Mall Moving

Week 2 in Singapore is going very well so far. The weather has been very nice here (and by comparison, I’ve heard it’s been miserable in the states). Although, I haven’t been spending that much time outdoors. This has been a very inside week.

With my newfound ability to use wireless Internet at the malls, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time at Raffles City mall and Funan Digitalife center. I go to Funan before work and Raffles after. There’s been a bit of a routine, in the morning go use the Internet for about thirty minutes, grab lunch and then go to work. At night, get off the MRT, go to the food court at Raffles, eat, then sit at my table next to the display cars and see who is online. Doing this has allowed me to chat with Amanda, Mama, Dad, Evan, Sheri, David, Melissa and the kids. Although, some of my international time on my phone card is being used up as well. Once I get settled into my place, I’ll have full access to Internet all the time, which means, I’ll be able to stay in better contact with everyone.

Which leads me to being able to officially say, I’ve found where I’m living. Last blog, I described my hope that moving into a condo with a guy named Felix would work out. We’ve talked all this week and we signed the paper’s Thursday night. I’m very excited. On Tuesday night, I’ll start moving my things in. For the rest of December, I’ll be staying in the guest room as his current roommate will still live there until New Years. Originally, it had looked like I wouldn’t be able to move in there until January, so this is much better.

This week, I really haven’t had a chance to go explore and do much of the fun stuff. Granted that is a bit my fault as I could have woken up earlier and gone. It’s no big deal though, this weekend I’ll be very active. After work on Friday, I plan on going to services at the Conservative/Reform synagogue and then on Saturday morning, I’ll go to the more traditional shul (I’m very excited for that as the building looks beautiful online). In addition, I plan on going to at least one museum this weekend. Also, I’m looking forward to meeting my dad’s accounting friend, Helmi, who lives here. This weekend will be a bit more adventurous. I’ve just needed time to set things up here before I can go out and do all the fun stuff. I will have to be a bit careful as I start the real shifts at work on Monday morning (the 3 AM-3PM shift- I’m sure that will be in blogs to come).

As for food notes, I’m definitely not going back to Mos Burger. That’s a Japanese fast food burger chain here and it’s a one and done. As for food courts, this week I ate a chicken in a noodle dish that was okay. I got breaded chicken and it just didn’t work. I got a fried rice dish one night that was very good, it just needed some soy sauce (I’ve found I need a bit of salt with some of the dishes here). Here’s the biggest surprise of the week, I enjoyed a falafel pita for dinner on Wednesday night. The falafels were night, plus the cucumber and I won’t call it hummus, but a hummus flavored sauce. It was enjoyable for sure.

Okay, a couple of completely non-Singapore related things, although in a way they are. First, this Tiger Woods story just continues to grow and grow. I was in the air on the way over here when the car crash happened. I’m not going to say the scandal saddens me, because it doesn’t. It simply makes me continue to think it might be foolish to get married if you’re a male star athlete, rock star or movie star (haven’t decided how I feel about women stars). Let’s be honest, there is just too much candy in the store. I hope that when Tiger met Elin and they started dating he thought, this is the love of my life. Because of that, they got married and have a child, etc. But seriously, he’s Tiger Woods. What single female wouldn’t be at least tempted if there was an opportunity to seduce him? He’s in great shape, extremely wealthy, powerful, the best at his craft and good looking. Back to my original point, if he was a single guy this stuff wouldn’t be as much of an issue. It all goes back to the fact that he’s apparently had this string of women while married. Lebron James isn’t married (or at least I’m pretty sure he’s not). I know he has a child with his high school girlfriend. And I can’t imagine he doesn’t have plenty of fun being a star athlete. I will say the other end of the argument is that there is, of course the benefits of marriage and family life. Not to mention, it’s good for some of these athletes to have one person, just one person being able to say you have responsibilities to others. I hope this all goes away soon. I do believe this will all end up as a footnote. He’ll do the apologizing thing at some point. He’ll win majors and in the end we’ll remember him as the best golfer of our generation and most likely ever. If not, golf is in trouble. Not having Tiger would be ten times worse for golf than MJ leaving the NBA in 1994, just look at the period while he was rehabbing his knee last year.

Second, I’m sad that Mizzou lost to Oral Roberts in basketball. It’s a rough start, but ORU is good and the Fighting Hands (in Tulsa, there is a large sculpture of two hands praying on the ORU campus) are tough. Also, this will be a tough season for Mizzou. Hopefully, the younger players will develop with great experience. Of course this team features two of my favorite Mizzou athletes of my time, JT Tiller and Zaire Taylor. Mizzou football will have a tough time with Navy in the Texas bowl. While it’s not the bowl MU wanted, it will be another opportunity to be in the talent rich state of Texas and make an impression.

Lastly, I’m excited to figure out ways to watch my shows. Hulu doesn’t work over here and it seems streaming from network sites doesn’t work well either. For the most part, it seems like it’s all for rights issues. I know itunes is a possibility for some shows. If not, I’ll just have to deal. Maybe a slingbox is in my future (absolutely should have taken the Rude’s up on their offer for that before I left).


Alrighty, that’s all for now. It’s time to watch more discovery channel (pretty cool stuff). FYI, I’m righting this blog before I go to bed. I’ll post it in the morning, when, as you guessed it, I’ll go to a mall to use the Internet haha.

Good night and good luck,
Michael