I Need Your Help: Downtown or Silvercreek Area?

These are the two locations that I have narrowed down my home search to but I need your help. Since I do not know much about either areas I could use your feedback on downtown and/or Silvercreek (across from Willow West Mall).

UPDATE: I decided on the downtown location, BIG THANKS to all those who gave me their feedback it was really helpful.

Both have pluses and minus on the side of the apartment itself but if someone can give me some feedback on the area maybe that will help me decide. I will make my choice by Wednesday so please take the time to leave me your comments.

Its good news that I have found a couple choices as I gave up on getting a house and living in some acreage, so it is going to be apartment life for me at least until I decide to buy something for myself.

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Stressing Out on Tax in Canada

The other day I was in with HR and we were just going over things like getting OHIP, life insurance and taxes. She pulled up a program that showed the tax deductions from my salary and wow it was shocking.

POST UPDATED: I had to update this post as I have had a few negative comments and some not so nice emails about my comments on tax. So I will explain my logic on my issues, but please note Canada is a great country and I am happy to be back. But in a country that we strive for equality I don't see equality in the tax system, a basic idea of a equal tax system would be: take the average salary of everyone within a province and then assign a cap to the tax paid based on that. So if you make the average salary you pay the normal tax, if you make less you pay less tax but if you make more you are not further tax simply because your paid more. This also brings more money into the communities and back in the the salaries of the workers. To me this is a equal system but in Canada if you happen to make a high salary you are heavily taxed and shockingly instead of paying less tax the more you make it is the opposite the more you make the more you are taxed. Anyways I am very happy to be back in Canada and will happily pay my taxes where required, but I just think the system is a little strange.

Other then stressing on the taxes I am stressing on finding a place to live as I have now contacted about 200 people that had a place for rent and seen a number of them. But there has only been one place that is interesting and there is an offer currently on it so if it is accepted then I am out of luck. But wish me luck as it’s a beautiful 3 story house that has 7 bedrooms, 5 washrooms and even a room for a theater, my only problem will be trying to furnish 7 bedrooms (hehehe anyone want to rent a room).

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Apartment/House Hunting in Guelph

This weekend I started seeing places for rent but had no luck so far. I did find a nice place was on 13 acres of land and was a very nice house. Would have loved to call it home but the strangest problem it was a little out of the city and it doesn’t get mobile phone coverage. I guess it was just a little too much into the country area and without cell phone coverage it wasn’t something I could accept.

I am also having a tough time finding a place due to the abundance of student style housing. One place I saw was very run down and I felt bad as the house itself could be such a nice place if the landlord actually kept up the place.

If anyone reading this has/knows of a place in Guelph either a detached house or nice apartment please let me know. I have a few requirements the only one worth mentioning is that it needs to have underground parking or an attached garage. Also ideally I like to have a nice apartment but if there are no executive style apartments then a nice detached house is my backup plan.

Wish me luck on finding a place as it has been a week in the hotel and I am looking forward to moving out into a real home.

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Tip Top Tailors, Stone Road Mall

While tailors in Asia are common there are no branded tailor shops so it is nice to see that in Guelph they have the Tip Top Tailors stores. I went in and some great service with some amazing low prices, actually the prices of pants and shirts are cheaper then in Singapore. I think this is due to the volume aspect combined with the lack of greed as the quality is the same if not better.

Tip Top Tailors in the Stone Road Mall is a good sized store and has a lot of options. It even rents tuxes but on my visit I just picked up some new shirts and a nice heavy woven long sleeve top. Cost wise I paid only $20 a shirt and the sales lady was helpful enough that she steamed my shirts and then gave them to me in a shirt bag with hangers. I will be happy to shop there again and recommend to others check them out next time you are looking for a new shirt or pants.

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White Sandy Beaches in Guelph

Today I awoke to what for the last few years is normally a good thing, white substance on the round outside of my hotel room. But unlike in Asia this wasn’t nice white sand it was cold, cold snow. So much for my hopes in avoiding snow till this coming winter and they say that the snow might stay around for the next week or so, darn that trip to Florida is looking better.

For all you in Singapore you can play spot the Google with the photo of my X5 and for the rest of you spot the Google was something that my co-workers used to do with my photos as a lot of my photos seem to have a Google logo in them.

