My five minutes of expat living

The expat life vs the average singaporean life 

Today I was walking along Cluny road because I had to go to the French embassy for my visa; and since they are really really strict about timing, I couldn't go in early. Being the very restless person I am, I couldn't stand the thought of waiting outside the embassy for the next 20 min and so I went on a mini expat tour of the botanic gardens area. 

I followed my nose to this new Affrogato bar which was itself neighboured by two new cafes: an organic hipster kale juice place and a French pastry store. Ahh... I wish I could be inside on such a sweltering hot day. But oh fuck the prices! 5 dollars for a small cup of latte and 16 for a sandwich? But look at that queue and worse, the people who are buying the coffee for takeaways! Seriously? 5 bucks and you're not there for the free aircon and wifi?

So I continued on my expat journey and entered the best cold storage ever- the one opposite the botanic gardens mrt. It had the one thing I needed: aircon and cheap 100 plus. As I window shopped, I started comparing prices to see if this cold storage was doing its job of ripping expats off. And indeed, I was really pleased to find that the imported yoghurts are way more expensive than llaollao. Hooray hooray!!!

But one cannot simply not seem suspicious loitering around cold storage; so in the end, I forked out 1.30 for a nice cold 100plus.

I had five minutes to kill before heading to the embassy and so I went to explore the landed property beside the embassy. It was then that I saw a sign that said: Cluny Park Residences, show flat open today! Wow it must be a sign, I thought to myself. Surely it's a great bargain! For five minutes, I pictured myself sipping a 5 dollar takeaway latte after a run in the botanic gardens, then getting ripped off because I can afford to be at cold storage, and then strolling leisurely home while waving to my chic angmoh neighbours. But then my search result on property guru finally came in: wtf 4.3 m for a penthouse in a condo???? Wait what 4.3 m. And I was thinking of getting it if it were 430000... Sighpie, my heart can't take this kind of disappointment. 

It was then that the words of my lord Buddha rang true in my head: all this clinging to material goods is causing suffering. Sure, perhaps one day if I plan and work and plan and invest and plan and exploit other people, I could get this kind of a lifestyle; but who knows, one day Singapore could be in a financial crisis and all this 'prime property' could be worth less than nothing. For now, I'll just enjoy going to the botanic gardens and getting my McCafe - an honest cup of coffee for 3 bucks and free wireless@sgx.