Pre-departure Preparations

Nes and I did a lot of walking over the weekend. Showed him around Orchard Road in Lucky Plaza, Wisma Atria, Tang's, Ngee Ann City and Plaza Singapura. At night, I got invited by his friend Stephan, to watch the Germany-Sweden game near Capital Square. Can you believe it, I missed the only two goals of the game, and I was just late about ten minutes!

Sunday, we went to IKEA to pick out initial things to put in our apartment. I chose a nice bed with lots of space underneath so that the storage boxes I had shipped here can fit. Mattress, mattress pad, quilt cover set w/ pillowcases, pillows, and probably the matching bedside table. I'll probably go back there and buy it so that they can deliver and assemble it next week, before I get back. So at least on July 10, I have a bed to sleep on.

So I flipped through catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set defines me as a person? (Fight Club reference). But then I really did just that. I'm looking at some shelves also. First, I have to measure some spaces in the apartment. Really interesting experience.

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Got my Employment Pass and disembarkation/embarkation card today. Sweet!

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Today I opened an account in Citibank and all I got was this lousy card that has my name, account type, and account number scribbled by the bank officer. After doing a lot of waiting, and a cup of coffee, two sugars, and two coffemates, he promised me the debit/ATM card in a few weeks(!) time. I hope my credit card application also gets approved.

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McDonald's for lunch. Chicken Fold-over Meal for $6.95. Pretty good. Tastes like chicken shawarma. I really think I'm getting fat by insisting on always finishing my food (with slightly large servings here). That's cause it's relatively expensive when I convert to pesos (a habit I should stop soon). Take that meal for example, $6.95 = P233.00. You better believe I should finish it after spending that much for lunch.

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After work, passed by some malls. In one particular mall, Midpoint Orchard, I think, there's a DVD place selling pretty rare Criterion Collection which the owner probably ordered off Amazon. Akira Kurosawa boxed set. Masculin Et Feminin. In The Mood For Love. I even told him, "You have a pretty good selection(-lah)". "Well, we try", he answered proudly. I told him that I would come back next week with money even though I had some in my wallet. What I did was that I scribbled the prices on my XDA to compare it with Amazon prices online. Lo and behold, they were rip-off prices, waaaay above Amazon's listed prices, not to mention the standard discount. So that's the end of that idea. Pity.

Ate a Pepperoni hotdog and Orange Julius original orange smoothie combo for dinner. It's turning out to be a bad idea, as I am getting hungry now. I'm still up savoring the rest of my stay in Treetops. I checkout on Thursday. Fly to Manila on Friday. PR504, ETA 4:40PM at NAIA Terminal 2.

Nes gets my shipment stuff on Saturday, probably the IKEA ones too. Swish. Getting adjusted fine at work. Swish. Everything falling into place now.