To get an idea of how cold it was in Guelph, the door to my X5 once opened didn’t want to close and when I finally did get it closed it refused to open again. This meant me climbing out the passenger side door, but luckily in the afternoon the ice melted enough that I could open and close my doors. But as I type this I can feel the coldness in my fingers, it doesn’t feel good and about now I am really missing the warm lifestyle in Asia.

Tonight I am off to a night out with people from work so should be interesting to meet more of the fellow staff. Will let you know how that all goes later on this weekend.

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Snowing in Guelph

It has been a long time since I have seen snow, in fact I stopped in the middle of a little meeting I was in and pointed out of the window and said look it is snowing. The others looked at me strangely and I think they then remembered that to me this is something new, but to them they’ve probably just spent the last 4 or 5 months looking at snow and where not at all impressed.

So its getting colder here in Guelph and the snow is still falling. If it lasts till morning I will take a photo of it as that would look nice as at the moment there is just little layer of snow on everything.

I have already started to call real estate agents and have a few other locations in mind to live. As that house I mentioned before it great, but it’s a little out of the city and I would like to see if I can get myself a nice condo within the core of the city. The place I am really interested in is called Riverside residence on the Park, so if anyone of my readers knows of anyone selling, leasing or renting a unit out of that building please do let me know. Otherwise if you know of any locations with a great view, underground parking and 3+ bedrooms feel free to let me know as I am defiantly interested.

Work is going good and today I was asked to fly to Florida next week for a couple days to help review some business ventures there, but in a twist of luck the people that I needed to speak with are in New York all next week. So I’ll be staying put for the week, which is good as I think 2 weeks in one location is the longest I’ve stayed still this year.

My trip back to Asia in May is looking to be around the 19th to 27th as we have a public holiday on the 21st and SES is on the 25/26 so it is great timing. So hope that I can get my buddy Gurp to come out with me to Thailand and maybe even get my English pal Mark to take some time off school and head out for a little reunion, we’ll see.

Ok I hoping tonight I get a full night sleep as not feeling overly tired and its 9:30 so it’s a good sign that I might be able to stay awake till 11 and sleep the whole night, wish me luck and hope tomorrow I can post some nice snow photos.

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First Day Working in Guelph

Very happy to report that I had a great first day and my fellow co-workers turning out to be even more enjoyable then I had hoped. Funny thing was a couple of the staff members are readers of my blog and my cubical buddy Steve is also a blogger, he runs Angry in the Great White North.

Today along with me there where 11 new people joining the company, which even included an ex-NHL player who will be heading the Hockey.com website development. It looks like the company is growing very quickly, so much so that the parking lots can’t handle all the cars and they have to run mini-shuttle buses to the offices from larger parking lots.

I spent some of my day trying to setup my computer and desk, its fun to have a desk and co-workers again. For a computer they gave me an IBM T60, while it is really heavy it does have an amazing 15.4-inch widescreen and it makes my x60 look like a pocket pc. A nice surprise is they’ll be giving a company Blackberry phone for me to use, which is nice as I miss having Internet access on the go.

Still having a tough time with the time change and I didn’t get a good sleep last night but I hoping tonight I get a full nights sleep, wish me luck. This weekend I checked and there aren’t any Club Meds in Cuba so while it is possible to go, I will wait to go to Cuba when I have someone to go with me. So this weekend I will maybe get a chance to see a few apartments and also get some more shopping in as it will be another 6 weeks till the rest of my bags arrive and I released I forgot to pack enough shirts.

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fido kiosk, Stone Road Mall

I was really happy to find out that Guelph has GSM service from fido as I really don’t like using CDMA technology. To find a fido I figured my best bet was to head to the Stone Road Mall and sure enough I found a fido kiosk in the mall, but before that I did go into a Rogers store and wow that was painful.

The gentleman at Rogers was very anti pre-paid service and he refused to give me details on the plans and simply said if I wanted that I could go to Wal-Mart or some other location as they only have time to deal with people that are looking for monthly contracts. So I was really glad when I found the fido kiosk as fido is known for good service along with a good pre-paid program.

