15-02-2009

I am enjoying the money denominations here.  The best part is the lack of pennies; everything is tax included and rounded to the nearest five cents, most things to ten.  Also there is no dollar bill, just a dollar coin.  This seems to make your pocket change much more valuable; I always buy my breakfast with the previous day's change.  Instead of a quarter they use a twenty cent piece, and their two dollar bill is as common as our one.  I like this because there always seems to be a nice way to make change.  There is a McDonalds on campus which is slightly more expensive but is fast and convenient.  I eat there way more than I ever ate fast food in the US.  There I probably had fast food once every month or two, while I have been getting it here maybe twice a week.  And few days go by where I don't buy one of their fifty cent ice cream cones.  These vanilla soft serve cones are a joy to behold and I feel like they are helping my assimilation.  Everyone from RPI has these cones as well and a couple tend to have three or four per sitting.  I hope they are not too unhealthy.  

Holidays are indeed very big in Singapore.  It is not just one day, but any holiday seems to have at least a week of celebration to go along with it.  Valentine's day (aka "Friendship Day") was yesterday but they have been celebrating all last week.  Lucky draws, sales, promotions, contests, and what-have-you were ongoing themes throughout.  I got some free cookies which was nice and some free makeup and body wash which wasn't as practical.  I declined twice but they kept pushing them on me so I just took them to make them happy.  

I was very surprised to see this hanging on a bulletin board near the laundry room; I had definitely thought Thanksgiving was an American holiday only:

There's also a nice bit about mosquitoes. 

I have not yet mentioned the laundry.  Using the washing machine in the hall is free which is nice.  There are no dryers which wasn't as nice.  This is not such a big deal because everyone leaves their clothes out in the hallway to dry on racks.  Sam bought one early on and lets me use it.  It is very hot so clothes don't take too long to dry.  There are actually drying racks for just this purpose right outside of everyone's window, but I choose not to use them partially because many times you see clothes on the ground from where they have fallen from someone's rack. Here are the drying racks on the side of our hall building: