The “Kets” (Cats)

Bradley Farless7 Comments

It was brought to my attention that it’s been quite some time since my furry little friends got to sit in the spotlight here on my blog, so this post is dedicated to them!

We moved recently, and any move affects not only the owners, but the pets as well. Singapore is an interesting place to live for a foreigner, where you constantly have to look for a place to rent out. Having cats adds to that challenge, as a lot of house owners are either afraid of cats, think cats will damage their property, or just don’t want the added hassle when there are plenty of potential tenants that don’t own pets. So, finding a place that was suitable for my wife and I, and that would allow pets, was something of a challenge.

Thankfully, we were able to find a decent place. The downside is that it’s not quite as cozy for our pets. Don’t get me wrong. The place is clean and they have plenty of spots to nap, but the room we’re renting is smaller, and the cats are confined to the bedroom. The owner doesn’t want them running around the whole house and on top of that, the windows and doors aren’t cat proof, so they would make their way out to the street and get dirty, sick, or hurt. We can’t have that! Vet bills are too expensive, and I don’t want to have to worry about them! So, they are confined to our small bedroom for at least the next 3 months. Then we could go about finding another place, if need be.

Getting them over here wasn’t much of a problem, but at first I think they were under the impression we were abandoning them. When I let them out of their cage, the first thing they tried to do was run for the door every time it was opened. Since then, they’ve settled in and are a lot more relaxed.

What’s kicking their butt is the heat. In the last place we lived, I kept the air conditioner going most of the day, so they got used to a cool environment. Here, that’s not an option, as our bill is all inclusive and we have to respect the owner’s desire to only have the air conditioner on at night.

Some photos of the cats, suffering in the heat:

(Sushi and Dapper passed out on the bed.)

(Thumper, draped over the scratch post.)

In the evenings when we turn on the air conditioner, they’re not used to it and they get cold, especially little Thumper. She likes to sleep by our butts when we’re in bed, and when we’re not she gets under the blanket herself:

Sushi

If you’re wondering who Sushi is, since I don’t think I’ve mentioned her before, she’s our new cat. One night about a month ago my wife and I were walking home from dinner at the hawker. We had seen her before and given her something to eat, so she remembered us. I suppose she was hungry, because when she saw us she came to us. Then she literally followed us all the way home, right into the elevator, and right into our house. So, she became part of our group. After she ate, she panicked at first when she realized there was no way for her to get back out, but now she likes living with us. She’s a bit funny though. As soon as the food bowl is empty she freaks out, stalking back and forth, meowing, and jumping up onto the furniture to peer out the window, as if she’s afraid there will never be food here again and she has to go out to hunt for more.

She’s definitely not going to be winning any beauty contests!

But she’s very sweet, and when we moved she made sure she was coming with us!

Sushi really knows how to relax!

Mr. Muggles

You may have noticed that there are no pictures of Mr. Muggles here. I guess I never really blogged about it because it was so sad. In fact, that’s probably why I haven’t blogged about cats in a while.

Mr. Muggles got sick shortly after our return from the Philippines. We got up one morning and he was very … still, I guess. Not his usual playful self. When we checked him out he seemed very cool to the touch. The previous day I had noticed him throw up twice, but I didn’t think much of it, because cats do that sometimes. I decided to take him in to the vet. That afternoon, when I got him to the vet, I was told that they would keep him overnight, and that he should be fine.

Well, he wasn’t fine. We never saw him alive again after the photos above. The next day the vet called us and told us he died. I can’t help but feel that those bastards didn’t keep him warm enough, didn’t make sure he ate, and didn’t give him enough attention. We took him to the vet because I thought they could give him better care than I could, and I still think I could’ve kept him alive if I’d put in the effort. Instead, he’s gone. For their “services” they charged us 100 bucks, and then they had the nerve to ask for another 250 for a special cat cremation where we would receive his ashes in a jar. I told them they’d done quite enough, and we went and collected him later that night and took him to the SPCA. It was a bit unceremonious, but we felt the SPCA would be a bit more gentle and respectful of his remains, since it’s an animal welfare organization, and it was much more gentle on our wallets.

I can’t say I’m all that impressed with vets here as a whole. Every time I take a cat to the vet, I get charged a lot of money with little to no results. I think I’ll just start doing things myself, unless it’s something that requires surgery.

Kets

If you’re wondering about the title of the post, it has to do with how the house owner’s son pronounces the word. When he first heard we were moving in, and that we have cats, he got very excited, and as we brought each load of stuff into the house, he would run up and ask us, “Where your kets!?”

The boy has developed a real liking for our cats, and on days when he doesn’t have school, he sometimes spends the afternoon up here in our bedroom playing with them, which is fine with me. The cats seem to enjoy the attention as much as he enjoys playing with them.

He says he wants “kets” of his own, but his mother won’t allow it. I can understand that. Cats can be ludicrously expensive when you have to add in vet bills on top of regular maintenance bills (litter, food, etc). So, taking on a cat is a big investment.

So, our “kets” have a new friend, a new place to live, and they seem to be getting along fine. ^_^

Cats Hate Ear Drops

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Like I mentioned in the last post, having cats can be incredibly expensive, especially if they get sick or hurt and start incurring medical bills.  So, you have to be careful about how many you adopt, even if you want to take in every single one you see on the street.  As great as it sounds, you could fast find your wallet empty.  We do our best to take care the cats we have now.  It’s hard not to want to make sure they’re in perfect health when they’re this cute:

The newest affliction to hit my cats is a case of ear mites or ear fungus or something.  I’m not entirely sure, but I know it must have come into the house with Sushi.  That’s one of the bad things about bringing in strays.  You have to give everyone a flea and tick bath (unless you’re using Frontline or a similar product on your other pets) and then you have to fix everything that’s wrong with him or her.  Sushi has a bad cough, which has already cost us around 200 bucks in medications.  Now I find that all of my cats are scratching at their ears.

I didn’t really notice it until Thumper started going nuts and scratching at her right ear for an excessively long time.  When I checked, she had scratched her skin raw and was even bleeding.  So, I broke out the ear drops.  Applying the ear drops was a bit harder than I expected.  Thumper kept trying to get away.  Luckily, she’s still small and easy to control.  It’s not that hard squirting it in, but keeping them from shaking their heads long enough for me to massage the base of the ear to work it in was a pain in the ass, to be honest.  Sushi, who probably needs it the most, was the hardest to deal with.  She’s bigger, stronger, and, unlike Thumper, not afraid to use her claws.  I wound up having to practically sit on her and squish her between my legs to keep her in position for the application and massaging.

Neither cat was happy about it, but Thumper was especially pissed.  She kept her ears lowered for hours afterwards:

By the way, all three cats love that red bed, but Thumper has more or less staked her claim on it.

Air Conditioning: US vs Singapore & Philippines

Bradley Farless7 Comments

Living in the US, I got accustomed to central air conditioning.  Besides the fact that it’s generally cooler in the US than it is in Singapore, the idea of having your air conditioner on all day long is culturally acceptable in most parts of the country.  The air conditioner is simply set to maintain a certain temperature.  It’s a set and forget type of deal, and some even have timers that will automatically disable it during the hours when no one is in the house.  When someone is in the house though, it’s on, and that’s just normal.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that the same air conditioning usage patterns aren’t only uncommon, but are seen as socially unacceptable, or at the least unusual or a waste of money, in Asia?  Doesn’t make sense right?  Especially since it’s so much hotter here.  Besides that, houses in the US are built with insulation in mind.  The buildings I’ve been in here in Singapore and in the Philippines seem to be plain cinder block and plaster, with no sort of insulation at all.  That means the buildings build up heat during the day and then maintain it through the majority of the night. The place I’m living now stays at an average of 33 C (91.4 F) all day long, and all night long too.  We’ve even come in at 1 AM, having left the window cracked all day, and seen that it still read 32 C on the temperature gauge on the AC remote.

A typical family in Singapore (based on what I’ve seen) will only turn on the air conditioner at night, after they’ve showered, when they’re about to get in bed.  During the rest of the day and evening, they simply leave the windows open and use a lot of fans.  Also, the air conditioners here aren’t central, with vents in each room.  They’re either window mounted units, or they’re the type that mount outside and have smaller ‘control’ units inside the bedrooms.

That’s another thing I wanted to mention.  The air conditioners in Singapore are typically only located in bedrooms.  From what I’ve seen myself, and heard from my wife, it’s basically the same in the Philippines, if the family even owns an air conditioner at all.  The difference there, though, is that most parts of the Philippines are a lot cooler than Singapore.

At my last place, I would run the air conditioner almost non-stop.  I wasn’t acclimated to the weather here and it was just so damn hot all the time that it seemed impractical to open the windows.  Plus, the air conditioner provided with the room was a piece of shit (see the photo below). Who wants to sit in their own house sweating like they’re in a sauna?  Not to mention that high temperatures can’t be good for electronics.


