マイク アンド

Its been quite some time since the last real update, and this second part of the story is now almost a full year from its original time. This means the details are a little fuzzy now, and being back in the UK it all feels like a distant memory. I was of course writing this story after the event anyway, but the time when I came to writing part 2 originally, I had lost most of my will to write, the details of that will come in due time, but first I wanted to try to finish this story.

—-

January, 2009.
For the most part it was very quiet, I was at work all the time, even doing some over time to earn a little extra, and had little time for anything else. My new apartment was awesome, and I was simply enjoying some quiet living and slowly organising things. My good friend and colleague from work, who had originally offered me a place at his apartment was having difficulties however, the AC was terrible, the windows had gaps and the chance of keeping the place chilled was imposable. To cut a long story short – literally – I simply offered the same deal, move into my spare room. This worked out very handy for us both, my friend was caught “praying” to the ac unit several times, citing the cooling power as the reasoning, and was instantly happier by it. This meant his extensive art collection could finally leave the sealed air tight box it had been in since his arrival in Singapore. For me, it meant a friend close by, and half the rent paid for. Something I was very thankful for.

I forget now the exact date, so I will drop it in here, but my friend also had a nasty accident one evening, and while trying to avoid some fellow pedestrians who would not yield some pavement space, slipped and fell into a drainage ditch which was obscured by vegetation. These ditches come in various sizes all over Singapore, and are fully open and uncovered concrete ravines. Some are small “leg breakers” like the one my friend found, which are about 2 feet deep and just wide enough to get a leg inside, others can be the size of a canal. They are quite frankly a menace and a disaster waiting to happen, and leaving such things totally unguarded, uncovered and right next to walk ways is insane. My Friend suffered a rather nasty injury to his lower leg and knee, and this injury still causes him much discomfort even now, over a year later. The cause of this however is not down to the original injury, but due to the poor medical care he received. After seeing many doctors, all which turned out to be extremely incompetent, he went in for surgery on his knee. As both of us were with the same company, we had medical cover, or so we thought. They constantly argued over this and kept trying to find every way out of paying up. This caused a lot of tension between us and our company, as they also failed to help sufficiently. When I had some other medical issues, although very minor, the amount of paper work and initial refusal to cover the costs caused much disagreement and argument with the company as well. The insurance did however finally pay up for mine, and I believe my friend did get his paid for, however his injury, and the incompetence of the doctors who made it worse, still plagues him – he may well be unable to have full use of his leg ever again. I wont cover this in full, as I will leave it to him for a much better story.

February and the Chinese New Year.
Chinese greet the new Lunar year in February, and this meant the whole city was decorated for the occasion. The only problem however is that the town almost shuts down. Just like over the western new year, wonder the evening streets and you half expect to see tumble weeds rolling around. The late evening is a different matter in the tourist areas however, as that’s yet another excuse for a party. Singapore is an awesome place if you love night life, in comparison to the UK, I have totally lost interest the UK nightlife, its boring, its over crowded, often dangerous and its all over by 2am. Singapore is a 24/7 place, you can go out at anytime, and pretty much stay there until when you went in the next day. In the tourist areas venues are often open to 6 or 7am, you may need to move around places a bit, but its not a problem as the transport is so cheap.

A few weeks later came my birthday, I’d planned to host it at Cosafe as my friends would be around and its close to the office. Following several attempts to remind my coworkers of the invite, it came down the final day with no one confirming. I made my way down there with my friend and flat mate and had some drinks waiting for anyone who might turn up. My friends at Cosafe were of course there, but the only person who arrived from the office was my boss. He made a nice gesture of paying for a couple of rounds before dashing off, however this may have been down to a bit of a guilty conscience as no one else had arrived, and partly due to some other disagreements which where starting to emerge in the company, however I wouldn’t know any of this until much later. It appears my relationship with my coworkers was not as good as I had thought, as not a single one of them turned up by the end of the evening.

The Wedding
My dear friend Desmond and Willow had invited me and Stephan to his wedding celebration at the Raffles Town Club. A very splendid and tasteful venue, and it gave us a hint as to what was coming. Desmond is of course well known in the local F&B circles with his own catering business, so this wedding celebration was also a chance to demonstrate his abilities. Top chefs from all over were invited, a big local DJ was hired as the MC and lots of people from restaurants and F&B circles were present, including some old friends from Cosafe. The evening was planned down to the finest detail, and although our assigned table was apparently overbooked by 10 people, we did finally get ourselves seated. One of the most impressive aspects was the delivery of the first course. The lights of the ball room were lowered, and in perfect procession some 100 waiters came in with candle lit dishes to stand by each table, and then lower them to the centre in time with the others. It was a grand display of perfect service, and set the elegant tone for the rest of the evening with a tradditional Chinese meal, I forget how many courses were served, but it was certainly a lot. My best wishes for a long happy marriage and continued prosperity for them both and the business.

