Vietnam Visa

We are heading to Vietnam and Cambodia for the holiday. I went to the Vietnamese Embassy in Holland Village, today, to get my Visa. I was completely surprised that they collected 105SGD from me! That's about 80USD! I was surprised because the fees for online visas were $20... so... I went back to check the fine prints.

The cost for a Vietnamese Visa varies by embassy. In Singapore, it's about 80USD, in Washington D.C., it's apparently slightly more (100USD?). I read in another blog that the embassy in Thailand screwed up his visas (http://www.renegadetravels.com/how-to-get-a-vietnam-visa-in-bangkok/).

  Now, the online system is called a Visa on Arrival (VOA) and is only valid for air travel. You go online, enter all of your passport information, pay $20USD and someone in Vietnam obtains an entry letter for you. You then print this letter, and bring it along with 2 passport photos to Vietnam.  There, you pay an additional $45USD for your basic single entry visa. This process totals to about 65USD, and saves you anywhere from 15 to 35 USD. Instead of spending time traveling to the Embassy to drop off and then pick up your passport, you spend time filling out online forms, printing, and then waiting in line at Immigrations in the airport. The latter can take as little as 15 minutes, to, what I assume is 45 minutes. I assume it's similar to general immigration waiting times.

  Some online VOAs might be scams. Be careful, but, in general, I believe the Vietnamese government officially warns against the online VOA simply to get more money from "wealthy" tourists.

Live Music Finder

http://www.bandwagon.sg

"Singapore's first online gig finder, Bandwagon, is a tool to help connect you to live music and give music in Singapore a bigger stage. Whether you're looking for Jazz, Pop or Metal live performances, we can help. Browse through the most comprehensive gig database on the web and find something that suits you. Search for gigs by genre, artiste or place, filter based on dates or see our gig picks. Sign in via Facebook to rate, comment and let the Bandwagon community of gig lovers know that one more person is going for the gig! Bandwagon also has an Editorial to meet the in between times when you're not looking for live music. Check out our opinion pieces about broad trends in the industry, Bandwagon Places where we head to random parts of Singapore and hunt for live music, as well as our Introducing series where we tell you more about new bands that are emerging in the scene."

My Humidity System

Hopefully the sunsack can keep this white dress dry.

As I write, my hands are damp. Not from sweat, but from the air. In my last post, I shared pictures of moldy belongings. In this post, I present a solution that I am now testing. It involves air-tight and semi-air-tight containers to hold my at-risk belongings along with a dedicated dehumidifier. Having two or three dehumidifiers in my wardrobe was not cutting it. I needed to reduce the volume of air containing each dehumidifier.

I purchased vacuum bags and an underbed storage bag to store my scuba gear suits, sweatshirt, and purses. I also got a new system of dehumifiers (plastic containers with calcium chloride as a dessicant.)

The dehumidifiers I got:

DampRid sells refillable pots and loose calcium chloride for refilling the pot. I was starting to feel bad about the First Choice plastic containers that I was throwing out before. The DampRid containers don't have lids to prevent spills, though!

Instead of the smaller thirsty hippo packets, I found some "Sunsacks" and a charcoal bamboo product. These packets are meant to be dryed in the sun (or a microwave) and reused. These are useful to store in my underwear shelf, backpack, and other smaller spaces.

Here are the containers I bought. These should be useful to see how air-tight a container needs to be.

Then I filled these with my belongings, including my precious SCUBA gear that initiated the venture:

Suits and jackets

Purses

If my regulator gets moldy, I will get sick breathing through it.

Gotta keep the SCUBA gear dry and mold free!

Everything fits nicely under my bed.

My socks and bathing suit with my last Thirsty Hippo packet.

Even this backpack is getting moldy. And I use the darn thing!

These items were in danger!!

Now my closet has precious room to aerate.

What I Wish I Had Known BEFORE Coming to Singapore

I've been meaning to write this entry, and I'm sure I'll have more to add to this entry before I leave Singapore in May... but here are a few things:

Medical (pills and things)
1. There is no ibuprofen or aspirin on the shelf. There is only Panadol (paracetamol = acetaminophen).
2. You can buy prescription drugs, from a pharmacist without a prescription at their discretion. I'm not experienced in this act, but that's what I hear.
3. If you are prone to sea sickness, bring dramamine or whatever medication you prefer from the states.
4. Great Dental Experience: http://www.standrews.sg/contact.html. Tell them Cassandra Telenko referred you for $50 SGD off your fee.
5. Vitamins are really expensive here (40+ SGD, 30+ USD). Bring them with you.

I cleaned this hat in the wash, with vinegar, and left it in the sun. That mold is permanent.

Keep food bags sealed. I use plastic clips (not the spring ones) and a container with rice.

This container has my books and rice. All my books are moist otherwise.

This purse has mold.

This jewelry bag has collected mold over the past two or three weeks.

This earring was resting on my hat during the month that it collected mold. The humidity caused the wood color to bleed.

