Day 2 Observations

Day 1 was spent in a haze of exhaustion so we might as well skip over it. My main observation yesterday: it's beautiful here! I'm especially obsessed with the building across from our apartment. It has large gaps in the building specifically for gardens and greenery. The picture I took with my phone does not do justice for the awesomeness of this building. I even think I read about it in a magazine one time.
Day 2 has been mostly spent hanging out around the apartment and running short errands. Here's what we have noticed so far:

• You push the light switch down to turn on the light.
• It's going to take a little bit to get used to the different way of saying the date (day then month), the temperature in Celsius, weights in kilograms and distance in kilometers. 
• The toilets, at least at the apartment, flush straight down -- no swirling toilet water here. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with being so close to the equator.
• I still don't know which side of the sidewalk to walk on; the cars drive on the left but people walk anywhere they want. Which reminds me, cars have the right away if you aren't crossing at a pedestrian light.
• There are no panhandlers.
• Groceries and food seem to be double the cost of what I'm used to or half the size. For example, my small frappuccino yesterday at Starbucks was $7 and the package of spaghetti noodles today was over $2.50. The supermarket I found does not carry milk in gallon size. We might have to get away from our cereal for breakfast every day.
• It's surprisingly easy to get dehydrated here given how incredibly humid it is.
• The food options are unlimited! We haven't even made it to the food hawker centers yet. We drove past one last night and it looks delicious. Kinda reminded me of the food aisles at the Fair, except cleaner.
• There are flowers and orchids everywhere! And lots of greenery. So beautiful!
• All the street signs, shop signs, etc. are in English. So helpful. 
• The city reminds me of a combination of Portland and San Fransisco. But that's my frame of reference for big cities. Luckily I'm a fan of both places so the reminder is a pleasant one. 
• Elevators are considerably smaller than I remember.

It's still pretty surreal that we are here and there's so much to take in.