Well, a quick recap of part 1
got job - left job - joined university in Singapore - flew to Singapore - went to hostel - opened room
What I saw once my eyes had adjusted to the light inside simply took my breath away. And I mean that quite literally as the smell emanating from within suggested that the world skunk conference was going on within in a garden of rafflesia flowers (refer the links if you do not find that part humorous). I stepped inside gingerly on the black tiled floor only to realize that the floor was actually white tiled (as a stray white patch suggested) and I was walking on what seemed to be (on second thoughts let it be, i don't want anyone to be sick over their keyboards). A description of the apartment would not be amiss here. The front door leads to a drawing and dining room and is connected to two bedrooms on one side whereas the kitchen and toilets are further up ahead. It appeared as if the previous occupants were so distraught upon leaving the flat they decided to carry out an 'Extreme makeover - home edition' on the apartment itself to prepare it for the new occupants. Upon reaching the kitchen, that ambrosial scent which had greeted me at my entry became almost overbearing and I could finally trace its origin to the fridge. Now, the previous occupants had very thoughtfully left behind a full stash of food (mostly dairy products) and then even more thoughtfully, had proceeded to switch off the fridge after placing all the food inside. I won't proceed to give a description of how the milk and curd looked (just in case someone pukes)..lets just say it was in such a severe degree of decomposition that if I drank that I probably would have mutated into something in the leagues of the Hulk. And to top it all, as a final addition of insult to injury, a broom was left behind by the owners (very thoughtfully) and was reclining majestically against the kitchen wall.
Well, I believe I gave you all a fair picture of the spectacle that greeted me on my arrival here. Encouraging isn't it...for someone on his first day in a foreign country. Anyways, after getting assurances from the management that the room would be cleaned by noon, we somehow managed to freshen up and went looking out for lunch. Who knew another (mis)adventure awaited us there. Now Singapore has these big food centers known as kopitiams where different kinds of food are sold under one roof and every shopping centre here has one. So we had one right behind our hostel, so we off we went and the first stall which we encountered proclaimed very proudly in bold letters its haute cuisine "PIGS ORGAN SOUP". Ahem, not a very auspicious start to our mission is it. Enterprising non-veg food lover that I am, I do draw a line between the stuff I find edible and the ones nauseating. Needless to say this item falls in the latter category (you can imagine the reaction of my friend who happens to be a pure vegetarian). Looking back over the events that had transpired after I landed at the hostel (first the room and then this), I wondered whether this some well planned conspiracy against us (by the prior occupants of our room, probably) to make us catch the return flight to India ASAP. Well, we were not going to give up so easily. After a full round of the market and surveying all the stalls (majority of which we observed, served some stuff in bowls in which floated some unknown creatures of the deep), I finally managed to find a stall selling fried chicken and rice (aah, finally something known to me). My friend however was not so lucky, and his first lunch in Singapore consisted of a loaf of bread, jam and milk. Well, by the time we got back to the hostel (which was cleaned up now, mercifully) my friend was already suffering from a severe bout of depression. I was also not exactly in the best of spirits - if this was a taste of the things to come, how was I going to survive here for 4 years ? Well, it appeared that we could only hope for things to change for the better and leave the rest in the hands of fate....
got job - left job - joined university in Singapore - flew to Singapore - went to hostel - opened room
What I saw once my eyes had adjusted to the light inside simply took my breath away. And I mean that quite literally as the smell emanating from within suggested that the world skunk conference was going on within in a garden of rafflesia flowers (refer the links if you do not find that part humorous). I stepped inside gingerly on the black tiled floor only to realize that the floor was actually white tiled (as a stray white patch suggested) and I was walking on what seemed to be (on second thoughts let it be, i don't want anyone to be sick over their keyboards). A description of the apartment would not be amiss here. The front door leads to a drawing and dining room and is connected to two bedrooms on one side whereas the kitchen and toilets are further up ahead. It appeared as if the previous occupants were so distraught upon leaving the flat they decided to carry out an 'Extreme makeover - home edition' on the apartment itself to prepare it for the new occupants. Upon reaching the kitchen, that ambrosial scent which had greeted me at my entry became almost overbearing and I could finally trace its origin to the fridge. Now, the previous occupants had very thoughtfully left behind a full stash of food (mostly dairy products) and then even more thoughtfully, had proceeded to switch off the fridge after placing all the food inside. I won't proceed to give a description of how the milk and curd looked (just in case someone pukes)..lets just say it was in such a severe degree of decomposition that if I drank that I probably would have mutated into something in the leagues of the Hulk. And to top it all, as a final addition of insult to injury, a broom was left behind by the owners (very thoughtfully) and was reclining majestically against the kitchen wall.
Well, I believe I gave you all a fair picture of the spectacle that greeted me on my arrival here. Encouraging isn't it...for someone on his first day in a foreign country. Anyways, after getting assurances from the management that the room would be cleaned by noon, we somehow managed to freshen up and went looking out for lunch. Who knew another (mis)adventure awaited us there. Now Singapore has these big food centers known as kopitiams where different kinds of food are sold under one roof and every shopping centre here has one. So we had one right behind our hostel, so we off we went and the first stall which we encountered proclaimed very proudly in bold letters its haute cuisine "PIGS ORGAN SOUP". Ahem, not a very auspicious start to our mission is it. Enterprising non-veg food lover that I am, I do draw a line between the stuff I find edible and the ones nauseating. Needless to say this item falls in the latter category (you can imagine the reaction of my friend who happens to be a pure vegetarian). Looking back over the events that had transpired after I landed at the hostel (first the room and then this), I wondered whether this some well planned conspiracy against us (by the prior occupants of our room, probably) to make us catch the return flight to India ASAP. Well, we were not going to give up so easily. After a full round of the market and surveying all the stalls (majority of which we observed, served some stuff in bowls in which floated some unknown creatures of the deep), I finally managed to find a stall selling fried chicken and rice (aah, finally something known to me). My friend however was not so lucky, and his first lunch in Singapore consisted of a loaf of bread, jam and milk. Well, by the time we got back to the hostel (which was cleaned up now, mercifully) my friend was already suffering from a severe bout of depression. I was also not exactly in the best of spirits - if this was a taste of the things to come, how was I going to survive here for 4 years ? Well, it appeared that we could only hope for things to change for the better and leave the rest in the hands of fate....
P.S: Things did change for the better. We had everything in control within one week and the whole place is so systematic and well organised that we had adjusted in no time. After all, I write this post as I complete almost 6 months of stay here.
Well, that's a description of my first day in Singapore. I'll keep on publishing posts about the surprising (and sometimes shocking) things I encountered here in the coming months (don't worry, I shall be writing about other stuff as well, this is not a blog exclusively dedicated to Singapore :) ). Till my next post then, Ciao...
2 comments:
Hey dada.. good write up.. keep it up
"Mutated to hulk", "World Skunk conference"..
F***ing hilarious, almost laughed my guts out.
@above
hey vamzee..
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