Belongings (the mold situation)
Especially during the rainy season (like 9 months of the year) it is so humid that your belongings will get ruined by mold.
Here are some tips: http://www.therobertsonsofmumbai.com/2012/04/expat-survival-series-the-bangkok-closet.html
1. Do not bring animal products (like leather)
2. Switch from shaving with a razor to waxing or veet. Razors rust really quickly.
3. Keep valuable/mold prone items sealed from air. (i.e. I keep my books in an airtight container. I keep flour and sugar in an airtight container with rice. I'm going to look into getting air seals for my clothes and scuba regulator)
4. Be aware that perfume can turn in rooms that aren't kept around room temperature. Don't refrigerate or cycle the temperature too much. Our perfume is generally ok, kept sheltered from sunlight and with our room usually within a couple degrees of 28C (82F)
5. Check your clothes and belongings for mold once a month or so. I've included photos of belongings that have collected mold over the past month alone.
6. Consider keeping some items in your office desk where the room is A/C and sealed from outdoor humidity most of the time.

Food
1. No one cooks, it's almost all eating out.
2. The food is oily and mostly Singaporean, Malay, Thai or Indonesian. There is usually a token Indian, Korean, and Japanese place.
3. There are no ovens. Getting a large oven-like appliance can be expensive.
4. You can usually ask for items to be "dry." Otherwise, things turn into soups. Every curry is a soup. The bulgogi at one north food court is a soup. It drives me nuts.

Money
1. Best money changing rate is in China town, and requires to change at least $200 to get that rate. (donated tip from Asli; I just use my ATM card for my bank that refunds the $3SGD fee each transaction. ATMS are everywhere.)
2. There are lots of money changers, and you can basically get any amount. To go to Indonesia, I changed $13 SGD to get $10 USD to pay the entry fee. Otherwise, entry was 20 SGD to Indonesia.

Cell Phone

I just got back from an interview in the United States. I slept for 12 hours, from 3am to 3pm. I never sleep for that long.  I really hope I get back on track, soon!

I scheduled a dental cleaning appt for Thursday at St. Andrews. The dental surgeons there were recommended by a diving buddy during my trip on the White Manta. I was quoted $50-120 SGD, but I was able to make a 10am appt only two days in advance!

The point of this post is to point out the misfortune that I realized upon making the call. My phone only had $1.50 left!! I had topped up with Singtel's Super Hot $128 plan, but the time had expired on Nov. 8th and I hadn't been around to top up and extend the validity!  Here's how it works:

1. Get a pre-paid $10 hi! card from a 7-eleven or other establishment
2. Go to singtel.com to top up online when you need more minutes. Here are the plans:
http://info.singtel.com/personal/phones-plans/mobile/prepaid/top-up-where-to-buy-and-check-balance
3. Note that there are lots of options, the biggest differences being their validity time, cost, and available credit. The Super Hot $128 was $28 dollars and gave me $128 dollars of credit, but needs to be topped up with the Super Hot $128 or Hot $55 within the 50 days to keep the credit. I don't think I even used up the cost of the card.
4. Get the Hot $55 for $15 if you don't use data. Switch to the $128 if you are texting and calling a lot. If you use data (i.e. WhatsApp), get the DataTalk$22 or the Yo!$18. I don't use the data, but maybe I will in the future.

For data, note the bottom: http://info.singtel.com/personal/phones-plans/mobile/prepaid/mobile-data

For those MIT Postdocs

In case you are wondering, here are the hours spent on 3.007 teaching duties since I arrived in Singapore:

8/23-29             8h17m

 8/30-9/5             5h13m

 9/6-9/12           12h00m

 9/13-9/19        23h 35m

 9/20-26           18h 40m

 9/27-10/3          18h 4m

 10/4-10             34h 9m

 10/11-17          11h56m
10/18-24         41h33m

Pulau Tioman

On Sept. 20-22nd I went with Sunny Cove on a dive trip to Pulau Tioman. The coral was beautiful and there were some nice fish. Visibility was great, but not like Cozumel. We stayed at the Paya Beach Resort , which was fairly nice. The buffet food was edible, but the rooms were nice. I paid an extra 90SGD for a single room. The whole thing cost around 400SGD. We had a private coach take us to Mersing Jetty for the Ferry to Tioman and the Ferry wasn't super crowded. We had reserved spaces on the Ferry to get back, so we didn't have to fight people.

Going across the border to Malaysia is a pain though. There are long lines and lots of buses and vans on both sides of the border. You have to go through both Singaporean and Malaysian immigration both ways. I can't believe that Malaysians would do this commute everyday, but some do.

My review of Sunny Cove: I had an enjoyable trip and would do it again. Nevertheless, I was surprised to learn that the dive master going with us was not from Sunny Cove and that no Sunny Cover personnel were leading the trip. I also overheard the Dive Cove personnel complaining to the Dive Company DMs about the lack of notice from Sunny Cove and that they felt overloaded because they had their own customers. Also, I had asked to rent a dive computer. I was told by sunny cove staff that I would be getting one from the Dive Cove. When I arrived in Tioman, I found out that there were no computers for rent, and I was not able to use my own regulator set and had to rent, since I didn't have a depth gauge. I was very disappointed that I had to rent gear that had a small leak at the gauge connection, and that Dive Cove did not seem to be informed by Sunny Cove about the situations and needs of the Sunny Cove divers.