My Recent Adventures....

Okay… It’s been a while since I last wrote an entry and it hasn’t been because I have nothing to write about. On the contrary in fact, I have been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to keep the blog updated.

So since I last wrote I took a trip to Desaru, Malaysia where some friends and I sat on the beach and vegged out for a couple of days. It wasn’t the most exciting trip in the world, but it was exactly what I was looking for. I read a book, got a little bit of a tan, rode jet skis, ate some great food and even got a little hike in up to a waterfall. It was a great time of relaxation 

and good company.

Life at work has been all but relaxing as we are seeing the fruits of the GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS every day. The market has been volatile to say the least since the first of the banks went down and it is actually somewhat good news for our company in Singapore and as a whole as the majority of the cost to make a tire are raw materials and they will be declining with all of the commodities around the world. The prices for rubber will hit the limit that they allow for it to fall in a single day and then be back up the next. Overall, the price for rubber has fallen as much as 50% from the record highs we were experiencing right after my arrival in Singapore and many think we still have some to go. The major producing countries have recently reacted by trying their best to put out the impression in the market that supplies will be limited to keep the prices from falling. However, as many conferences that they hold or articles that they have written… the local farmer still needs to put food on his table tomorrow and he is not likely to restrict his small contribution to the supply. And the majority of the market is made up of individual farmers. The rubber price has shown astounding gains over the past 10 years and prior to this recent downtrend, and was undoubtedly over priced for what the bottom line of the farming and production. Just today with more news from surrounding government regulators the market jumped to a limit up in the morning session. 20 minutes in to the afternoon session we were back at a zero change from the previous close. Just to put that in perspective: limit change in one day is 16 US cents per KG and the average lot size is 100.8 metric tons… so I saved over $16,000 per lot by staying out of the market this morning (we usually purchase 15-30 lots in a normal day). I’ve included some pics of my co-workers here… they are all great!

I have been hanging out a bunch with all kinds of friends from all over the world. It has really been a blast getting to know so many diverse people and I know that I have only seen the tip of the iceberg. I have also spent a good amount of time discovering the city. Looking around every corner and wondering down every alleyway. One of these journeys took me into the Singapore president’s house that they open up for a “white house tour” of sorts on local holidays.

The Wakeboard Tour comes to Singapore!

Another adventure that I caught was the wakeboard tour’s stop in Singapore. I always been a huge fan of wakeboarding and there for a while during college was going quite often. I hardly get to get out anymore and haven’t been since I’ve been in Singapore, but it was great to get to see some of the big names (Rusty Malinosky, Dallas Friday, etc) and feel like I was at home for a bit. They even set up an inflatable pool cable park for a rails competition that produced some epic spills.

This last weekend I got the chance to join a group of traders for a golf outing. I was up and at the port by 7am to meet the group and catch our ferry. We took an hour long ferry ride over to Batam, Indonesia where we were picked up and were out of the course by 8. The round was great. I got the chance to spend some time with some of the other guys and not learn too much (other than golf skills), but just establish better relationships and joke around that will then carry over into the work week. After the round we headed back into the massive club house where we were treated to a nice shower, messages and big meal. By the time we played, laughed and ate… we all slept on the ferry ride home just before night fall.

Well, those are just a couple of examples of my recent adventures. I miss everyone and wish that I could see them, but I am also enjoying my time overseas. I promise not to be so long in between entries. In fact, I will follow this one up quickly as I will have to let you know about my trip to Kuala Lumpur this Friday to attend a dinner for work!

Rush Hour

So instead of writing about what I have done day by day, I figured that it might be a little more interesting if I explain Singapore experiences that I encounter (ie. subway, food, etc) and parts of the city that I explore. And then if I ever have a trip or something out of the ordinary, then I will write about that as well.

The first topic that I’ve decided to write about is the trek that I make to work daily. I will eventually get a car (Toyota Corolla!), but I have to make it without for now while the car is in process.

I try and get out by about 7.45 AM. I have about a 5 min walk from the hotel to the Somerset MRT (Mass Rapid Transit System) station. I pass mostly food shops on the way along with the Sing Tel building (largest telecommunications provider here) and a skate park right above the station.

Once I go underground at this MRT station like most I have to walk a little ways to get to where the trains actually are. Underground it is like a mall of sorts with convenient stores, all kinds of food shops and about any other store you can think of. Depending on the time I am guessing, the MRT can be less or more busy, but every time I have been over the past week it is just floods of people going in every direction. To enter the part of the station where the trains come and go I have a card that I have put some money on and keep in my wallet that I swipe in front of a reader on one of the many turn stalls and it opens. A train arrives about every 5 minutes and I guess since I am pretty close into the city the trains are completely packed already when they arrive. I just have to ride the wave of people pushing themselves onto the train everyone with their Ipods in, newspaper in hand, and a briefcase slung around their shoulder. One in every 10-15 is about my height most likely being European, Australian, American or just a really big Asian… and I usually make eye contact and we give a slight nod as to say, I know how you feel.

