I was expecting Singapore to be efficient, smart, lean. It is.
Yesterday I had my appointment at the Government offices to get my employment pass.
Appointment was at 10:30. I arrived at 10:20. A gentle lady welcomed me, brought me to one of the electronic kiosks, she bar-scanned my documents, the machine printed a number with my name on it; I sat down for a few minutes, and then my name was called. The very nice lady at the counter, Lisa, helped me with my stuff, had me sign just once, and everything was all set at 10:40. Impressive.
My passport-size pictures were not ok, since my glasses were covering part of my eye. I walked 20 meters on the same floor, get into the print office, get my new pictures in about 4 minutes, and came bank.
I exited the building at about 10:50.
I had another appointment at the bank (to setup a bank account), and it was smooth as well. I subscribed a phone contract with SingTel, where they give you 500 minutes, 500 sms, 12 GB of traffic per month, and a new iPhone 3Gs 32 GB, for the monthly price of about 98 S$ (Singapore dollars). Not bad.
Then I had lunch with some italian friends.
Yes, Singapore is efficient.
On sunday I took the subway, stopped at Bugis, bought some vegetables, and visited the japanese barber shop, where they did a perfect haircut for 10 S$, while I was reading SuperFreakonomics on my Kindle :)
Have a nice sunday, dear reader! Catch up with you soon :)