Can can, bottle can not!

I've had some little stories and observations that I've been wanting to tell you about... but I haven't found where to fit them in, so today, I will just post a few different thoughts.

We've been here for 3 1/2 weeks and in our new home for 1 week.  Things are going well!  This weekend, we met several families that live in our building.  We swam and played on the playground.  There's another girl named Lily that is 6, there are 2 girls that are 4 1/2 and a bunch of little boys.  All of my kids have plenty of friends in the building to play with!  Yesterday, at the pool, there were probably 15+ kids.  Scott and I met the parents.  There's a mix of Australians, Americans, Europeans, everybody.  It's wonderful!  

Friday night, I wanted to go out to dinner.  So, I called Scott at work and we made a plan to meet on his way home.  The kids and I met him at a bus stop and we all went together to The Nex.  We ate at a restaurant that we had tried before and it was delicious.  The point of this little story, is not the food, but the exchange of words.

In case I wasn't clear about this before, I want to be clear now.  Everybody here speaks English.  It's one of the official languages.  It's the "administrative language" and all of the public schools are taught in English.  However, the words that are used can be unexpected and there is often a "La" added to the end that sometimes confuses me.

At dinner on Friday, Scott asked for the check.  The waitress responded with, "bill-la?"  I think "la" means something like "right?"  Another funny expression is how a question is answered.  For example, when we were at the restaurant, we ordered the kids plain noodles, but Madeline wanted some soy sauce.  So, Scott asked, "Can we have some soy sauce?".  The waitress responded with "can" (instead of yes).  Instead of saying "no", they would say "cannot".  

At a play date, I was told this story, from one of the families in Lily's class.  The dad had come to Singapore and was at a bar and wanted a beer in a bottle.  The bartender replied with "can can, bottle cannot".  Ha ha!  

On Sunday, we shopped a little bit.  We needed to pick up a vacuum cleaner.  I was delighted to finally clean the floor.  Scott headed out on his own adventure to a technology center called Sim Lim Square.  It's a 6 story electronics plaza that apparently sells everything.  Scott was looking for a new power supply for our Nintendo Wii.  We brought our Wii from the states, but the power supply won't work here, so we need to find a new one.

I feel like our new home is very modern, but there are some things that aren't.  Check out my microwave controls...

The top dial chooses high, med high, med, low, or defrost power level and the bottom dial is minutes.  I think my parents had a microwave like this in the 1980's!  When the time is up, it is an actual ding, as though there really is a little bell inside.  It cracks me up!

Here are my oven controls:

It's a really nice oven, with a convection setting and everything, but again we have analog dials.  There is also an on and off switch on the wall that controls the power supply...  interesting.

But, then, here's the refrigerator:

I can control the freezer and refrigerator temperature to the nearest degree Celsius.  I also can activate the child lock on the fridge door.  

I am getting used to doing the dishes by hand.  It's actually kinda relaxing.  I don't mind.  It is really nice that my kitchen has two sinks, and the dishes can pile up and be washed out of site from the rest of the living space.  It's going to be just fine.

For those of you with kids starting back to school today in Austin, I hope it all goes well!  I'm especially thinking of the mommies with Kindergartners!!  Good luck.  It will be wonderful.