The First Week In Singapore

Like I said in my last post, I am now working inDesignStream. After 2-week training in Indonesia, I finally got sent to Singapore. 2-hour flight with Valuair was quite fun. The airplane wass almost empty. There were not too many passengers in the airplane that day. It was Saturday, March 15th, 2008, the day when I stepped my feet in Singapore for the first time in my life. My first impression when I looked at the inside of the airport was WOW! Changi International Airport, Singapore is fabulous. It's very modern and clean. When I arrived, the security check was very tight. There were about three checks before I finally breathed the outdoor Singapore air.

I went straight from the airport to DesignStream's apartment in Bedok by taxi. Taxis in Singapore is really different from taxis in Jakarta. Though look old, they have facilities for credit card payment and bill printing. My taxi driver was very friendly. It's very easy to find address in Singapore, since the city layout is well-planned and divided into blocks.

The apartment in Bedok is nice. It's not like Mediterania Garden or Taman Anggrek apartment. Not too luxurious, but still spacious though. I was greeted by other DesignStream employees: Devy, April, and Eirig. They all are very nice to me. I now share a bedroom with Eirig, the leader of the project that I am assigned to in Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) Singapore.

The next day, Sunday, I went to Bedok Interchange (see the third picture below) to buy a prepaid cell phone card. I went there by bus. I had to pay it with coin first. I had to bring my passport to register for cell phone card. I also bought a EZ-Link card. It's a card that is RFID-embedded (I think) used by passengers to pay the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) and buses. Now, I don't have to pay the bus using coin. When people use bus and MRT, they tap the EZ-link card to its detector twice: first when getting on the bus or entering MRT station and second when getting off the bus or leaving the MRT Station (see the first picture below).




I used the MRT (see the second picture below) for the first time on Monday when going to the office. An MRT is a train for intercity transport. It is air conditioned and used by almost all people in Singapore. It's the most convenient way to travel in Singapore as it's safe, clean, and fast. For most of the time, I have to stand up inside the MRT because it's always crowded with people, but not so crowded that I cannot breathe. It's not like the trains or buses in Indonesia, you know, where very often they are too crowded to breathe.




To go to the office, I go to Bedok Interchange by bus and continue by an MRT to City Hall. I can also go to Dhoby Ghaut from City Hall. The office is located between those two MRT stations (see the third picture below: the one with X mark is the office). It uses a building, called Plaza by The Park. Working at SCB Singapore office is fine for me. For a week there, I fixed some reports for some branch offices of SCB in some countries.




On this first day, my boss invited me and senior employees to eat dinner in an Indian restaurant. It's near office, so we just walked there. We ate, as I recall, Masaladosai (see the fourth picture below). I don't know whether the spelling is correct or not, not that I care too. It looks like Crepe on the outside, only much bigger, filled with spicy potatoes and eaten with curry gravy. It has quite distinctive taste and the taste of the curry is very strong. As we ate, we also chatted and laughed to the funny stories we talked about.




After eating there, my boss went home, and the rest of us went to cinema in Bugis Junction to watch a 9 o'clock movie. We got there by walking too. The ticket was $7 each. The seats arrangement in that cinema are not too good. They are so low that people may be disturbed by other people's head. But, it's big. We watched Step Up 2. It was quite a good movie for its dance. Other than that, it was somewhat boring.

On Tuesday, my work in SCB was pretty much the same as that of the day before. The only difference was attending conference call from some users. It was held on a room with one phone and other 3 people and about 4 people on the other side of the phone. They all spoke in English, but with different accents: Indian, Singaporean, Chinese, and Indonesian. It was horrific. I could not understand any single word they said. Eirig said that this thing would happen a lot in the future. So I had to get used to it pretty fast.

After leaving the office, I walked around the city with an old friend of mine, Jaya, while Eirig and my boss was still in the office. That friend of mine accompanied me to go Orchard Road, one of the main shopping attractions in Singapore. We walked there, it was more than 5 blocks. That didn't seem too far, because I enjoyed walking in the city at night. It's enjoyable and entertaining. We went to Takashimaya mall. It is a very big mall. There is a fountain in front of it. I took some pictures there, but the result was not very good. They were too dark because they were taken during nighttime. We went to Kinokuniya bookstore inside of that mall, and ate in its food court after.

Getting home from there was quite interesting. My friend suggested that we take the MRT in the Orchard Road MRT station. As full of excitement of walking around in the city I was, I suggested that we just walked back to City Hall MRT station (see the third picture above). I thought it would only took a little time and energy to get there. I was wrong. We walked more than 12 blocks, I think. It was a very long walk back then. I was sweating like hell and my feet ached, but my friend looked just fine. He's used to do it while he was studying in Australia. On the other hand, I was not. By the time I arrived at the City Hall MRT station, my body was covered with sweat. My shirt was wet and my right sock was torn on the big toe. That was disastrous.

Traveling in Singapore, like I said before, is very easy. The routes are convenient and the transportation is excellent. Like you've read before, on my second day of work, I was able to go out by myself. Well, not alone alone, but with my friend that I said before. But you know what I meant lah. Oh damn, my English is damaged! This is the downside of living in Singapore. My years of practising English was shattered with Singlish. I hope I can manage living in Singapore and not be influenced with Singlish.

Food here is quite expensive. It's about $3-5 if you eat in the food court. It can be more expensive if you eat in a restaurant. Yesterday, I went to Bedok Interchange again to do some serious shopping. I was running out of casual clothes used in apartment. So I bought some clothes from Giordano. Clothes from Giordano, Baleno, and Hangten here is very cheap. I bought 4 shirts. 2 of them were only $10 each (it's about Rp 67,000, whereas the price of these same shirts in Indonesia is about Rp 150,000++) and the other 2 shirts were only $5 each (it's about Rp 33,500, whereas the price of these same shirts in Indonesia is about Rp 100,000).

Overall, living in Singapore is a fantastic experience. Here I found there is no such thing as strangers. Just friends I haven't met. I am in a whole new place surrounded by lots of new faces from many cultures. Fueled by an infectious beat of this city, inhibitions are shed. I am not alone. I am in Singapore, where enchanted encounters become friendships, transcending languages into lasting bonds that will always be, truly beyond words.