So thanks to Paul the fido staff member who helped answer my questions and get my new fido phone number setup. He even took the time to ensure that I got a nice vanity type phone number, which is great as I always enjoy having a number that is somewhat unique. If you want me local number best just email me [email protected] and I’ll send you out my number.

While in Canada they do have GSM service they don’t have 3G service add to that fido doesn’t have unlimited data plans and you will understand that mobile search is really in the early days here. I really hope in the coming years they update to 3G service and get better data plans as I really like being able to access the Internet on demand.

Well if you are looking for a good cell phone provider I highly recommend fido as not only do they have good network coverage they also have great customer service.

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Day One in Guelph

I arrived last night and took a quick city tour and was really amazed as the city was so much prettier then I had thought. The city has so many old style buildings in brink and stone, something I haven’t seen for along time. I arrived Saturday night so there where a few people out downtown, but to my delight nothing too crazy happening downtown and the local nightlife seems really interesting.

Today I drove around the city and checked out a couple apartments and the house I was looking at renting, so many options really looking forward to getting a place here. I also got over to the Stone Road Mall, where I checked out the Sony Store, Flight Centre and I setup a local phone number with Fido. The Stone Road Mall is small but a good size that it’s a nice way to spend a couple hours shopping.

Weather wise its cold here and it rained today, but at least there isn’t snow on the ground. It is nice to be driving again, but had to fill up my tank today and wow it was $100 to fill up, so maybe I should stop driving around randomly. I figure the novelty of being able to drive will ware off in a few weeks.

My body right now doesn’t seem to have a big issue with the coldness and a funny thing is my hotel room heater only goes to 25.5 C so even at full heat its cold in my room. The biggest problem my body has right now is trying to stay awake and also trying to stay asleep. Last night woke up at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep and now it is almost 8pm and I am fighting to keep my eyes open.

Tomorrow is my first day on the job, really looking forward to it. Scoped out the offices today and while not a high profile office/company they sure seem to be big with tons of cubicles/office space. Will do my best to post back on my first day at work and will try to figure out how to post my new phone number to my friends without the whole world knowing my number.

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Being Back Home in Canada

I arrived back in Canada yesterday and it is starting to sink in that I am no longer going to be living in Asia. Everywhere I look I see something new but with a sense of familiarity, while at least in Vancouver that is the case.

Landing in Vancouver I thought was going to be stressful and full of issues, but I was pleasantly surprised by the process. Other then waiting in line for about 30 minutes to get through the initial customs screening the rest was a breeze. As after the initial screening a porter was there to grab my bags and then we got taken through a side door that bypassed the second lineup and have to give a big thanks to the customs officer who instead of making me fill out all the paper work just gave me a document and a number to call to have it all handled for me. So what I had budgeted as a 1 to 2 hour nightmare became a 30 minute wait in a line, next time I will get the Can-Am airport pass so I can also bypass the initial customs lineup.

It is really good to be back in an environment where great service is the norm as even the service at VanCity beats the private banking services with CitiBank which is known in Asia as the best. I walked into my old VanCity branch as I always kept an account there. Right away I had a couple people servicing me and while nobody offered me coffee or tea the actual service was amazing. They knew exactly what I needed and had the forms ready in a couple minutes. Really makes me feel comfortable keeping my money with a bank full of people that understand their system and customers at this level. Coming from Asia I could tell you so many horror stories from banks running two charging systems to a great story on what it took to actually get a Visa card in Thailand.

On a personal note I had a reunion of sorts with my guardian, which I haven’t seen in over 8 years. She is one of the closest people to me that can share stories of my late mother and is able to joke about my crazy family. So it was really good to touch base with her and hope now that I am within a reasonable flying distance I will be able to see her more often then every 8 years.

Also was able to meet back up with an old friend that I’ve known for over 14 years. Having that much of a history with someone is rare as traveling around the world and living in so many different places I’ve lost touch with most of my friends. But luckily my buddy Gurp is rooted in Vancouver and is always happy to take a few minutes of his day to hang out and reflect on the good old days. As with some of my best friends Gurp and I also share some great travel stories and I hope that I can get him over to Thailand in May to share in some new ones.

