Duke-NUS

As I mentioned in the last post, we got to go see Ben's new office on Saturday. They just moved into it a couple weeks ago when it was completed. It is a very nice building. We stopped to eat dinner at the canteen near his work, took a picture, and then the camera battery died. Ben got some pictures today so you can all see where he works.

Eating out here can be super cheap--much less than groceries, which is probably why I am always the one with the most stuff in my grocery cart. My Indian meal cost $2.50 and Ben's Chinese one cost $2.80--that's a lot of food for $5.30! Canteens are restaurants provided for an organization such as a hospital, school, or company (there is one for the transit employees across the street from us at the bus interchange). There are also hawker centers all over Singapore. They are also inexpensive but not quite as cheap as the canteen. It is fun to try new foods and we'll try most things but I'm pretty wary of meat because there is some sketchy funky stuff out there. We'd probably eat out a lot more if there was anything other than plain rice that Samara liked.


Duke-NUS occupies the whole building. The medical school is on the first three floors and the remaining eight are dedicated to research labs. Previously, med school here had been done only on an undergraduate level (as is still the case in almost every country of the British commonwealth), but now with the Duke-NUS collaboration, med school is done at a graduate level and the students in this medical school spend relatively more time doing laboratory research in addition to their clinical studies.

Not bad views for Dr. Ben. The first view is right behind his desk and the second is a nice little atrium on the opposite end of his floor.

The extensive lab space is still relatively empty, but will fill up as new faculty come in.

Staircases--Samara had a great time running up and down the hallways and going up and down the stairs and can't wait to go again...neither can I (the a/c was really nice!). This atrium is located in the middle of all of the floors. It's a great feature.

In other noteworthy "Ben" news, we thought we'd figured out what led to his beautiful bare head. Last week, a taxi driver told him that drinking cold water had caused his baldness. Boy, were we ever relieved to find that out. But then we remembered that he started losing his hair while he was on his mission in Russia, where he was forced to avoid cold water because in Russia it "causes sore throats". The mystery still remains.