Bumps in the Road but Oh, So Nice!

It's not unexpected. Moving to a new country we are bound to hit a few bumps in the road. And sure enough this has started to happen.

 Originally we had planned to pursue three things we felt to be rather urgent after our arrival. One was to get permanent working cell phones for each of us so that we could make and receive calls both locally and internationally. Another was to open a bank account for obvious reasons and last but not least to submit the necessary paperwork for our ID cards (an employment pass for John and a dependent pass for myself) that would allow us to stay in the country.

As it turns out we really can't do either of the first two things without having those all important ID's. On our first day we were successful with a temporary work-around for the old phone we had kept from our last visit to Hong Kong. But the bank account would have to wait although we brought what we hope is enough cash to get us by (plus a credit card as a backstop) in the interim. As for those passes, John had already been diligently working on that well before we left Boston. He'd acquired not only reference letters from virtually all of his previous employers but others who could attest to his character (some of you may not believe he has friends that will really do that - ha!)! In addition he'd had to retrieve transcripts as proof of his education and other bits and pieces certifying his employment with Veson in his capacity as their regional director in Singapore.

Welcome to Singapore! Yes, they are very controlling and exacting in so many things but at least we have also found that everyone is oh so nice! Here's what I have to say about that at the moment - PHOOEY!!!