While I was in David’s office at VanCity I was looking at his desk and trying to figure out why there was a bunny rabbit on top of his computer monitor. Then like an old joke you just remember I smiled as it came to me that Easter must be coming. So I asked him when Easter was and it shocked me to hear that it was the following weekend. While I am Catholic I haven’t celebrated an Easter in over 5 years and really haven’t been aware of Easter for those 5 years as in Asia the only Catholic holiday that is noticeable is Christmas. So now while I am sitting on this plane headed to Toronto I am wondering if I should try to get a flight next weekend to Cuba or if I should just take the time to get to know Guelph a little better. I will decide in the next couple days as I don’t even know if we get holiday time with my new company during Easter.

Big moves and big changes in life are something sadly I am somewhat used to but I still have a little bit of that butterfly feeling in my stomach and honestly am a little nervous on what Guelph will bring into my life. I am getting older and like my guardian was saying I have done so much in the past 10 years, I hope that Guelph can be the place that I can experience the next 10 years as a member of a wonderful community.

In about 5 hours I will get my first glance at Guelph and I think tonight I will end up driving around Guelph to get a sense of the city. Can’t promise that I will blog tonight as even now I am really tired (it is 6am Singapore time) and while I been fighting to switch my body over to local time, come nighttime I will be ready for bed.

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South Korea Marks #48 for Me

Well I just finishing up a 2 day stay in Seoul, South Korea. Seoul is interesting, very costly, along the lines of Japan costs, but minus the Japanese system and cleanness. I for the most part enjoyed the city/county. I managed to get a tour of the DMZ, which was interesting. I’ve seen the boarder between Mexico and the US and while not exactly the same the DMZ shares many characteristics, like long fences, barb wire and a general sense of displaced people.

The most notable thing from this trip was in my hotel room. Now we have all seen mini bars and I had though the most advanced mini bar system was those that as soon as you take the bottle out of the fridge a computer send notice to charge you for the item. Well here in Seoul they’ve gone further, as in Seoul they have installed actual vending machines within the rooms (see the photo). These 4 and half feet by 2 and a half feet machines sit in the rooms just waiting for you to get hungry or need a bottle of wine and the get this when you turn off all the lights they come on and wish you a goodnight sleep. While not something I expect in a 5 star hotel these hotel room vending machines are effective. My only problem was I didn’t have any money small enough to buy a drink and it doesn’t give back change.

If anyone is coming to Seoul and going on the tour of the DMZ, bring along a large marble. You’ll understand when you are walking back out of the tunnel and if possible record the event and let me know how far it goes down.

Got to go, as I am just at the airport waiting to get on the plane and head to Vancouver and within 48 hours I will be in Guelph and hoping to stay put for at least a few weeks. As for why South Korea is #48 for me, well it is the 48th country that I have traveled to. I am hoping that #49 is Cuba as really interested to see that country and understand better about its culture and government. Will keep you posted as to which country becomes #49.

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Singapore Airlines New First Class

It has probably been said before but I will say it anyways, the new first class with Singapore Airlines is like having a hotel room at 35,000 feet in the sky. Actually since there are only 8 seats/2 rows on the 777-300ER you also feel like your in some really small jet as the rest of the plane stays oblivious to you. On my flight there where only 6 people in first and with 3 dedicated staff we always had someone close by to help out.

My flight from Singapore to Seoul was 5 and a half hours, so I had a chance to get in a movie and a couple TV programs on the 24 inch LCD TV built into my seating area. While they didn’t have an actually IR remote for the TV it did have a nice controller attached to the seat, that also had a full keyboard. The keyboard is used to create/edit basically any office documents on the Singapore Airlines version of Microsoft Office. Note out to the Google guys that read the blog, should partner up with Singapore Airlines and offer up Google Apps in all their seats.

The seat which is huge, 35 inches wide and tall enough that even I can’t see over/around the side skirts also has a desk in front of you, where the TV and other things go. This monster of a seat at request also gets transformed into a bed, while at first glace I couldn’t figure out how they did it I did end up asking for turn down service to catch a nap. So what they do is the back of the seat folds down and then folds out to cover the area. Now I was told that this was 7 feet long, but I’m 6 foot 2 and my toes could brush the other end while I was sleeping.