The story will continue in part 3 soon…

Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, April, May, June.
That’s 8 months since relocation day back in November on a cold wintery day in England. Actually it wasn’t such a cold day, but compared to 35+C here it was. A lot has happened, and with only the briefest of a passing mention, it only seems fitting to give those more significant events a revisit.

Part 1: Asia Tour Re-Visited: The One-way Ticket, November 2008.
My first relocation, an interesting and quite hectic experience. It starts off slowly, the job offer comes in, the acceptance is sent back, and then I made some casual plans in preparation. My intent, was to fully sort out all my personal possessions (read junk) into 3 simple categories – things going to Singapore, things to store in the UK and things to go to /dev/null (trash / b1n / rubbish). In reality what occurred was far from it. The speed in which the Employment pass was approved was totally unexpected – a mere 24 hours. That’s the efficiency of the Singapore Government for you, and very appreciative I was too, all the worry immediately removed. The problem however was I now needed to actually do it, I now had a start date, a holiday period and suddenly I needed to give notice on my flat, book a flight and a hotel and find a company to move with. Oh and sort my junk. I did manage to sort out a lot of rubbish, and threw out an obscene amount of stuff, however this paled in significance to the mountains of junk i had managed to accumulate.

What followed was total mayhem. I made the bookings for everything, including the relocation, all within a day of each other, pretty good eh? Yes…except I still had to move the junk and store it in my parents place. A very good friend offered to help me move, he’d done it before, seen the mess, the mountains of junk, and yet came back for more punishment. I shall be eternally grateful for his help, as without it, I simply would not have made it. I choose Crown Relocations for my relocation to Singapore, and they were fantastic. I was sending 2m Sq, and there man packed the whole lot of it in under 45 mins – despite my chit chat and lots of questions. Then it was gone. I was left in my flat minus all my best stuff, and just the furniture and the junk.

We Haul
2 days later came the big move, my friend helped me hire a transit van, and we got packing. Actually I had been too slow on the packing, so a lot of it wasn’t ready, luckily he called up some more friends who came down to help out, and we had a sort of packing party. Another group showed up to buy some of my better junk, and we finally got the van loaded up. I then had to clean the place. This took some time, during this time my friend went for a well deserved nap in the car. My own tiredness, and trying to rush the cleaning made me make a fatal mistake, I took the trash out to the bin, and swung the front door open so hard it bounced back – and locked shut behind me. No problem, I have my keys….right…no…in here…no…oh crap. Yep, I was locked out my own block, and flat, on moving out day, the day before my flight to Singapore, and it was a Saturday night.

I tried in vain on all the door bells for the block, nothing. Everyone was out. I decided to at least alert my friend to the situation, and from his nap he came. After a few minutes of waiting around in the hope someone, anyone would turn up, he decided to try his house key. It was all we had, it fitted the hole but was not meant for this lock- he kept jiggling it – its kinda the whole point of a lock really, can’t use just any key to get in, that’s like protecting your house with a little “Please don’t come in” sign, then click. Yep, a 1 in a million chance, and it worked. We were back in. I won’t ever mock that lock again.

Flat cleaned and van loaded, we drove off some 100 or so miles up to my parents house. We got there very late, like 7 or 8PM or something maybe – it was dark anyway. Then came the unload. This seemed to drag on forever, but we got it done. The night wasn’t totally lost, we did get some food and had some time for a couple drinks. The next day came re-assembly of some of my furniture, I wasn’t just dumping it there, it was getting a new home and a new owner. Then it was time for the long drive back. We returned the van, grabbed my luggage and headed off to my friends house for a while before getting dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. The food seemed fine, I did try to stay off any seafood just in case, then it was the dash for the flight. Check-in and security etc all reasonably ok, and the flight left about on time.

Hell at 35,000 Feet
Some 4 hours into the flight however, hell occurred. I started feeling a bit sick, very tired, painful stomach etc. Tried to ignore it. Tried going to the bathroom, then while in the queue I collapsed on the floor. I then spent the majority of the next 8 hours laying on the floor of Singapore Air’s finest new Airbus A380 with all the crew trying to give me tea and water and work out what was wrong. They kept thinking I was flight sick and just tired, I however know it was that Chinese restaurant. I know mild food poisoning when I see it. Needles to say the flight was hell, the crew were however fantastic. I arrived in Singapore feeling dreadful, almost no sleep, I was tired from the moving, and still felt ill. My new manager was kind enough to meet me, but was no doubt surprised at how bad I looked. We had a couple of beers, and then he had to head off to take care his daughter who was sick in hospital. I’m grateful for the meeting, it helped a lot and was a nice gesture. I then made my way to the hotel.

