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.

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.

One among many

I raised an observation regarding the lack of people on the streets when I visited US briefly last year. That really would not be the case in the most densely populated country in the world. Here you are never alone.

Take a look at a short video clip I put together from various places like Clarke Quay, Vivo City and Expo MRT station:

The music on the video is by Amerigo Gazaway and his excellent Otis Redding flavoured remix of Big Boi's Shutterbug (aptly titled for a purpose of amateur video clips). Song is available from bandcamp.

Never grow up

Greetings from Krabi, Thailand this time around. The beauty of being positioned in Singapore is to have the possibility to make a quick decision to go rock climbing on signature rock formations overlooking Andaman sea. Door-to-door time from a resort near Ao Nang beach to office was 3,5 hours this morning.

I trust I will never be too adult not to get amused by this type of stuff.

In your face, Tokyo

Singapore has done it again. Yet another top of the world position. Not only does the tiny nation have the largest ferris wheel, aquarium and indoor stadium in the world. Also it is already old news that there are most millionaires per capita living in the city of Singapore. A report released this week rated Singapore as the most expensive city to live in. Replacing Tokyo from previous number one position and beating (?) Paris, Oslo, Zurich and Sydney.

One thing that easily helps Singapore in this competition is the concept for Certificate of Entitlement. A special permission must be bought for 10 years at the time to own a private car. Not only are the cars ridiculously expensive to start with, but the new car owner needs to cough 70+ k SGD just for the entitlement to own a car. Personally this doesn't really concern me as it also translates into a metropolitan of 5 million people with no apparent traffic jams to speak about. Seriously now, there is heavier main road congestion in metropolitan Helsinki with measly 1 million people and greatly larger land area. Worth noting also is that the squeaky clean public transportation runs like a charm.

Having just missed my train in Paya Lebar station. But no worries. The next train will arrive in 2 minutes time.

Also the study mentions soaring utility bills as benefactor for the high rating. This is something I can relate to. The utilities (particularly electricity) is relatively expensive. My monthly utility bill varies from 100 SGD to 450 SGD correlating clearly with the amount of air con usage. If memory serves me correctly while in Helsinki, living in a same size apartment I would not expect to pay more than 250 € (~450SGD) a year for the electricity bill!

Finally apartment rental rates are just otherworldly in this most densely populated country in the world (yet another top position by the way). I am paying 3 times more rent that I was paying in the city of Helsinki. Obviously back in Finland I didn't have a vacation resort like yard with no less than 4 separate swimming pools, but still a considerable addition to living expenses.

To be fair, there are plenty of things which are less expensive here than in Finland such as eating in hawker centers, riding taxis, costs of various professional services (haircut at my local low-end barbershop costs 2 SGD a visit). You can see further details in this cost of living comparison web site.

Quick Zhi Ya during lunch break

Over the past 1,5 weeks I have been even more tied with my laptop than normally and finally my lower back started to protest. Today I decided to pick up a quick lunch from the global fast food chain (I had McSpicy because non spicy stuff starts to taste bland) and then head out for 30 minute back massage next to the office. The traditional Chinese massage feels actually often more painful than good while receiving the treatment, however right after the session I could really feel the blood circulation running again. And thus feeling great I returned to my nerdy kingdom and resumed slouching over my laptop.

Effective guards

Is it just me or is this warning sign a bit too definitive. Typically you would expect to see trespassers detained rather than shot at sight.