Settling In

I have been out of quarantine for a week, now. Usually the first thing to do is get a bus pass, but the transit system here let’s you tap your credit card as you get on, and again when you get off, so that wasn’t required.

Getting internet to the apartment has been a giant pain. It’s taking weeks. And I don’t have an access card for the university buildings, so getting online has been a struggle.

We did get to do a little touring and see the MerLion. Singapore evidently means “lion city" in a very old style of Malay, so Lions are everywhere.

The mascot for SMU is a Lion, too.

Right next to our apartment building is an outdoor shopping mall, and over the last couple of days the preparations for Chinese New Year have gotten pretty elaborate.

We did manage to sort out where we will be buying groceries. We also visited Mustafa Centre, which is like if you had a Superstore, on top of a giant Wal-Mart, with a huge Hudson’s Bay on top of that. The jewellery section was literally insane.

That is a picture of the bracelet section. Which was about 1/8 of the whole jewellery section.

The building has a gym, and a pool, and fountains in the front lobby. It’s very nice, except the property manager has hooked our phone up to the wrong apartment number in the security system, and so now we are getting random phone calls with delivery guys asking us to let them in. Lots of the people who live here are foreigners renting furnished apartments. At least one other Canadian, too, because someone has a WiFi network called “GoHabsGo".

Here’s Dot checking out the lobby fountains.

My roommates Andreas and Inari and one of our co-workers Jacob have formed a quartet, and are learning some choral pieces. I think we sound pretty good, but we are only half way through our first piece.

I officially start work on Monday, which means talking with HR and getting passwords, and things like that, after which I need to take care of things like getting an identity card from the Singapore government, and getting a Singapore bank account, so it promises to be a dull week. I’ll let you know how it goes.