On Sunday night, we went for some great food in Little India and you can see some of it on the post under Food & Drink. This post is more about the walk through Little India and some of the cultural differences here. Little India, once our cab got us to the right place, was packed with people on all the road sides and the parks in the area. There were thousands of people bustling about, walking to a fro, and I am not really sure where they were all headed! Most of the Indians here are the blue collar workers from what I have seen as we wander around. This Country and especially the central part of the city where we live is constantly under construction! There are literally 4 high-rises, some offices and some residential, being built within 2 blocks of where we live. As you venture forth, you’ll see tens and tens of buildings under construction. I saw a small trailer selling condos for a building that hasn’t even broken ground!

But what I really notice is the construction workers appear northern Indian. The same group that is crowding around Little India on a Sunday night before the work week starts on Monday. Actually, construction here is 7 days per week but luckily not 24 hours per day. Each day you’ll see small trucks with open backs ferrying the workers back and forth. You’ll also see a large number of scooters or motorbikes by each site as this is an easy way to get around. One nice thing to see at each site is the amount of signs promoting safety in a number of languages and you don’t hear about too many accidents considering the amount of work. We believe most come in with special short term visas meant to encourage low-cost immigrant labor. It is a necessary thing for a country 3x as big as Washington DC but building like crazy!

Can you believe it has been just over two weeks now that we have been in our apartment and almost three that we have been in Singapore? Seems time has been flying by. I might be repeating some i formation here but I like to list some of the unusual things about apartment living – even in a high-rise that is less than 5 years old!

Water. Water is purchased and piped in from a nearby country and therefore it is very valuable and should not be wasted. To help in this regard, hot water is something often ‘switched on’ and in a limited water heater tank so that you are not spending 30 minutes in a hot shower! There is a switch by each of our bathrooms that you turn on to activate the hot water and it takes about 15 minutes to fully ramp up. Then it is pretty hot but depending on how long you let it ramp up, your hot shower may last 5 minutes. Granted, most days you really don’t want a super hot shower anyway as it is already fairly warm by the time you get up! I am not sure what happens if you leave the switch on all the time but from what I have read in some other postings, your electricity bill might shoot up or the water may be way too hot. The latter I have noticed once or twice if we forget to turn the switch off for the day.

Switches. Actually this is a smart idea – each electrical outlet has its own on/off switch. This is a pain if you forget at night and you think you are charging your iPhone but after learning the hard way once or twice, you pick up the habit. In countries that don’t have the switch, such as the US, your small charger even though not in use is still draining some power. Turning off the switch at the actual socket helps stop this drain which over time can save some money and is much greener!

More water. In case I forget to mention it later, there is no garbage disposal in the kitchen and in fact, the two sinks both have very small holes in the drain covers therefore any extra food or such must go in the trash. At least the trash chute is just down the hall but like many things here, it is small. Think about a shoe box. Your trash bag can’t be bigger than that to get in the chute. This is another habit I have picked up – to walk the trash out every day when I go venture forth! Luckily one day while wandering around the building I found the loading dock with its large trash containers and the recycle bins.

All in all similar to most places as long as you remember your hot water!