- 'Lift music' in the hotel corridors, and room doors so thin I can here it in the room (being tormented by Chariots of Fire, Richard Clayderman, and Bridge over Troubled Water, going around at least hourly.
- The super-friendly manager appearing visibly shaken when I asked if they had some other music.
- Beautiful sunny day.
- SGns appearing to have lower inter-personal boundaries. The super-friendly hotel manager asked where a scar I have came from (and it's something I didn't choose to get, so it struck me as a little odd a virtual stranger enquiring about it). My SGn mother-in-law sometimes does similar; she just casually asks things even my own parents wouldn't, and I just look at my wife like
(slow blink) /
- At road crossings, some women hold folders (or similar) in front of their faces to shield them from the sun. Or they stand so the shadow of a lamp-post precisely shields them.
- Young women with flat-feet.
- A feeling of it being very crowded, and of people being in very close proximity. Sometimes I stop to 'let the crowd tagging on my shoulder to pass me', but when I do, the crowd never stops coming.
- Off-duty domestic maids. I pass one, with her friend, trying on a pair of sparkly shoes. She laughs in such a happy care-free way about the shoes, that I can't help laugh with her as I slowly pass by, her friend then laughs at me laughing
A sense of a fleeting, momentary connection - we all get it, and share the moment (something you will never get with a local.
- The popularity of the Superman logo T-shirts (this seems to be a perpetual fashion in SG, rather than a passing trend).
- Artistic graphics engraved into the granite floor-tiles in MRT stations. The style could be considered childish, or caveman'ish, but instead it reminds me of the Spanish artist Joan Miro (Google 'Joan Miro paintings', if so motivated!)
- In the MRT I hear music, and out of curiosity I follow it. It is a UOB ATM with a built in (16"?) TV screen at head height, playing advertisements for UOB, and it's products. Never seen such a thing before.
- A young girl in trainers. She tilts up the fronts of her feet and starts 'roller-skating' along on her heels. I have not seen such shoes since I was last in SG.
- In the food sections of malls, lots of snacky type fried food > Chippy Happy Food, next to, The Brat[wurst], next to, Wow Tako, next to, Seoul Street Food.
- Then around the corner 'Best Fries Ever', that just sells chips (talk about charging a premium over product input costs!).
- I stand at a counter to eat my lunch, a man stops next to me a hocks up a gob of phlegm to shoot in the bin next too me. Mmmm.... appetising
- Hey, a rubbish bin! The only public one I've seen in SG so far.
- Pondering the contradiction of fining people for littering, but then not providing any litter bins.
- A girl wearing a pashmina wool shawl in the mall.
- The Union Jack used as an emblem on T-shirts and rucksacks.
- A child in a pram screaming (like it's being slaughtered!) randomly once every 10-30 seconds. On-Off-On-Off. The parent is oblivious. It triggers some form of instinctive feeling of distress in me. I am most unused to such a cheek-and-jowl 'disordered' society.
- I spy far away a man behind glass dressed as a chef, apparently throwing string across his kiosk. I go to look: He is unwinding a vast string of noodle and throwing it into a vat of boiling water. The noodle (rather like Japanese udon) is perfectly coiled in a spiral about 24" wide! The dish is called 'One-strand noodles'.
- Nowhere to sit anywhere public, not even in the park. Shame as I'd love to get some sun as the Vitamin D and general acclimatisation would be good for me. I sit on a bit of wall, but within a few minutes it (the wall, not the sun!) becomes too hot to stay.
- A blood-bank at the MRT.
- Youths on skateboards (something I have not seen elsewhere for years).
- A girl with a circular vaccination scar on her shoulder, and red iodine stains dripped down her arm. It creates an impression of her having been bitten by a vampire.
- A wash/hand-basin by the wet-fish ice-tray in the supermarket. This seems to suggest people are expected to want to handle them.
- Waitrose (high end UK groceries) for sale in Cold Storage.
- Another girl in a woollen shawl, in Cold Storage
- A brand of pineapple juice from London (want to consider food-miles!?)
- Ball roll-on anti-perspirant seemingly starting at $4.80/50ml. That is insanity, in Europe I bought perfectly good no-brand ones for euro 0.29, say roughly 1/10th of the price! Cold Storage seems to stock nil 'No brand' products. Pro-tip: Expats preparing to relo - bring stacks of roll-on if you can get it cheap (as above). Plan on using double what you use 'back home' in a temperate climate. Pack in shoe boxes, either around shoes, or in empty ones, and then top up with small itens of clothing so the containers *remain upright* in transit in your freight. If possible tuck said shoe-boxes away within spaces in storage furniture (chests etc), so it incurs nil incremental freight. In for say 3 years? - You could hardly bring too much! (and no I don't sweat unusually much, but I DO hate being ripped off).
- Pez sweet dispensers! LOL.... I hadn't seen these since early childhood, many moons ago now!
- Mini boxes of Sun-Maid raisins. Better snacks for children than sweets. You don't seem to see these in Europe.
- Wanting to ask a worker in Cold Storage where to find a cork-screw. Considering quite carefully whether to ask her re: a 'cork-screw' that I fear she won't understand, or more in line with the local accent, for a 'cock-screw' and fearing she might misinterpret my request. I settle on 'a cork-screw for opening wine-bottle')
- Super pricey discretionary products (crisps, nuts, biscuits, condiments etc) all put on the ends of aisles.
- Back at the hotel, the same Richard Clayderman track going around yet again...