(This POS, tiny AC was meant to cool a master’s bedroom. Even blasting on maximum, with the temperature set to the minimum, the room would rarely cool below 30 C (86 F))

Another thing to note is that I read on Jonna Wibelius blog, SHE in China, that in China they only turn on the air conditioners during certain seasons.  It reminded me of the way they did it in schools in the US.  I remember days when it was incredibly hot, but the scheduled day for the air conditioners to be turned on hadn’t arrived yet.  The same with the heaters.

I’m constantly finding new things that amaze me about the differences between Asian and American culture, what is and isn’t considered socially acceptable, and the way people live here.

Amigos; Western Food

Bradley Farless9 Comments

When I moved to Asia I knew I was going to be giving up a few things. One of those things was easy access to cow meat. Singapore doesn’t have much in the way of cheap beef, or reasonably priced steaks. Or, so I thought.

During my first visit to Singapore in March of 2008 I saw that a typical diet here consists of mostly chicken, pork, or fish and rice or noodles with a small portion of some green leafy vegetable. Soups containing those ingredients are also popular. That’s pretty much all I’ve eaten for the last year as well. Not that I’m complaining! A lot of those dishes are delicious! But, I had a craving for something a bit more solid than that, and the last time I had a good amount of beef was on my birthday in the Philippines in March of this year. Even then it wasn’t a steak dinner as most Americans would envision it.

I had resigned myself to the belief that I would only have a good steak dinner when I was back in the US, so I wasn’t actively looking around for good deals. I didn’t want to break my budget to get something I can easily do without.

When my wife and I first agreed to rent our current place in Pasir Ris, the agent that located the property for us gave us a short tour of the area. Well, actually we went on an hour long walk around a good portion of the neighborhood but it was so exciting that we hardly noticed the distance we covered until we looked at it on a map later.

During this walk, we passed a small shop that was part of a hawker area. It’s called ‘Amigos; Western Food’ and doesn’t have a very impressive exterior, but the agent went into detail about how good the food they serve is. I smiled and nodded, but I wasn’t really convinced, and wasn’t in any hurry to try it. A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with a guy from Egypt, who also had nothing but good things to say about the place.

Last night, my wife and I finally got around to checking it out. Good thing the place is open late, because we didn’t make it over there until about 1am! I think we were the only customers there. We took a look at the menu, and I was surprised to see that there was a steak available for only 13.90, so I ordered it. My wife got a plate of lamb chops, which was also reasonably priced at about 9 dollars or so. Still, it was cheap, so I wasn’t expecting much. I certainly wasn’t expecting something that looked better than the picture on the menu. That’s sort of a joke, where what you order rarely looks as tasty as the picture. This time, the opposite was true, and we were more than pleasantly surprised to find such great looking dishes at a hawker stall.

The lamb chops.

The steak.

So, I suppose the real question is, how did it taste? That was the second surprise. The stuff was better than great! It was fantastic! In anticipation of a potential fail whale, we asked for Tabasco sauce, but we wound up not needing it. As you can see from the pictures above, both dishes came with a sauce. Each had a distinct taste that seemed appropriate to the meat. The potato wedges were also fantastic and the veggies used for the small salad were crisp and fresh. As for the meat, it was tender and had just the right amount of fat on it. My steak was a little undercooked, but it had been so long since I’d had a good steak dinner, and it tasted so good, that I didn’t care. I gobbled the whole thing down, then cleared the rest of the plate, and was very satisfied. My wife and I traded bites of lamb for steak, and her lamb was just as good.

If anyone’s looking for a reasonably priced place to get a great steak or set of lamb chops, this is definitely the place to go!

Seashell Park

Bradley Farless3 Comments

When my wife and I first moved to Pasir Ris we noticed that there are lots of parks in the area.  That’s great, because we enjoy taking walks, or jogging.  Lately, we don’t seem to have time to just wander around on weekdays, but the last two Saturdays we’ve made sure to get out of the house for a while.

Last week, we went to Pasir Ris Park, which was incredible!  That park is huge!  We’re looking forward to going back, but we also wanted to check out the other parks in the area.  So, this week, we decided to take a look at Seashell Park.

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Seashell Park isn’t quite as big as I’d hoped.  We looked through it all in about 20 minutes, in fact.  It’s a small park nestled in behind the shopping center we usually go to for dinner.

