Monthly Archive
Browsing entries posted on December 2004
Random acts of goodness
Well! It appears that not everyone in Singapore is heartless, kiasu and selfish. Of course generalizations are never accurate, but if your faith in humanity needs a little bolstering, read on. All this happened to me in the space of 1 hour!
I was buying tomatoes at the supermarket. Just that one bag, because it was the only item my committee needed to make sandwiches. I got in the queue, and the man in front of me let me go in front, saying that I didn’t have many items. He had a trolley with a toddler in the seat, so I supposed that it made sense for him to concede to me. I wasn’t the only one, though. An auntie also got to cut queue. I suppose he was waiting for his wife to pick up some additional items, and didn’t want to lose his place in the queue. In this way he created a win-win situation. And became random act of goodness #1.
And when I got to the counter I had another little surprise. The price of the tomatoes came to $1.04, so I gave the cashier $2.05 so I wouldn’t have so many coins. She gave me back the 5 cents, and I thought she was going to give me tons of coins, which actually isn’t cost-effective for the company. However, it turned out that the price was rounded down to 1 dollar, and not rounded up to $1.05 like I thought. Goody! Okay, so this isn’t really an act of human kindness, but it made me that little bit happier anyway. Even if I only saved 4 cents.
ATM passbook updating machines are quite stupid, in my opinion. They can’t help it, but they are. Sometimes your passbook entries end right at the bottom of the page, and when you next update it the machine gets confused. It tells you to turn to the last printed page, but of course the last printed page is full, and it assumes this isn’t the last one but one of the intermediate pages. So you’re caught in a catch-22 situation, and have to get in line for a human bank teller. Sigh.
But today a stupid machine got around its deficient software. I don’t know how or why it did it, but the machine managed to turn the page, go down a few lines and start printing. So while I have a blank space in my book (I hope it won’t be a problem) it’s saved me a trip to the bank. Yay!
And now that I have Skype, I can make free calls to my friends overseas! Take that phone company! And I live in student residence so my internet bill is included in my tuition fees anyway. Life is good.
Thailand tip sheet
I just got back from a 5-day trip to Bangkok and Pattaya. Rather than bore people with details of the tourist attractions I saw, I’d rather give tips on avoiding getting tricked!
Paparazzi:
Upon arrival at any zoos, parks or upon embarking on tours, beware of locals bearing cameras who will point it into your face and snap your surprised mug. The trick is that when you exit, they’ll try to sell you souvenirs with the photo pasted on. I experienced this at the Srirapcha Tiger Zoo (they caught me by surprise) and when I was getting on the speedboat, a cameraman was there as well. But this time I wised up and turned my back to him, ha! They don’t actually mean you any harm, but I don’t approve of such invasions of privacy.
Overpriced goods:
In Pattaya, we took a day trip to Coral Island. The sun and sea are fine, but paying 85 baht for a can of Pringles is not. That’s about double the price I usually pay! And the woman told me her price with a straight face. Whoa. That was absolutely the most ripped-off I’ve ever been. And I don’t think you can bargain there either. My only tip? Don’t buy stuff like that there.
Sanitation:
Repeatedly during the trip I rued the fact that I didn’t buy a bottle of waterless hand sanitizer. It’s not that the toilets are dirty or stuff like that, but soap isn’t usually provided at the sinks. Also, sometimes you may be invited to touch stuff and worry about hygiene later. While boating on the Chao Phraya river, the spray got me on my arm and it started itching. The water is notoriously dirty, so sanitizer comes in handy here. Actually it comes in handy everywhere, so that’s a general tip.
Food:
Tom yam soup isn’t always as spicy as it’s made out to be. Go ahead and try it, but if you’re a spicy junkie like me, you might be occasionally disappointed. And look out for the barbequed bananas. I didn’t try them, so no idea what they’re like.
Dogs on the street:
There are plenty of stray dogs roaming the streets of Bangkok. Some of these look really mangy, but they’re tolerated by locals. They’re also very fond of their pet dogs. Sometimes you can see them carrying their darling canines around. You can also see them selling puppies at markets.
Lucky money:
My sister went to look for a Thai silk scarf, and found it in a shop in Indra Regent. It so happened that the shop had just opened, and my sis was the first ever customer. After she paid the proprietor, the lady took the note and patted it over the rest of her stock, so that they would sell quickly too! That was really interesting.
I don’t pretend to be a Lonely Planet guide, but I think that what you see on a trip that wasn’t on the itinerary is more important than what you are supposed to see (temples, zoos and all).
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