Food and drink wise nothing really interesting, they service the typical caviar, champagne and fine meets but I have had better presentation at many restaurants, but I guess none of the staff are trained at that level of dining. Also no they didn’t let you just milk the champagne bottle, but they gladly where there to fill you up when you got low, but for me I was hitting it hard on the apple juice (champagnes little brother).

One thing amazed me the most out of all the things they had up in the first class cabin and its something I’ve never thought of or heard of before. It was that in the first class cabin on the seat belts they have an airbag safety system. This is something now that I’ve seen makes logical sense as the safety warning card with the people crunched up in weird positions for a crash could all be avoided with the installation of airbags on all the seats. We never got the chance to try out the airbags on the plane but I would rather hit an airbag then slam into the desk or TV in front of me. Probably see more Air Bag Belts if someone like Al Gore gets on a tantrum on airline safety.

Another notable item is the view as the seat takes up 4 windows and since you can see perfectly out of 2 of them you really get a sense of the sky around you. Just take a look at the photo, what a great view can be had and I am talking about out of the window. The feeling of space and freedom is always nice to have, too bad they can’t make longer/wider windows in this section as it sure would be nice to have an even wider view of the sky. Maybe in the future Airbuses this will happen as even though the view was great it felt kind of funny having so many windows to one seat.

Well overall I would say that the new Singapore Airlines first class is something really amazing but since it is so darn costly and also maybe at times not available with only 8 seats the business class is just as amazing. As the business class also has 35 inch seats and fully reclining beds, but is just not as finished and glamorous as the first class seats. Would I fly this first class again, well I will say hopefully not as I hope that in the future I can travel with colleagues and friends, which would make flying first class incredibly unfeasible, unless of course I was traveling with some of the Google boys after the vesting period.

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Last Night in Singapore

Well it is all coming to an end and it feels very strange. Today the movers came and took away my boxes and I did my last few local things like closing my phone, power, Internet, and cable accounts. But part of me still thinks that I’ll be in my bed next week, but this will be the last night ever that I sleep in this bed.

Tonight went out with a bunch of my Singapore friends and had a great laugh and some serious talking on SEO, sorry Melissa next time we’ll give you time to study up on the SEO lingo. It was a good night and it will be a great memory to look back on.

I know I should be happy and moving back to Canada will be great for my personal life and family life, but it sure does feel a little strange to be leaving this all behind so quickly. As I really only started to consider this move to Guelph in February and its been only a few weeks since I confirmed that I would actually make the move, so its all a little blurry, but I do have a lot of good feelings on everything.

Have to my old SEO/PPC team in Singapore that our next lunch is on me, as sorry that I didn’t get a chance to meet up with all of you before I left. I will do my best to be back in May and you guys don’t drive Brent too crazy and remember the key to Peter’s happiness is just to add more TP pages. Oh and Liz did I mention how beautiful you look today, great you feeling good ok then can you buy the keyword “blog” for me with some of the monthly spend. Thanks Liz!

My flight leaves in 7 hours, which means I have at best 5 hours of sleep ahead of me, so I say goodbye to Singapore tonight and to all my friends and co-workers in Asia I wish you all the best in this coming year and while I am not here you are always welcome to email me.

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Interesting time for SEO in Asia

Well as I am about to say goodbye to the SEO industry in Asia, I’ve had a few last minute attempts to keep me here but I am really looking forward to life back home in Canada. Also have to give a big “sorry man” to my buddy Ash over at Mc Donald’s as finally after about a year of working from within he’s been able to get the management of Mc Donald’s ready for SEO, but again sorry man, I need to head back.

I have really enjoyed being part of the SEO building blocks within Asia and while I’ve seen many of those blocks falling back down I really hope that with the increasing level of professionally organized events like ad:tech and Search Engine Strategies in the region it will bring the needed professionalism for this area to succeed. If not we’ll have a new acronym referencing in the Asian Internet advertising world as they’ll end up combing SEO and SEM into one large MLM system or maybe it will just earn the nickname PPF, Pay Per Fraud.

But wait, it’s not all that bad, as I do have to give props out to Marc as even though he’s been recruited to manage SEO for a large American company he’s kept true to his routes and is staying in the Philippines to grow and support the SEO/Internet community there. I just wish other SEOs in Asia could follow in his morals and professional conduct, I won’t bad mouth anyone directly but you know who you are. To those people all I say is, think past tomorrow and realize that being able to read SEO for Dummies and blog on topics your read on other peoples websites doesn’t equal education and/or being part of an industry.

