more additions to the list)