Scalari.net

I’m finding myself more and more settled in here in Singapore. Every day starts to become just like every other day. The excitement of a new country, granted not very evident even in the beginning, is now long gone.

There are still a few big differences here that I find funny or weird, besides the most obvious one that they drive on the wrong side of the road here. Here are a few more.

Whenever I get takeout at McDonalds or Burger king, whatever, they always bag each item seperately. The burger get it’s own bag, the fries get a smaller bag and so does the soda. They then proceed to put all the little bags in a large plastic bag for me to carry.
Even if I don’t get takeout and eat the food in the “restaurant” I still get everything bagged, except for the larger bag.

Speaking of bags. I am not allowed to bag my own groceries in a grocery store. It’s done by the cashier as she (very often women) ”beeps” every product. They put about 2-3 items in each bag before grabbing a new one. Not only does I find this completely obsolete, it makes the procedure just so slow and tedious.

There are radio channels here that are entirely in british, and I mean like real CNN correspondant british. You can really tell how the hosts are forcing themselves not to leave a shread of asian accent in their voices. Honestly, it sounds really awkward. Especially when they have to call someone from the “real world”, like to congratulate a winner of a contest. They would go “Congratulations my dear sir! You have won our fabulous contest!” only to get a thick asian “Whassat? I wah!?” in response.

There’s this local delicassy called durian. It’s a fruit, and you can smell it from 50 meters away. The smell is very strong and it’s in every food store that sells fruit. It smells and tastes kind of like a mix of french cheese and garbage. There’s even durian icecream.