Living criminally
Wow, it's been a while! I've been sick, had a huge deadline, and got slightly better. Still not great health, but at least it doesn't hurt at the moment. Anyway, a friend from Vancouver visited me... err... two and a half weeks ago?
It was weird how un-weird it was. I mean, when you meet somebody on the other side of the world -- the only non-electronic connection to your normal life back home that you're likely to get during your entire stay here -- you'd expect it to be weird, right? Or at emotional or something?
But no, there was none of that. I arrived at the meeting place -- arranged via email, since he didn't have a phone here -- a few minutes late, looked around at the dozen people sitting at the tables, then decided he hadn't arrived yet. As I started to walk away (to be closer to the entrance), he stood up and followed me. Whoops; I'd completely missed him. (in my defense, I must say that his pink shirt did not suit him!)
"Hey." "Hey." ... pause... "Wanna go get some pizza?" "Sure, I'm starving".
I talked about the lack of familiar food; he talked about Malaysian hotels screwing up his laundry. I talked about my work environment; he talked about almost dying in Bangkok. It was just like normal! OK, medical emergencies weren't normal... but despite the topic, the tone of the conversation was normal.
He was amazed at the lack of smell in Singapore. Also at how clean it was, and how we had sidewalks. The latter two points didn't surprise me, but I hadn't realized that a lack of stench was a big plus for urban centers. I guess it's a good thing that I'm not sight-seeing in the nearby countries. :)
Mao, I miss Victoria (aka "Bunny Land"). IMO, Singapore (and Vancouver) do smell. Not in a "garbage stench" kind of way; just in a "lots of cars and stuff" way. I think I've turned into a "small town" guy rather than a "big city" guy.
Anyway, I showed him my place. His first reaction was "this amount of space is criminal", which stuck in my mind and turned into the title of this post. He's now in Japan... I wonder how criminal he thinks this place is now. ;)
Let's see... not much else has been happening, other than work. Oh, a woman asked me for directions. I didn't realize that I looked anything close to being a local. Then again, maybe that prompted her to approach me. I mean, the only reason an obvious foreigner would have to be in a residential district would be if he lived there, so I'd obviously know where the local supermarket was. Anyway, I directed her and assume she found the right place.
I might actually restart my attempts at doing touristy things on Sunday... due to my health issues, I've been home this weekend (instead of working on Sat), and it feels much better. If I make this a regular occurence, then I can use Sat for rest and catching up on email, and Sun for touristy stuff. We'll see how things go in the next few weeks.