Adjustments

All in all the culture shock has not been that bad and I think Singapore has to be one of the easier foreign countries to live in unless you count that great northern “providence”, or did that place Ben’s always referring to already get ratified as another state? (I don’t think there is a new star on the flag.) With the exception of her sleep being really off, Samara’s adjusted really well. She hadn’t been getting cheese like she normally does when we first got here and one day she announced to us, “I need cheese!” She is obsessed with Thomas, so riding the metro trains is a dream come true for her. I’m sure she hopes we never have a car or car seat again. She’s convinced we live on the island of Sodor (“Sodor”, “Singapore”…close enough). She loves swimming and is thrilled we get to go so often. The biggest challenges so far are how expensive it is (who knew you could have less disposable income than as a student?) and getting around. The hardest thing is not having a car and trying to grocery shop. They want to limit the number of cars on the road so it costs about $1,200/month to have a car. You have to get a 10-year permit and it’s a lot more if you renew it with the same car so there are hardly any cars older than 10 years old here. It's so weird having cars drive be on the other side of the road. We now understand why they say, "look both ways before crossing the street". We've both gone the wrong direction on a bus and it feels so odd sitting in the driver's seat when your not driving and have no steering wheel. A couple times I've seen a child sitting there and thought, 'oh dear that kid stole his parent's car. '
Grocery shopping is particularly bad where we are now because it’s a ten-minute hike to get out of the complex, usually involving stairs, which are no fun with a stroller and a weeks-worth of groceries. It’s a catch 22, the more groceries I buy the hungrier I am because it takes so much effort to get them home so I have to turn around and buy more. It’s usually after this that I have a meltdown and announce to Ben that I’ve had enough of this little adventure and that I am going home to live in my mom’s basement.

However, the condo we’re moving into is right across from the MRT & Bus depot, a mall with a grocery store, and library so it’s in a fantastic location for everyday stuff. The facilities are unbeatable and we have a beautiful view of the mountains in Malaysia (which celebrates a national “Derek Zoolander Day” to acknowledge the day the Prime Minister of Malaysia was saved from an assassination attempt). It will be about a 45-minute commute for Ben and about the same for us to get to church. Church would only be like 15 minutes on a taxi. The transportation is great—it just takes so much longer than a car/taxi. You have to leave an hour early to get somewhere that would take 10 minutes in the car.

We were quite surprised at the open discrimination here. When we were calling around looking for apartments they’d say things like, “You’re not Indian are you? We don’t rent to Indians” or the listing would advertise no “Chinese Agents”. It was very surprising. Some things may get carried too far in the states, but my goodness, we sure would have felt bad if someone would have told us they wouldn’t rent to Canadians or Americans.