Day 4

Two posts in a day... I know, I know, crazy but a bit of a must if we are to catch up with reality. So this would have been Tuesday. Yet again we would wake up late. Well at least that is what I think, as I woke up late and started the day off by heading down to the pool side to enjoy a bit of sun and do some reading. Important to note is that Elli was due to sit 3 exams over the space of 2 days and at this point we thought those two days were Thursday and Friday, so we took it quite easy. Taking in the sun whilst reading...nearly sounds like a holiday some would say. Oh, and to add insult to injury, I forgot to mention that we enjoy breakfast on our sunny balcony.

So having kicked off the day in style and feeling energized, our agent came to pick us up to show us a few apartments. Utterly disappointed after the first two, we mentioned it best not to go any further and told her exactly what we were looking for. She had shown us 2 apartments that were a throw back to Soviet Russia, or so it seemed and one of them even had an Indian toilet. If you aren't familiar with an Indian toilet, it is what we in Europe know as a French roadside toilet...basically a hole in the ground. The funniest part of this was that the owner, who happened to be in the apartment at the time tried to convince us that it was positive, because you could wash your clothes in that cubicle?? WTF?? And by this I mean Why The Face as the legendary Phil Dunphy understands this beautiful acronym. Why would anyone want to wash their clothes in a place that the previous owner may well have used to 'drop off the kids at the pool'...?

So disappointed we returned home with the promise that the agent would have a look at what we wanted and bring us to a nice place that evening. With a slight sense of skepticism we agreed and returned home to wait on her call. In the meantime the wife, who as previously thought that her exams were on Thursday and Friday, found out that the exams were actually on Wednesday and Thursday, so had to start hitting the books a little harder. So whilst the wife studied hard I decided I was starting to look a bit too much like Krusty the clown and decided to shave the old head...

Yep that camera does look good...Hehe, nothing better to do I guess...

 So after snooping around the apartment and trying to find things to do, the wife managed to finish reading up on her exams and the agent was coming around to show us THE apartment, or at least that's what we thought. An hour later, we were pleasantly surprised and were considering putting down an offer for the apartment. It was a brand-new apartment, with two rooms, a bathroom and a bomb shelter... A bomb shelter??? Yes you did read that, a bomb shelter. For some strange reason each apartment has a bomb shelter, which is now mostly used as a storage room, but a storage room with a bomb proof door! As well as that we heard from a friend that they are often used as maids rooms...keep in mind that these are only about 4m² and have no window. Some would call it inhumane, here it's quite normal...

Anyway, so back to the story. Impressed with what we had seen, albeit in the dark, since the owner hadn't yet put in the lights, we thought we'd see what the owner would want. So our agent asked us our price, who informed the owner's agent, who had to ring the owner for feedback. The owner put up a counter-offer and so he discussed it with his agent, who rang our agent, who in turn rang us...as you can imagine, this could go on for a while... As it happens we had agreed on a price, but weren't 100% sure we wanted the apartment and we didn't fancy paying a full months rent as agency fees, so put it on the back burner.

Having dealt with the apartment hunting bit, Elli managed to turn her attention to the up-and-coming exams and came to notice that the calculator she had brought from Belgium wasn't working properly. And so the hunt for a calculator that she needed only started at 21:00 at night... Now, if we had have been in Belgium, there would have been no hope in hell of finding anything, if you didn't know someone, but luckily shops stay open here until 22:00. However, it seemed as if every shop had either sold out or simply didn't have any. So at 21:55 the wife accepted defeat and had decided to do the exam without a calculator... But then, as if a sign from heaven a light appeared in front of us as we went up the escalator... The last shop that was closing up in the shopping centre looked like a colourful Hello Kitty accessories store, but we thought, 'what the hell'. So we headed in and without much hope the wife asked whether they had any calculators and to our surprise he casually answered; 'Ina whicha colour you want?'... Haha, so not only did they seem to be the only store in Singapore that still sold calculators, but they had it in 5 different colours... Such a great and wonderful place we live in...

Feeling as though we had just won the lottery, what a better way than to spend that money...so not only did we end up going home with a calculator and a pair of scissors, but somehow we managed to pick up some more sheets and towels... These are supposedly for the guests...So guests, start booking your tickets already will ye ;-)

Before heading home, we also noticed that not only the climate permits you to play sports outside at night, but that the Singaporeans kindly offer you the facilities to do so for free as well... Thank you Singapore.