If you were choosing a location for a grocery store in a shopping center in Singapore, would you locate it:

A.   On the first floor, reasonably close to where the cabs drop people off and pick them up?

or

B.   On the fourth floor, where the only access comes from an out of the way escalator and you then have to walk through two separate food courts before getting there?

Since I’m writing about it, you can fairly easily gues the answer.  Like I said before, sometimes it’s like a genius designed this place.  Other times it’s like Homer Simpson is in charge.

She’s the first from the Stockdale family to celebrate a birthday in Singapore.  She got a bunch of new clothes and other things before we left, so Mrs. Stockdale gets to sleep in this morning, go for a long run, and then she’s getting a foot massage.  There may also be some ‘art projects’ from the little Stockdales presented.  Yesterday, at the grocery store, I bought her a $12 bag of pretzels.  We’ll see if she shares any of them.  Doubtful.

So, we’ve been here almost three weeks and I’ve yet to see a mailman, or a mail truck for that matter.  I know that mail service actually exists in Singapore because Mrs. Stockdale gets mail at work.  Also, there was a letter waiting for us at the new apartment from the utility people.  Plus, I bought stamps, but that was at 7/11.

So, here’s some questions.  How does the mail get here?  Have I not seen the mailman because they are some kind of plain closed secret agents in Singapore (like Perry the Platypus)?  Do they silently move throughout the country delivering mail incognito?  Is there some kind of underground tunnel system that allows them to stealthy move without being seen by the general public?  If there is no tunnel system, what kinds of trucks do they use?  And, since we drive on the opposite side of the road with the steering wheel on the right, do mail trucks have the drivers seat on the ‘correct’ side from my vantage point?  If I get a car, should I get a Singapore mail truck so I am more comfortable driving?   Do these folks know who ‘Newman’ is?  Does the Singapore mailman oath have the line about sleet and snow not stopping them from completing their appointed rounds?  Do they wear those goofy hats?  Do Singapore mailman hate Pottery Barn catalogs?  Is there more than one person working behind the counter at the Singapore post office and when they head off to ‘the back’, where do they actually go?

These are questions that need answers!

Some of you know that we’re getting an addition to the Stockdale family.  Not another little Stockdale, or a furry Stockdale, but an ‘Assistant Stockdale’. 

In Singapore, things like cooking, cleaning, and laundry are VERY difficult.  I get tired even thinking about them.  When you combine the complexity of everyday life with the cost of labor in Southeast Asia, you get FDWs (Foreign Domestic Workers) commonly referred to as  ‘helpers.’  ‘Helpers’ are live-in maids/cooks/nannies that make everyday life easier so that I can run, bike, swim, drink coffee, read the paper, relax, play Xbox, play golf, nap, blog, relax and relax while Mrs. Stockdale is at work.

In order to employ a ‘helper’ there are a variety of forms you need to fill out and you also must complete an online class that teaches you how to treat your ‘helper’.  Here are some examples of what we learned:

(You may need to click on the image to actually read the slide.)

The entire ‘class’ took about two hours and these are just two slides from many that I could have selected.  Mrs. Stockdale and I are now well versed on how to treat the Assistant Stockdale.

We bought stamps.

That’s it.

So, fortunately or unfortunately, our stuff is supposed to make it to Singapore today or tomorrow and be delivered Friday morning at 9:00 am.   Part of me wishes it would have been lost in the Indian Ocean.  We packed WAY too much stuff given where we are going to live.  There are a lot of things that won’t even go up the elevator.  They will either find a home in a dumpster or with one of the movers.

We signed a lease on an apartment yesterday.  We didn’t get the one that the big little Stockdale cried about, we got one smaller, yet better in many ways.  It’s on the 21st floor, has a balcony, and the building has four or five pools with a nice play area.  It seems like there will be a lot of kids.  The bus for the school the little Stockdales will attend already stops there.  

The best part is that it is half the size of our KC house and our rent is three times our old mortgage payment.  AWESOME!

We’ll post some pics on Friday or Saturday as we move in.

UPDATE!   Ship is late.  Won’t move in till Monday.  It could be worse, so I won’t complain.

Last night we took the little Stockdales to this outdoor fire art thing.  It looked pretty cool on the internet, real life – EHH!  The good part was that we got to see the Singapore skyline at night which was pretty cool.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/singapore/jacobson-text/1

In general, this article paints this place as a little cleaner than it really is (not just litter, but in general).  There is litter and crime, just not the kind we see back in the States.  As we get more in tune with life here, I’ll post on how the Stockdales view Singapore in comparison to what this author sees.

One thing the little Stockdales and I have had to get accustomed to is the time change.  We are currently 13 hours ahead (in the future) of Kansas City.  Singapore does not do Daylight Savings Time, so we can either be 13 hours in the future or 14 hours in the future, depending on the time of year.   This has made it interesting scheduling Skype calls with the grandparents and friends.  Someone is just waking up and someone is just going to bed.  It also makes reading the news on the Internet odd since we start getting the American morning updates in the evening.  Yahoo updates Fantasy Baseball around 6:00 pm for me.  And, I’m still having trouble watching the stock market.

That said, here’s the first fun surprise I’ve encountered.  I bought a bunch of power transformers before we left to take the Singapore 220 volts ( 221, whatever it takes)  current down to 110 volts so our American electronics will work.  These aren’t just the plug adaptors, they are big boxes that step down the current.  In addition to volts, you also need to consider hertz.   The American power grid runs at 60 hertz, while the Singapore grid is 50 hertz.  

Why does that make a difference?  Digital clocks.  http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/clocks-watches/digital-clock2.htm   Digital clocks use the 60 hertz cycle to help them calculate time (60/10/6 = 1 cycle is a second).  Run them at 50 hertz and whoops (50/10/6= .8333 cycles per second.  This makes the clocks run slower when plugged in over here.   ( This looks like the clock should run faster, but if you read through the link, there is more to it.)  Ouch, my brain hertz! 

So, as you can see, time moves more slowly in the future.  I think that is also what Einstein said about moving at the speed of light, but I can’t run that fast. 

It’s funny how much better my brain works when beer is out of my price range.

Today, after we visited their new school, I took the little Stockdales to the Hawker Center located across the street from the prison (apartment).  A Hawker Center is basically an outdoor food court where vendors sell food.  Imagine every Chinese restaurant you’ve ever eaten at, smushed into an area the size of a basketball court.  Surprisingly, we were the only non-Asians in the place.

The big little Stockdale’s first comment was ‘it smells like wet Big Government’.  (For those new to the Stockdales, Big Government was our old dog back in Kansas.   She smelled odd enough when she was clean.  When she was wet, it took smelly to a whole new level.)

The little Stockdale’s weren’t too keen for ‘chicken feet soup’ or ‘broccoli with oyster sauce’, however they did like the ‘sugar cane water with lemon’ and the ‘strawberry ice with attap seeds’.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nypa_fruticans 

We didn’t get the glass apartment.  So, we have our fingers crossed on round two.  Hope to hear something today.  We’re getting there.  Not sure where there is, but it must be someplace.