Did it say on the mall’s website that everything opens at 10? Oh, they meant 11. I grabbed a coffee and passed the longest hour ever, just waiting. Once the store opened, I was #3 in the laptop line. The check-in guy told me that he expected it to take 4-5 days to fix the laptop and cost $600+labor, so maybe $800-900, but that I’d find out for sure from the laptop specialist.
While waiting for my number to be called, I browsed the laptops and even checked another store, just to see what the new ones cost. At some point, I’d have to draw a line in the sand, between repairing and buying.
Once my name was called, I laughed as the girl grimaced upon seeing my laptop. After doing a few quick tests, she basically told me that the information I’d gotten was right: 4-5 days, maybe $900. She basically told me that she wasn’t going to allow me to fix a 4 year-old laptop for $900 when the new model of the same laptop is $1200. Why do that?
All things considered, she was SO awesome. She went above & beyond, even copying everything (settings, files, data, history) onto my new laptop and completely erasing the old one before turning it in for recycling. I definitely sent a nice message to the store later.
Can I really afford a new laptop? No. I wasn’t even excited about having a new laptop, because it killed my bank account. However, it was the right decision.
I can honestly say that the food at Clover 8, where we met for lunch, was embarrassing to show to someone as a representation of vegetarian restaurants.
That afternoon, I saw some interesting things. 1-how can I have s’pore, when I haven’t had any yet? 2-a center for Muslim converts—never heard of that before.
In the evening, someone O had met on a “new to Singapore” Internet group invited us to meet a bunch of people for dinner. It was in a fancy-ish area, so I grabbed some food on the way, which turned out to be AMAZING—super cheap and tons of food at this Indian sidewalk cafe.
Anyway, we get to this dinner, and it turns out to be some girl’s birthday dinner with friends. Cool. Someone we’ve never met, and we’re at her birthday dinner.
Everyone there turned out to be really nice, and it wasn’t very awkward, but still… The area was pretty, though.
After that, there was some “new to Singapore” meetup group at a rooftop bar, and I told (not asked!) that I would go and help O mingle for job contacts. When we showed up, EVERYONE was in business attire. I had on camouflage shorts and a t-shirt, plus flip-flops. Really the picture of who you want helping you mingle for job contacts with people in ties and collared shirts. We chatted with a few people, didn’t do much in the way of job contact-making, and left when everyone else was discussing what bar to go to next.
The next day, back at the hostel again, I wound up in a conversation with other people sorting out what to do and kind of invited myself to join. There was a teacher from Boston, 2 girls from NYC (one of whom grew up 10min from where I was born), and a British couple. Seemed like cool people, and I invited myself to join them for the light show that evening down by the waterfront, in front of the famous Marina Sands.
I will say that it was “OK.” I wasn’t really impressed.