The first thing I noticed about Seashell Park is that it seems to be a bit rundown, at least compared to the other parks we’ve walked through in Singapore.  By rundown I don’t mean horribly run down though.  I just mean it hasn’t been well kept up.

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As we walked into the park we were greeted by this fish head under the sign.  It’s a bit hard to read in this photo, but it says “Seashell Park.”  I looked at the fish head and the area around it, and it looks as though there was water flowing through it at some point.  I wonder if there used to be a constant stream of water that sprayed out of it?  As we walked up the stairs to the back of the fish head, we saw that it was fed through a channel from higher up on the hill.  It looked terraced, and each terrace had its own fish head and a channel leading down from the higher area.

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My wife’s theory is that these fish heads are just an artistic way of setting up a good drainage system.  The majority of the park sits at the top of the hill, and it rains a lot in Singapore, so erosion is definitely an issue here.  It makes sense.

One of the best parts of the park is that it has a 400 meter track that runs around the top of the hill.  It’s not completely even, which is nice in a way, because it provides for some variety in your run.  Also, there’s a great view all the way around.  We’ll probably go back there in the future to give it a go.

 

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There is a playground in the park, but I didn’t include any photos of it because it was littered with garbage when we passed through.  I’m sure that’s not common, but … well, even Singapore can become dirty if people don’t take care of things.

Cults in Singapore

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Cults can be dangerous, socially disruptive elements in society.  As such they should be treated with extreme care, to ensure that they’re not planning anything crazy, like blowing something up or destroying the local playground.

When in Singapore, be aware that the following cults have been spotted hanging around a bakery in Pasir Ris:

The Yam Bis Cult

The Suji Bis Cult

Auntie Wants Her Coffee

Bradley Farless5 Comments

(Image Source: Coffee in Malaysia)

This is just something short that I wanted to mention.

Last night my wife and I went up to the shopping area at around midnight to pick up a few things.  There’s a 24 hour Shop ‘n’ Save there!  Afterwards, we dropped by the hawker so I could get a cup of iced Kopi O.  I’m addicted to the stuff.  My wife had some juice.  She likes the Kopi O, but had to get up early for work today, so she had guava juice instead.

Anyhow, as we were sitting there chatting we noticed this little old lady walking up the aisle between the tables.  She must have been about 70 years old and used a cane to help get herself around.  I was surprised that she was out so late.  Like I said, it was around midnight!  Still, it seems like people in Singapore stay out later than anywhere I’ve ever lived.  It has to be because the country is so safe!

This little old lady walked up to a table of young guys next to us and started speaking in Chinese.  I’m not exactly sure what she said, but I picked out the word Kopi O, and I recognized her tone.  She was asking the young guys drinking beer to do an old lady a favor and get her a cup of coffee.

I started imagining the worst case scenario, where the guys would ignore her, or blow her off, or, worse yet, say something rude to her.  That would’ve been quite a scene!  I bet that old lady would have gained retard strength and gone to work on them with her cane.

Instead, it caused a lot of indulgent smiles, and one of the guys got up right away to go get her the coffee she wanted.

I suppose I wasn’t really that surprised.  Asian culture is different from Western culture after all.  There’s a lot more emphasis placed on respect for elders here.  And, in the end, it was somehow satisfying to see this little old lady smiling and laughing over something as simple as being treated to a cup of coffee at the hawker.  I’d like to think I would have done the same for her, if she had asked us instead.

Drinking From A Bag

Bradley Farless2 Comments

When you move abroad you expect to run into things that are different from what you’re accustomed to.  Things like the types of food you’ll find, the language, the customs, and the way people dress.

One thing I didn’t expect however is that “to go” drinks are usually given out in plastic bags.  The first time I saw this was in the Philippines in March of 2008, when I was visiting Margee’s family.  I thought it was really amusing.  The bags are mass produced and shops buy them to put the drinks in.  When you buy a drink, and say you want it “to go” they will open it and pour it into a bag, along with some ice.  Then they’ll drop a straw in, pull the drawstring tight and pass it over to you.

I asked my wife about this and she said it’s because it’s cheaper.  I didn’t get it.  I asked her, “In what way is it cheaper for them to have to hand out an additional plastic bag?”  So she told me that there are deposits on the bottles and cans.  If you get a drink and take the bottle or can with you, you have to pay for the deposit as well as the drink, and it’s inconvenient, or sometimes not possible, to return the container to get the deposit.  So, to avoid that, the stores pour the drinks in bags and handle the return of the containers themselves.

