I wake up at 5:30am due to all the extra sleep I got yesterday evening and overnight. Breakfast doesn’t start till 7 and I bought the wrong converter which won’t take my laptop plug, which has now died. Luckily, the lobby has a computer which guests can use for free. I hang out on there for awhile and check email and chat with my mom on gmail. It is very weird because of the time change, I am talking to her yesterday evening.
Breakfast in the little kitchen area is help yourself style and then wash your own dishes. Options are bread, peanut butter, jelly, butter, biscuits (like shortbread cookie/crackers), little bananas, and coffee. After breakfast, I walk around Little India. I don’t want to get too lost so I stay on one road for a long while and walk to the next block and back. It is too early and everything is closed so there’s not much to see. This area is all local Indians, so I got lots of looks while walking around. Definitely out of my comfort zone but it’s a small baby step at 7:30 in the morning on my first full day in Singapore.
I go back and get some coffee in the little kitchen and there is a girl by herself maybe around my age who was definitely not a local. I chat it up with her and find out she is from London doing a three week trip with her friends to the Asian countries, one of which they have a friend getting married in. Oh how I love the English accent!
I am being picked up at 1pm by my cousin’s friend to show me the train system (called the MRT) and how to get to my workplace. I spend the rest of the morning between my fiction novel and the hotel computer with their delicious instant coffee on hand.
The MRT system is super easy to understand and get around. Also very inexpensive. Once we get into the MRT system and into the business district, the culture is much more diverse and you see every ethnicity imaginable. Singapore is really not that big of a city (it’s technically a city-state); to give you an idea, you could take the train from one end to the other in about an hour or so and you can get to Malaysia in about that amount of time.
I meet with my new doctor in person for the first time. Just like I had on the Skype interview, I instantly feel comfortable with her. She is the cutest lady from Austria, went to undergraduate and chiropractic school in Cali, practiced in Thailand for awhile, then practiced in Singapore for the last four years. She is pregnant and due at the end of May. Her goal is to not come back to work at all. She wants to stay at home with the baby and do business/marketing stuff from home. Her last day will be May 7th. We will train for the next two weeks then I will be on my own. There is a two month probation period; if everything goes well then I will be here for however long life keeps me here. I am super excited for this opportunity and to explore a new place.
After I meet with my doc, I meet up with another chiropractor and his wife who are friends with someone I went to school with. It is comforting having some Americans to talk to, especially one who is a chiropractor who has worked here for the last 6 months. They are super cool and have traveled many places since graduation, including a four month trip of Mexico. We go to one of the hostel bars and have a beer and I learn all I can about living in Singapore. Turns out this is one of the easiest countries to move to and get everything set up (banking, phone, etc). They help me get a local cell phone and advisement on banking. Since I have a two month probation period, rather than try to get a place yet, I am either going to stay with my new chiro friend and wife if they have a room at their new place or live in the hostel. I was always weary of staying in a hostel since I never have before, but they reassured me the hostels here are SO safe. Tomorrow they are going to take me to visit one that they have been to that is close to my work.
Goodnight World!
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