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Over the weekend, my Wife and I went to “Meat The Butcher” (get it? heh. heh.) in Bukit Timah (615 Bukit Timah Road), which also happened to be a few shops down from the organic shop “Eat Organic” (very original names, eh?) and got ourselves a couple of grass fed Rib Eye steaks. Even after being frozen for a couple of days, they tasted amazing!

Since we unfortunately don’t have a grill, I needed to be a bit more creative to enhance the already amaing flavor. I added Rubbed Sage, freshly ground black pepper, freshly ground sea salt, a bit of coriander, and butter. Mmmm…

Look at how red it is, when compared to what NTUC Fairprice sells? (a local supermarket here in Singapore).

I also experimented with a veggie dish. Red and green capsicum, enoki mushrooms, king oyster mushroom, bok choy (chinese cabbage), leek, and garlic. Seasoned with just a few drips of light soy sauce and some crushed chili pepper.

Melanie and I went to check out the status of our apartment construction yesterday (23rd July). We walked from the Kembangan MRT station and it took only 10 or 15 minutes to get to the complex – shorter than we thought (a good thing!).

I am happy to see concrete! They seem to be actively working on foundation on some of the blocks. But, the showroom is still there, so they haven’t even broken ground on about a quarter of the complex.

We asked the agents in the show room when they thought the foundations would be completed for block 40 (the block we bought) – they estimated around September. We think it will be more like October or November!

There seem to be 130+ units still unsold (out of 472) according to the status board in the show room (the photo below shows each unit, and a dot for those that are sold). I’ve included a couple other photos of the construction site as well.

At first, we were pretty happy that Melanie’s new company in Singapore selected, what we thought, was a reputable relocation company with a “Customer-Focused Approach”.  Crown Relocations is a company both of us have heard of, and while we haven’t used them before (my long distance moves in the past were usually handled by Santa Fe), we thought it would be a relatively painful process.  The Beijing side of the relocation generally went without a hitch.  The Beijing-based staff were very helpful and courteous and seemed to genuinely want to accommodate our realistic needs.

The folks in Singapore, however, don’t seem to be interested in accommodating our, what we believe are, realistic needs.  First, I quote from their Website (2) (3) some of Crown’s customer-focused goals:

1. Maintaining a professionally attractive organizational culture is one of the core philosophies of the Crown Worldwide Group
2. Crown is committed to delivering high quality service seamlessly and remaining focused on continuous quality improvement
3. …guarantees that relocation professionals will always be informed and their employees will quickly settle-in and become productive in their new working environment

Melanie gets a call yesterday (Wed) from the Crown people in Singapore saying our shipment has already arrived in Singapore.  Wow, only 4 weeks! The guys in Beijing estimated 6 weeks.

Since Mel has been busy working since she arrived on the 7th of July and I just arrived 3 days ago on the 27th, we haven’t had a whole lot of time to find an apartment. So, time to kick apartment search into high gear!

Any way, Melanie was in Taiwan on a short business trip until last night, but the Crown folks needed her passport to provide a copy of her China visa to Singapore Customs to prevent being charged 3% import tax. When I told the guy who called yesterday Melanie would arrive late Wednesday night and wouldn’t be able to handle this until Thursday (today), he seemed a bit concerned and proceeded to ask me if I could reach her somehow to expedite the visa. I said no (knowing she was busy in Taiwan and didn’t need this to deal with).

Mel returns to Singapore and calls Crown today.  They say they need the Chinese visa copy and that the container has essentially cleared customs.  He asked for a delivery address.  Well, we don’t really have one yet. (no apartment!) And it’s not possible to have everything delivered to her aunt’s place where we’re staying now. (that’s about 18 cubic meters of junk, by the way).

I started looking for apartment options today while Melanie was juggling work and dealing with Crown. The Crown guy called her several times this morning asking where to deliver the things. Mel asked if Crown could hold onto the things for a while. The Crown guy then proceeded to tell her that past Friday (tomorrow!) they would charge a SGD45 per day charge.  This certainly puts undue pressure on us as we don’t want to be pressured into choosing an apartment just for the sake of it.