I later found the same to be true in Singapore at hawker centers.  When you get a drink to go, it’s most often poured into a plastic bag.  The hawker centers use the bags not only for drinks from cans or containers, but for the drinks they make themselves, like the local iced Kopi.  I imagine it’s cheaper for them to use the bags than to use paper cups.  I also imagine it’s more about being able to put ice in the drink than having something to do with a deposit in Singapore.

I’ve seen people carrying everything in these little bags: juice, soda, coffee, and even beer (in the Philippines).  It took a while to get used to, and it was a bit strange to carry one around myself, but I’ve become accustomed to it.

Oh, and one other thing about “to go” orders.  Here in Singapore it’s referred to as “take-away.”  When I first got here I would sometimes ask for something “to go” and the person taking my order would just give me a blank look and ask again if I wanted my order “for here” or “take-away.”  In the Philippines, it’s referred to as “take-out.”

Sometimes it’s small things like that, that remind you of how far from home you are.

Two Tiered Bicycle Stands

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Everyone knows that in Asia, bicycles are used quite frequently as a means of transportation.  It’s even used in jokes occasionally, but it’s true.  People do use bikes quite a bit, for quite a few reasons, here in Singapore at least.  It’s cheaper, as opposed to buying, fueling, and maintaining a car.  It’s also smaller and easier to park or store.  In fact, there are some foldable bikes here that you can take on the buses with you.  That could be perfect for a family outing to a nice park that you want to bike through, but that’s too far away to bike to.  Plus, it’s a great way to get where you want to go and get some exercise at the same time.

The problem with having so many bike riders is that there’s rarely enough room to accommodate all of the parked bicycles, especially in major traffic hubs or around the malls.  For example, if you go to the Tampines MRT area, you’ll see bicycles jammed in at the bike racks, but you’ll also see bicycles chained to poles, fences, gates, or basically anything that’s stuck to the ground.  In some extreme cases you’ll find bicycles that aren’t chained to anything at all, but just have a chain through the wheel spokes instead, because there’s just no space available.

It all seemed crazy and amusing to me and I never really gave it any thought.  Apparently, someone did though.  At the Pasir Ris MRT station there are also bike racks, but the bike racks there are two tiered.  I guess they figured that if there wasn’t enough horizontal space to accommodate all of the bicycles, they could go vertical with them.  It looked like it worked well too.  There was more space to park bikes, and as a result, the area looked a lot nicer and neater, which seems to be something Singapore as a whole looks highly upon.

This isn’t the only measure I’ve seen to accommodate the bicycle riders in Singapore, but it’s definitely the neatest.  There are also bicycle only lanes that run parallel to sidewalks on most major roads, as well as Park Connectors that run between major parks in different regional areas.  Also, there is a wide path that follows the MRT tracks that seems to get used pretty heavily by cyclists.  I think I noticed a bicycle lane there as well.

Pasir Ris Park

Bradley Farless1 Comment

My wife and I enjoy getting out of the house when possible, and we’re interested in finding new ways to get some exercise.  It was only natural that we would find ourselves in Pasir Ris Park sooner than later, considering how close it is to our house.

When I looked at the map of Singapore, Pasir Ris seemed to be such a big area.  I was sure that we would have to take a bus to get anywhere.  That doesn’t seem to be the case though.  We can walk to either of the two malls in Pasir Ris in about 15 minutes and there are two parks close to us.  One is the Pasir Ris Town Park, which is just around the corner.  We’re planning on checking it out in a few days.  The bigger one is Pasir Ris Park, the one that borders on the water.  That’s about a 25 to 30 minute walk from our house, but it’s well worth the trip.

We entered the park through one of the larger walkways and we were greeted with the fantastic sign pictured at the top of the post.  We didn’t get to see everything, not by a long-shot, but we really got to stretch our legs.  Don’t let the map fool you!  It’s bigger than it looks!

What stood out to me the most about the park wasn’t just it’s well manicured appearance, but how lively it was.  The place was packed with people, all engaged in their own activities.  I saw groups of friends rollerskating, couples walking under the trees or sitting on benches, joggers, bikers, people walking, kids playing, and even one football (soccer) game.  Oh, and there were campers and fishers too!  Everywhere I looked there were people, out having a good time!

It gave the place a very lively feel that made walking through it a joy, despite the heat.  In fact, my wife and I have decided that it will be our primary jogging location in Pasir Ris.  It looks like you could spend weeks going to the park to jog and rarely cross the same path, other than the main junctions where the bridges are.

Below are some great photos I got of the park!