Night Service
My hotel was the Fragrance Ruby in Geylang, I won’t cover it too much here as I already did in another post at the time. It was chosen as it was the cheapest I could find, I was paying for everything on this relocation, not a penny from the company, so I was cutting corners every chance I got. The staff are nice, always friendly, the room is really basic and quite tired, but it would be my home for the next month and a half. Geylang is a wonderful and interesting place, during the day its filled with restaurants with some of the best local food around, and then as the day goes on all the brothels open up. Geylang is one of the 4 locations in Singapore where prostitution is legal. They operate out of any buildings they can use and fill it with as many girls and beds as possible. Despite this, the streets are simply full of girls wondering around offering service. It is these services, which later came a bit of problem in the hotel. The constant sound of clacking heels on tiles, the doors slamming and the inevitable other sounds of service, do not make the best atmosphere to sleep to. I needed an apartment.

Maids – (1)
It had been almost a year since I was last in Singapore, and I was eager to meet up with some old friends, naturally first stop was Cosafe. The restaurant was just as I had last seen it, albeit with some new faces, and some new table signs. The biggest change was however the departure of one of my dear friends, apparently my 2 buddies had decided to go their separate ways and part company. My good buddy Floyd was still there and as cheerful as ever. Desmond was now at a new location, working with his brothers in their chain of restaurants. I spent a good amount of time as usual here and stopped by every so often over the next few weeks, the visits got a bit shorter due to financial and time constraints. I did keep visiting in the hope of seeing my friend Ferlyn who was coming back from Tokyo for Christmas. Now back to the flat hunt.

House Hunt
Apartment finding in Singapore is not a fun experience. Some agents are good, some are bad, and some are just terrible. I was blessed with a few good ones, although I still had 2 failed leases. The first was a nice place right near Bugis, clean, in a small block, no amenities, no cable service, no furniture except for a lovely dark wood dining table. I made an offer with some conditions, they wanted to up the price further to meet those conditions, and even further still to get the cable line. I declined it and kept looking. Another agent, from a good local friend, found me some nice places, 1 in Ang Mo Kio, 1 in Tanjong Pagar. I opted for the latter, put in the letter of intent again, and even a deposit. Unfortunately we hit a problem, the owner did not want to get the rental stamped and made official. This means they can avoid income tax. Being a new foreigner into the country I did not want to make my first official action illegal, and so declined this also. Luckily, we found another, in the same complex. This went through fine, stamped and all good, for a good price, with full furnishing. 2 bedrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 main room, 1 shower room and 1 toilet room. Newly refurbished, in the city, opposite an MRT station, above a shopping complex and next to a food court, all for SG$2,500. Done. Only problem was I had to wait to mid December to move in.

A Funeral
The end of November and start of December was not such a happy time however, the condition of my new boss’ young daughter worsened, and she past away a short while later. Despite being the newest employee of a mere 2 weeks I felt it was important to attend the funeral and pay my respects. This was the first Chinese style funeral I had seen, and was a little different from the western style. I can never imagine how hard it would be to loose a child, and I prey I will never have to.

Maids -  (again) (2)
I was quite looking forward to another Christmas here, and also to finally be here for Cosafe’s anniversary celebration (Dec 12th) , which I had missed by a mere 2 days last year. Unfortunately it was not to be, as due to some planning and organizing issues, they had to cancel the event. Shame, hopefully next year I can be there.

Elephants & Hippies
December 14^th brought the anniversary for The Crazy Elephant over in Clarke Quay. The music was fantastic as always and everyone was dressed in various highly colourful hippie clothes. Even the floor was decorated with stickers and flower patterns. The event went on well into the early hours and towards the end of the evening they even started giving out free pours of shots to everyone, it was an insane party, and the place was packed all night. This has to be one of the best anniversary parties I’ve seen for awhile. This was already one of my favourite venues, and it certainly didn’t disappoint! The next day I finally moved into my new apartment. It was a few days later that my shipment arrived, and thankfully not a single breakage, and no damage at all. I finally had my new ‘home’ and it was just in time for Christmas.

Low Crime Dosn’t Mean No Crime…
A few days later disaster struck, I had left the office and headed out to Crazy Elephant to see the live music. It was a Thursday night and usually one of the best times to be there. I left late and didnt have time to drop off my bag, so I took it with me. Bad idea. Despite sitting at a single table, with a raised floor area behind it and full tables either side of me, someone managed to steel my bag from under the table. While I was sitting there. I never left the table once, not even for a minute. I only found out when I got up for the bathroom and reached for my bag (to take it with me) only to find it gone. My bag, my Sony Vaio and my UK phone – gone. Unfortunatly no CCTV, and no whitnesses. The police and security arrived in a matter of minutes and were very helpful, however there was little that could be done as the thief had already gone. They kept on searching for it, and the investigation finally concluded about a month or so later, with no sign of it. The moral of the story, keep your bag in hand, and record all the serial numbers of your stuff.

Full Circle at the 7,000 Mile Marker
Christmas and New Year came and went quite fast this time, no big parties, just a night out in a local bar with a friend, nothing like my mega trip last year where I went off to Korea and Japan. Money was still tight from the hotel living and relocation, so quiet was good. And so ended 2008, almost full circle from back in 2007, another winter on the other side of the world, some 7,000 miles from home.

Continues Next Week…