I only have 3 stops to go before I arrive at Raffles Place and I usually try and stay pretty to myself. I have the Shins, Norah Jones, Bright Eyes or something of the sort going in my Ipod and I try and situate the newspaper that was left for me outside my hotel room door to where I can read a portion of that day’s top story. I get off of the MRT very similar to how I got on... just riding the wave of people all trying to exit the same station.

I got lost the first day because I did not realize how crucial it was to pay attention to where you are exiting the station. Like I mentioned before, there can be full mall type areas and a long way to walk underground depending on where you are headed compared to where the train portion of the station might be. The walk to the most reasonable exit for me is a good 10 minutes walk passing 3 or 4 others where the crowd lessons and lessons with each exit that I pass. I finally emerge from the MRT at One Raffles Quay (pronounced key) and just have to go across the street to the building where I work.

There is construction just about anywhere you go in the city not excluding right next to my building. They are currently building on-ramps on either side of the road that will feed an over pass leading to a state of the art casino set to open in about a year and a half (1 of 2 casinos they are currently building in Singapore). I ride the elevators up to the 32nd floor (Bridgestone occupying about half of the floor) and hopefully make it by around 8.15 AM.

The First Day.

I arrived in Singapore at 11:30 on Sunday night and didn't make it to the hotel until until about 1 in the morning... So, I've decided I am going to consider this the beginning of my first day.

I awoke at 6:30 am to the ring of the wake up call, the alarm, my phone and my conscience that I had all set just in case 2 or 3 of those decided not to work. I ironed a set of clothes and splashed some water on my face as the toiletries out of my luggage mysteriously disappeared somewhere throughout the trip. I grabbed a complimentary breakfast and was out the door to meet Yamagata-san promptly at 8 for a ride to the office. I arrived at the office and was introduced to the 20 or so employees and was confused on how to answer the, "What shall I call you?" question asked over and over again.

I spent the majority of the morning setting up all of my system passwords and making sure that my laptop and docking station were all in working order. We walked over to the Hawker center at lunchtime right across the street from the office. There were about 6 of us in the sea of hundreds of people flooding the street. the Hawker center is a very large open-air food court with probably 50-70 vendors with a line of 3-4 customers in each. I had a plate of Indonesian Chicken Curry and rice that cost about S$4.00. We took about 20 mins to eat and then had a Green Tea drink for dessert.

I was picked up by my "Property Consultant" at 1:15 to view housing that is both available and fit in the price range stipulated by the company. Berna, a young Filipino woman probably just a couple of years past my age, walked up to me standing on the corner. She said that she had chartered a car to take us around for the day. The car was a white Mercedes that a decal on the side reading "Limo Services". Berna and I got in the backseat where I had legroom for days with bottled water and reading material provided. In the front was Berna's assistant Johnny and her trusted driver "Jack" (Jack's real name displayed on the dash read 15 letters long with about 3 consonants). Our last viewing was at 5:30... we had seen 9 properties in a little over 4 hours and I was exhausted. The overwhelming theme was that almost all of the properties were very nice, but that I had to chose whether the apartment itself or the complex's facilities were most important to me. Some had pools the size of 2 football fields with waterfalls, jacuzzi, tennis courts and a workout facility all at your fingertips. The apartments there (although nice) were small, plain and left a lot to be desired. Other apartments were top-of-the-line everything with views and stylish furnishings and these had almost no facilities. What is most important to me...?

Berna dropped me off back at my hotel where I had enough time to take a quick shower and rush back to the office for Dinner! I was asked to meet there at 6:30 (the normal time everyone gets off of work) so that 6 of us could go out to dinner. Gan, Ong, Yamagata-san, Takeuchi-san, Yamoto and I went to a whole-in-the-wall Chinese place. The food was being served out of a walk up bar with a couple of tables and chairs right on the street, but there was a restaurant next door that had inside seating. The menu consisted of 2 bottles of wine (brought from the liquor cabinet back in the office!), hot tea, noodles, some sort of greenery dish, pork ribs, chili crab, frog legs, a grouper fish from head to tail, tofu and deer meat... and it was good! We ate it all from 6 inch plates that each of us had in front of us just serving ourselves 3 or 4 bites at a time. The conversation ranged from my education and travels to my involvement in sports to the inadequacy of the U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball team to the lack of discipline in today's Japanese educational system.

We wrapped up dinner by 9:30 and I had made it back to my hotel by 10. I barely made it to my bed before I passed out. It had been a good day, but a long day and I was happy that it was over.