DIY Sushi

Well 2nd week down and I haven't killed anyone yet. This week I have mostly been eating sushi, well once, but it was an unusual experience. I am not sure if this is normal or just this shop's extra effort at obtaining an "A" hygiene rating. I ordered what was ultimately some very tasty sushi and took it back to my desk noticing it was wrapped in plastic, just another Singapore hygiene thing I thought. But no, it turns out the seaweed paper thingy was wrapped in plastic around the contents, meaning I had to somehow pull it out of the plastic, roll it all up without getting bits of rice caught under my PC's space bar or worse still in my eyes or ears. It was only after the second one was messily put together in a kind of badly rolled cigar fashion and my desk smeared in mayonnaise that I realised there were instructions in Japanese on how to do this on the wrapper, but the pictures were helpful. So the remainder was put together pretty well I thought. Apart from the fact that I was able to remove all traces of Beelzebub's Penis (Cucumber) from the sushi, I found the whole experience a little unsatisfactorily so don't think I'll be back.
This week's hot tip on the way to the train is "Inconsiderate behaviour has consequences", again I am puzzled as to why they are already putting posters up for when our friends visit. Obviously they are aware that Giles will be possibly be visiting at some point at short notice, so have put the posters up now as a contingency. I was also reminded to "Speak good English" bit hard for an Aussie that tends to mumble.
We are continuing to look at apartments, actually by we I mean Reidy, who has seem some interesting places but is quickly becoming jack of the whole painful process. Our shipping container arrives next week and I am not sure it will fit in our temporary serviced apartment so we had better sort our poo out this weekend. We have also voted each other off the island so we need to go and check out the surrounding countries of a weekend instead of looking at crap apartments.
Last week I mentioned the National Day parade practice, well you're not going to believe it but it was on again last weekend as well including the tanks in the CBD again, jet fighters overhead and fireworks at night. It turns out that by the time the day comes around on August 9 they would have practised every Saturday for 8 weeks leading up to it. I suspect there will also be posters up shortly to tell people to "Look surprised and Happy on National Day" Anyway it's our first public holiday here and we're going to a BBQ, which is very exciting as we are now interviewing for new friends as none of you could be bothered coming over with us.
Happy weekends!

Greetings From Sing

Apologies for the delay in getting back in contact with you all, after considerable pain I have finally managed to get myself on line. Getting my user accounts moved from Aus has been an interesting exercise in patience and understanding the cultural divide, and as a result I have learned I have none of either.
Singapore itself has been disturbingly easy to come to grips with, it is as clean and efficient as everyone thinks and is warm and moist as my pants. But that said we were a little surprised to see tanks and missile launchers rumbling through the CBD last Saturday. An interesting welcome to our new home, but it turns out it was part of the rehearsal for National day in August. In keeping in line with the efficient reputation the rehearsal is not just a quick walk through, it was a full dress rehearsal including thousands of kids in school uniform. But in doing so they managed to cut off the whole of the city and we of course got caught on the wrong side and had to wait 2 hours to be allowed through. Reidy was not impressed from an event management perspective and had some less than flattering observations liberally punctuated with sexual swear words of their ability to put on this sort of event.
Catching the train to work on the first day was interesting, posters on the wall reminded me to be curteous and apparently being forgetful has consequences. It just goes to show how organised they are here, they already have posters up for when John Burrows visits and he hasn't even booked a flight. It is a little off putting though when you get off the station at City Hall and are greeted by Police brandishing machine guns, it makes the English underground police wondering around with excited beagles look a little half arsed in their approach to deterring terrorists.
Anyway must scoot, enjoy or hope you enjoyed your weekend depending on when you read this.