My final blog entry

We have been back in Singapore for about two months now. For a while I have been thinking about writing my final blog entry. Ann Hussien song (see below) gave me the opportunity.

In the things that are transient and do not matter, Dubai is like Singapore and even surpasses her in some ways. In the things that do matter, Dubai has a lot to catch up with Singapore. Unfortunately after reading the latest survey of the Middle East in the Economist, I am not optimistic. For their sakes, I don't mind being wrong. Forecasting has always been a hazardous art.

Singapore is a paradoxical place, almost completely man-made to be politically correct, but I believe exists and thrives by God's grace. Most of us are very good second class citizens. Quite a few of us tend to forget that if we were to be first class without the foreign talent (many not good anyway but a huge net positive overall) we would be very poor first class indeed. I saw this at first hand in the Emirati-first policies in Dubai. I am afraid they would be sunk for it. If you disagree with me, I recommend Alan Beattie new book, "False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World"

Police Cars

Below is a video I shot in March but decided against blogging it here for obvious reason.

I was tailing a police patrol car for several minutes. At the red light, I decided to prepare my camera and took this video. The whole time the police vehicle had its hazard lights on for no good reason.

This is only I have got on video. On several occasions I have witnessed how reckless the police vehicles in Dubai were. Also once they stopped my Learner's car and asked my driving instructor for directions! I suppose it is not unusual if you call the police in an emergency and they could not find you.

DEWA is deaf and blind

I just got another bill from DEWA to pay the utilities and municipality tax. I have informed them several times already to start the last bill process but they never did. Anecdoctal evidence suggest that you must make a trip personally to their offices to terminate the services. The online service to do this is a sham. I wouldn't do that as that could mean they could cut off my electricity and water before I vacate my premises.

I just shot them another email to do the necessary conveniently ignoring the fact that they are deaf and blind.

The positives and negatives in Dubai are quite extreme.

A beautiful sunrise

Just took this picture with my trusty Casio pocket digital camera less than half and hour ago. Welcome to another day of very hot and humid weather and lots of unpacking. I hope we can finish the job today. The children is getting a first hand lesson on shopping - Don't. One of them kept repeating, "please don't buy any more..." Well, this unpopular attitude they say would be bad for the economy, but I suspect we will think up many better things to do. The problem is too few people want to explore this.

One round trip - Container arrives

I had pictures of the boxes being loaded up to the truck last year. Now this a a photo of our boxes from Dubai being unloaded yesterday. It has been very fast. We arrived in Singapore on the 27th of May and our stuff are already here by sea on the 9th of June. The air freight portion was expected sooner but for some reasons I cannot fathom, it didn't fly out until the 5th. So by air and sea, they came at the same time.

What Recession?

The photo above was taken from the East Coast Park this morning. The Singapore port appeared very crowded. What recession? The numbers in the papers had been going down for many months now but the sight on our waters is so different from the recession of '85, where there were very few ships.

The trade numbers are not wrong. The major difference is the size of the Singapore economy. It is much larger than it was almost 25 years ago. Despite this, the parking space at sea hasn't changed much. This is the same with the people thronging the malls and various eateries. Singapore is at a different level now. Trade to GDP ratio may be in excess of three times. Our dependence on the external world has increased but counter-intuitively, we have become more able at absorbing external shocks.

So what recession? This is actually the deepest recession for us since becoming independent. It is just less obvious on the street now. Remember, we all laugh together but cry alone. The affected residents are staying away.

Durian dinner

Daisy and I decided that we will do something exceptional for dinner on friday - We would eat only durians. We bought two the first and smaller one was much better than the bigger second one. You can find durians at Carrefour in Dubai, but they look like they were fallen from the tree last year. Who will eat them? They should be offered to the decomposers, i.e., the bacteria and fungi.