Hostility

God, Blogger.com can piss me off sometimes!
It keeps claiming that my cookies are turned off and takes me to some other page when I log in (by "keeps..." I don't mean always, just enough to piss me off). I have discovered that if I hit my shortcut to my blog again then I am still signed in and can then hit 'new post'. Just a mindless nuisance. My cookies are NOT turned off, and once I checked this page it sent me to and followed the instructions only to discover that all of my settings were as it was requesting ANYHOW.

Singapore can be very user hostile at times.
By that I define it as the opposite of user friendly, just in case you needed to be told that. I went to the zoo yesterday; someone gave me a free ticket and a little brochure. The brochure said that I could take the metro to Ang Mo Kio and then a 138 bus; so I take the metro (MRT for those who need to be told) to Ang Mo Kio and then walk out to the bus stop and, you guessed it - there is no 138. So I walk around trying to figure this out, give up, go back into the train station, which is raised so I can see down from the platform, and what do I see? A 138! Driving into a bus depot ACROSS THE ROAD under a multi-storey carpark. They didn't think to say in the zoo brochure that "you can catch the 138 FROM ACROSS THE ROAD", no, they just said catch it from the station.

But I was in the station then, so the next on the brochures list was to take the train to Woodlands and from there catch a 926. Taking the train to Woodlands was easy enough; finding the bus interchange at Woodlands was a major military undertaking! First come out of train station and see sign "buses this way", follow, keep heading in the direction, end up outside with no buses. Go back, notice a sign saying buses that way THAT IS SIDEWAYS TO THE WAY YOU ARE WALKING FROM THE FIRST SIGN!!!!! Head in this new direction, end up at a precipice, can see buses below but don't wish to jump 40 metres down to get to them. Head back, notice SIGN SIDEWAYS TO THE DIRECTION YOU ARE TRAVELLING FROM THE SECOND SIGN saying buses down there.

(You see? It would all work if you were walking backwards from where you want to be to where you start from.)

So now we are at the buses and finding the 926 stand is not hard. Figuring out which of the three lines is for the 926 is not possible unless you have a Chinese brain though. Three lines go this way, then they break, and then three lines go back again - BUT THEY ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THE FIRST THREE LINES!!!! So I just wait to the side, and wait and wait and wait and wait...

The sign says that the 926 only operates on Sundays and yesterday was a Sunday. HOWEVER it would also appear that the 926 does not, in fact, operate on Sundays either. I give up and head up to find a taxi. The taxi stand is a long walk and it is hidden to one side of the complex. There are no taxis. I sit down to wait. Then I notice a little button on a pillar saying "press to summon taxi", I press, a taxi arrives in less than two minutes. I could have been waiting for hours before seeing this little notice though.

When it is time to come back I go to the bus stop at the zoo and what is the first bus to come along? A 927!!! Notice that, it was NOT a 926. And back at Woodlands bus interchange the 926 queue and the 927 queue are not next to each other, they are not even in sight of each other.

So many little things that would be so easy to do properly.
But which Singapore insists on doing arse-end first.

We have a saying in English about 'Chinese puzzles'; something that you cannot solve unless you can think Chinese-style. Sometimes Singapore seems to be one big Chinese puzzle to me.

I guess now you know why so many white guys here get Chinese girlfriends.
Without one you are just lost.