2003/01/03
Chi-Wah and Ann have already arrived and left and as such these entries are actually a bit post-dated, but not expired. Anyways, the first day after they arrived I had an exciting day not only hanging out with them and their Sing friends (who I will talk more about later) but also because I managed to lose my keys on New Year's day. A funny way to start the new year.
So I left my keys somewhere in Clarke Quay and managed to return to NUS after the day's activities. I slipped into the faculty lounge and worked for a tiny bit before deciding it was just too hard to stay awake for another day doing work. So I looked up the nearest hotel (btw, most of the hotels in the yellow pages were in Geylang, just statistically speaking... which was funny because I only learned the day before it is the red-light district of Singapore), which is a small inn off of the NUS campus. My friend Yi had stayed there when she came to visit Singapore when I was interviewing here at the end of March last year.
Anyways, I took the taxi there, and found out that they needed proper ID to let me stay in the hotel. This is quite different than in the US, where they will take anyone, regardless of their background, if their credit is ok. So, I walked the thirty minutes back to the NUS campus to sleep in the faculty lounge (which was pretty okay, actually, because the lounge is air-conditioned and has a small sofa with removeable cushions.
I woke up the next morning to the alarm clock built in to the handphone and started working for a while. Our administration officer, Theresa, came in and found me here bright and early, working from the faculty lounge. She was actually the right person to ask about getting a spare set of keys for the office and so I was able to go back into my office and pick up the second set of keys for the apartment. So I'm okay for now.
So I left my keys somewhere in Clarke Quay and managed to return to NUS after the day's activities. I slipped into the faculty lounge and worked for a tiny bit before deciding it was just too hard to stay awake for another day doing work. So I looked up the nearest hotel (btw, most of the hotels in the yellow pages were in Geylang, just statistically speaking... which was funny because I only learned the day before it is the red-light district of Singapore), which is a small inn off of the NUS campus. My friend Yi had stayed there when she came to visit Singapore when I was interviewing here at the end of March last year.
Anyways, I took the taxi there, and found out that they needed proper ID to let me stay in the hotel. This is quite different than in the US, where they will take anyone, regardless of their background, if their credit is ok. So, I walked the thirty minutes back to the NUS campus to sleep in the faculty lounge (which was pretty okay, actually, because the lounge is air-conditioned and has a small sofa with removeable cushions.
I woke up the next morning to the alarm clock built in to the handphone and started working for a while. Our administration officer, Theresa, came in and found me here bright and early, working from the faculty lounge. She was actually the right person to ask about getting a spare set of keys for the office and so I was able to go back into my office and pick up the second set of keys for the apartment. So I'm okay for now.
