American School

Went up North to check out the Singapore American School today.

It is about a 35 min train ride from the main part of town. It had a typical private school look: multiple buildings, nice landscaping, guards:

Just disregard they guy on the left with the machine gun waving at me. I was not supposed to be taking pictures. I complied. I had already sweet talked my way past the first guard station by this point. But they didn't have guns. Here are some picts of the "primary" school K-2:

This is one of the kindergarten rooms.

It seems nice. There was a neat little area of probably 30 homes that are right along the school. They are on little lots but still individual houses. Mostly 3 story, probably 3500 sq ft, garages, nice lush landscaping all around them and many even had little pools. Problem is the rest of the area is very "local" and a little more run down than the city. The Woodlands train station is about a 30min walk and next to a multi-level mall. I expected to see more Caucasians since the school is up there but that was definitely not the case. I didn't see any. Maybe everyone sends their housekeepers out instead.

After the excursion up north I went back down to the city. I went into a grocery store to get a bottle of water and ended up buying a cell phone at the grocery store as well. S$60 ($40US) got me a phone and $15 of pre-paid credit with no contract. It is a basic phone without WiFi or camera, but makes calls, can do text messages and has a calender. Seems fine for now. Maybe I will let Mary have it when she arrives and I will try to setup my email on my existing phone. If not I toss it and I basically rented a cell phone for $20/month.

Big bus! Lots of folks using transit. Train was also full and it was a Sunday. Cars are very expensive to own here.

Outside this store a radio station is doing one of those contests where the last person to keep their hand on the car wins it. They are going for a "su-BAR-a". I thought it was some Chinese brand but it is just a Subaru. For some reason is pronounced differently. Kind of like my current apartment: Fraser Place, or as the Aussies call it, "Fry-sure" Place. Still quite a few folks in the game, but this was only 27 hours into it.

As expected, laundry has not gone easily. Washed OK, but never rinsed. After it sat for 30mins I turned to rinse cycle and turned off then on. It seemed to work then. Then it didn't dry. Dryer directions say in broken English "Enter time hit Start". There is no start button.....anywhere. There are lots of instructions in some other language that appears to be Malay. I guess most housekeepers are Malaysian.

That's it for the weekend. Back to work tomorrow.