It seems to me that it would be “Customer-Focused” for Crown to offer a free week or so of storage.  What if the receiver, Melanie in this case, was on a longer term business trip and couldn’t deal with this? This is similar to the Cable company who says the technician will come by your house between 10AM and 4PM.  How the heck are you supposed to accommodate that? It’s their job to service you, not your job to wait for them and work around their schedule. Back to Crown, I think a week of storage is not too much to ask. This provides a little more flexibility to their customer, us, thus enhancing our satisfaction and likelihood of recommending them to our friends for future relocations.

Come on guys, them telling us today that our stuff is ready and we need to have it delivered by tomorrow before they start charging us storage fees… that’s just ridiculous. It’s not consumer focused and reflects poorly on them as a company. They have a very clear business objective to make as much money as possible while screwing their customers in the process. Companies can get away with that for some time, but it will come back to haunt them. Hopefully.

My favorite line thus far is “sorry for any inconvenience caused”.  No you’re not. Seeing that arguing with them was going nowhere, we decided to look into self-storage options so we can at least receive our goods.  Lucky for us there’s a self-storage company right here in Toa Payoh (where we’re staying). It’s called StorHub and we went there during Melanie’s lunch break and booked a 146 square feet storage space. It’s about less than a third what Crown would charge for a month period of storage, and we have 24-hour access to our stuff.

It seems this StorHub company wants our business as they are quite flexible in accommodating our needs.  They had a room for us essentially immediately. Even though we prepaid for 2 months in order to lock in the discount they provided, we can basically cancel any time and they will prorate our refund after the first month. And we can extend past the initial 2 months easily, no need for prior notice.

This isn’t over. Trying to negotiate having Crown deliver our stuff on Saturday instead of tomorrow as Melanie needs to work. And we’re going to forward our complaints to the highest level possible. It probably won’t do anything, but it’s best not to just bend over and take it…

I am sitting in the United Airlines Red Carpet lounge at Los Angeles’ LAX airport, waiting for my flight to Singapore (via Tokyo/Narita).  No, I am not flying Business or First Class, nor do I have status on this sub-par airline.  Since I had more than 2 hours to kill at the airport (which, by the way, is pretty lousy), I decided to buy a single day pass.  $50 USD or 7,000 miles, I chose to use miles.  The lounge certainly does NOT come close to Northwest’s lounges.  For one thing, alcohol is not free.  But, at least there’s free WIFI.

Reality Calls as my 3-week “quick trip” in the U.S.’s West has sadly come to an end.  I think I could have spent even more time here, and I would have liked to make my way out East to see my Sister, among others.  Next time! The great thing about going to Singapore now is that I get to see Melanie again!  UNfortunately, she’s off to Taiwan for a business trip for 2 days, so I won’t get to see her until Wednesday.  Oh well.  What’s another 2 days?

When I arrive in Singapore, I will have plenty to do.  Life will essentially start anew.  I need to get “legal” by getting my long-term visit pass.  With that, I can open a bank account, get a mobile phone plan (iPhone 3G S here I come), get a driver’s license, find an apartment, etc.  Oh, and get a job!!

Some friends of mine who live in Singapore tell me the job market is o.k., not horrible as with elsewhere (such as the USA).  So, hopefully that is true and it won’t take me too long to get a job.  Am I dreaming?

It seems I have drawn a blank and cannot think of what else to write about.  I suppose I’ll wrap up this post here.  I am going to try to write a bit more often once I arrive in Singapore.  New country, new writing habits! Will see how that goes!

Singapore Panorama - Borrowed from Wikipedia

Well folks, my long stay, just over 6 years, in Beijing is coming to an end.  It is time to finish this chapter in my life (and boy, has it been an interesting one), and begin a new one.

Melanie has accepted a position in Singapore, and like a dutiful “almost-spouse”, I will be tagging a long.

Timing?  Most likely in July. I have classes to finish up here (ending end of June). I plan on traveling around China for around a month or so (at least a couple of weeks), and then I’m off.

Friends from the states who thought about visiting?  You missed your chance! (except for Jason who’s coming at the end of June). You had 6 years…