Even with this goodbye I will always be a part of the SEO industry in Asia, while no longer day-to-day, whenever possible you will still see at the events and you know I am always there to help, just drop me an email or Skype me.

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Eventful time in the Philippines

Well after a few eventful days and nights in the Philippines I am on the plane heading back to Singapore for my last couple days there. The Philippines was great and it was made even better by an incredible bunch of people.

My first evening in town Mr. SEO of the Philippines took me out with his group of buddies, which included Abe who is one of the top bloggers in the Philippines and the rest of his close blogging pals, who by the way are the organizers of Philippine Blog Awards. Also out for the evening was Google Philippines new county manager and a couple of her stylish friends. So all in all it was a restaurant full of SEOs, Bloggers and general Internet geeks. It sure was nice to see that the Internet community in the Philippines is very close both in business and in friendships. If they keep it up, I can see the Philippines being the leader in SEO/Internet market for the Asian region. The Philippines already well known for Internet content developers and outsourced customer server centers.

After the night on the town I did what comes naturally, I left my hotel at like 6am to get on another plane. See there was some management of a very large (but unnameable) Internet company out from the United States and Marc scheduled at the last minute a weekend away from Manila for all of us. So my buddy and I with these two managers headed off to Boracay an amazing Island way the heck in the middle of nowhere. It was funny as one of the American managers noted that he had to take a taxicab, bus, plane, van, boat, and finally a motorbike all within 2 hours just to get to our resort. My trip had one addition to that adventure, as my route to the airport included a visit with the local police as it turns out a one way street in Manila really means a one way street.

But it was all worth it as we all had a great time, racing around in dune buggies, parasailing and generally enjoying sitting on a beach doing nothing. My personal favorite was the racing around with the dune buggies, as they let us loose on this small town/village and I more then enjoyed myself while I helped out the civil engineers by clearing some tree’s and other debris from the sides of the roads (you can sure get a dune buggy sideways at 40km/h).

Sadly it all had to come to an end, but a couple of us including myself will be feeling the effects of a little too much sun for the next several days. Its strange to think that this time next week I will be walking into the office of my new job, probably wearing 4 layers of clothes and having no idea when the next time I will be laying on a beach just watching the world go by.

Well to the Philippines and the all the great people supporting the Internet industry there I hope we all meet up again but till then keep up the good work. Ok inside joke time, to our wonderful tour guide, I hope that with our next trip we can complete the James Bond tour, minus the fitness section.

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Last Weekend in Asia

After nearly 6 years of weekend fun around Asia this weekend will be my last one as a resident of Asia. So I am heading off to the Philippines to see my buddy Marc and spend some time on a beach, as something tells me the only thing white under my feet in the near future will be snow.

Have to say sorry to my Thailand friends as while it would have been great to spend a few days together again, I still haven’t finished packing and this trip to the Philippines is long overdue. I’ll see all you in Thailand in May as I will swing by on my way to SES China.

Oh some public shame being sent to Troy over in Thailand as dude for a guy that doesn’t have a “job” you work more then Marc and I combined. So while we are on the beach catching sun I hope your hard drive crashes. Ok no I don’t as that would be bad, but hope you can get that Mac project finished and looking forward to seeing you in Guelph later this year.

Philippines will be great as I need a break, for me as all I seem to be doing here in Singapore is packing, eating and sleeping. This move has really been tough as it was a little rushed but it will mean once I land life will seem a lot more stable and smoother.

Well I am off to get on my plane, blog with you later.

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Singapore Freight/Cargo/Moving Companies

Attn: Singapore Expats:
If anyone is thinking about trying to airfreight things from Singapore a general warning out to you about the local freight/cargo/moving companies as they will do almost anything to not handle a personal move.

They seem to be only interested in corporate relocation where they can charge an insane amount of money, some even simply said no we’re not interested in a personal move and hung up the phone. This is what you get when you have ultra greedy and ultra lazy individuals running companies.

I actually had my best luck and pricing dealing with a moving company out of the UK called London Baggage, which then subcontracts back into Singapore, the price was 27% to 52% less then the local companies, out of those that bothered to price the move. London Baggage is worth a check and they even provide a local toll free number for Singapore.

