Well, now that we are here, we needed to get some Singapore dollars or SGD. The Singapore dollar is worth about 25% less than our Canadian dollar. So if you see an item marked $10.00 SGD, then you are only paying around $7.50 Canadian. It's like everything is on sale! There are lots of ATMs around. The bills come in 2, 5, 10 and 50 dollars, so it's strange to get 10s and 50s from a bank machine instead of 20s. All the bills are different sizes.
Jim also wanted to get us set up with cell phones here. He put in a lot of effort to get our cell phones from home unlocked before we came so they could be used here, mostly for local communication. We bought SIM cards at the 7 Eleven, so now his is working fine but he is having trouble getting mine set up. Yes, it is weird to travel nearly 10,000 miles away from home to the other side of the world and still see 7 Eleven stores, McDonalds, Toys R Us, etc.
On our first full day we decided to go on a tour to get an overview of the city. We went on a double decker bus with an open top. As they advertise "Be cool! Go topless on our tour!" There were 2 tour routes included in the price. The Heritage one took us in to neighbourhoods like Little India, Arab Street, Chinatown and the Colonial Core. These are all places that I definitely want to go back to and explore. Then Jim was getting anxious to go back to the hotel to get ready for his first class that evening, so he left after the first tour, and I stayed to do the second one. It was called the City Tour which did a big loop around the city. Each tour was about an hour. The city is very beautiful, modern and of course, clean. Did I mention that chewing gum is a prohibited item to be brought into the country? I loved the tours and did fine on my own even when I missed my stop to get off and had to find my way back to the hotel on foot. Be careful when crossing the street. Cars are on the opposite side of the road like in England.
Nope - Andrea is not your only reader. I check every day.It took me this long to figure out how to leave a comment. I had to sign up. I love hearing what you are seeing and doing pretty much as it happens. I remember when we were in New Zealand it was as 14 hour difference and it felt so weird. Keep the stories coming.
ReplyDeleteThis post made me think of us all on the double-deckers in London in summer 2007!
ReplyDelete"Colonial core" sounds kindof scary.
What's the language situation like over there - is everyone speaking to you guys in English?
Thank you, Charis! It was encouraging to hear from you. And that's a very good question about language, Andrea. I will answer it in my next blog. Ponder this trivia question: Canada has 2 official languages. How many do you think Singapore has? (Don't look on the internet-that's cheating!)
ReplyDeleteMy guess is 11. It is probably higher though. Well, sad thing about the gum though, eh. I think taking a tour right off the bat is the best thing to do.
ReplyDelete(Btw, I am not sure what the 'select profile' below is all about. This is all new to me too.)