Lunch with the Preceptor

Yesterday, my preceptor took me out to lunch to welcome me to the area and interestingly, he chose to drive instead of take public transportation.  Many people here don't have cars since the public transit system is so good but there still seems to be so many cars on the road.  My preceptor explained that the government has a lot of disincentives for people to buy cars in order to try to keep the street congestion and pollution down.  First, if you want to buy a car here, you have to bid for a permit called a COE that gives you the right to buy and keep a car for 10 years.  Since it is a bidding  auction, the price varies each time and only a limited number of permits are released each week, potentially driving up the price.  At the last auction permits for a small car sold for $75,000SGD ($61,500USD) and permits for a large car were $95,000SGD ($77,900USD).  Then you actually have to pay for the car, and the usual taxes, fees, etc.  For a small car like a Honda Civic, that adds up to about $140,000SGD($115,000USD) and dealer rebates may bring that down to about $118,000SGD ($97,000USD).  That's nearly $100,000 USD for just a Civic!  In the US you could buy 4 Civics with that kind of money!

Anyway, my preceptor brought me to a different area that I hadn't explored yet and we had some really good noodles and xiao long bao at Crystal Jade:

Xiao Long Bao (got a little hungry before taking the picture)

Pan Fried Pork Buns

Dan Dan Noodles with Minced Pork and Dumplings

The xiao long bao were done really well with a lot of soupy juices inside the wrapper and good seasonings on the pork inside.  The noodles were actually pretty spicy (but so good), so much so that my preceptor asked if I was ok multiple times!

After lunch my preceptor took me to an electronics mall.  As in the entire 6 stories of the mall are dedicated to electronics.  My kind of place!

The theme on level 3 was computers 

Who still uses floppy disks?