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Venting on Singapore Airlines

So my deal on an upgrade turned into a nightmare of service and I haven’t even gotten on the plane. What happen was really strange, since I booked my flight using Air Canada instead of Singapore Airlines, Singapore Airlines didn’t want to give the first class seat to Air Canada.

Add to the confusion that while Air Canada has a 24 hour reservation/support line, its based in the US (so much for national pride) and they can’t call the 24 hour reservation service at Singapore Airlines as its located here in Singapore. They “say” their phones aren’t allowed to call international. I was like I spend nearly 5 grand on a ticket and you can’t make a phone call to solve a problem for me, well the answer was a long drawn out no. So had to wait till Singapore Airlines office in the US opened and Air Canada could “discuss” this issue with them further.

So finally this evening Air Canada called me, not in Singapore, but via my US office number and confirmed that they where working with Singapore Airlines to resolve this issue and I will be able to fly as I requested and paid for. Then 15 minutes later another call back from them saying that Singapore Airlines had given them the seat and all was good. Now I haven’t been able to confirm with Singapore Airlines, but at this point I need a good sleep, if I drank I would be in a bar about now, but I don’t so I blog. I wonder what’s worse, hmmm in few years from now I will be on a 12 step program and at a “BA” meeting saying, “Hello my name is Stephen and I am a blogaholic…”.

So what’s the big deal, well I fly a lot with my job and even more as a hobby and for me I can get really ticked off with bad service. I just don’t see the reason to hire staff that isn’t personable in such a people/service based industry. Some of the nicest people work in the sky (no Helen, I have no biased opinion) and can make a 12 hour flight feel like spending 12 hours with friends. But that’s not always the case and this issue brings me back to the days when I used to own and run SingapoorAirlines.com (notice the spelling). Surprisingly it got traffic, and even type in traffic but it eventually pissed Singapore Airlines off enough that they sent their legal thugs after me.

The site was very professional as it gave my feedback from flying with Singapore Airlines as well as feedback from other not so happy travelers. I did give the name to them along with SingapoorAir.com without getting my legal counsel involved (didn’t want to spend anymore then the $17.90 which was what the domains cost) but still felt bad and used. They didn’t even apologize for the poor service that spawned the sites creation or even say thank you for me giving them the domains. Oh well that’s the corporate world for you, life goes on and I still fly with them.

UPDATE: When I checked in for this flight they still didn't want to give the seat to me, had to wait while the check in staff talked with management, what a mess...

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Differences between Singapore & Guelph

Some of my friends back here in Asia don’t really understand how big the difference to life in Singapore is compared to life in Guelph and to tell you the truth I don’t know how much different it will end up being either. But what I do know is some of the statistical differences, such as:


Population
Singapore 4,492,150
Guelph 127,009 (138,183 including the surrounding township)

So Guelph has the population size of around 3% of Singapore's, but this is probably higher then actual as in Singapore there are hundreds of thousands of illegal workers and tourists that are not included in the official population.


Land Size/Area
Singapore 699.4 km²
Guelph 86.66 km² (378.45 km² including the surrounding township)

Amazing that Guelph is about half the size of Singapore but with 3% of the number of people. To give you anouther aspect to land/people ratio, here is the home I am looking at getting in Guelph: http://www.virtualproperties.ca/r5007/photogallery.htm this land use would be something that only the president of Singapore would be able to acquire, but in Guelph its just another house on the block.


Weather
Current Temperature in Singapore 32 °C / 89 °F
Current Temperature in Guelph -5.6 °C / 21.9 °F

While I did find an average temperature for Guelph, it is somewhat useless as the temperature range in Guelph goes from -11.0 °C to plus 25.7 °C depending on the time of year, but anyways the average temperature in Guelph is between 1.8 °C and 11.6 °C.
Where as in Singapore there is a constant temperature year around, which ranges from 24 °C and 30 °C, even on some of Guelph’s warmest days it won’t reach the average temperature I’m used to in Singapore, oh boy…

That is why after living in Asia for nearly 6 years my biggest fear is how my body will adjust back to not only colder temperatures but also variation in temperatures. One thing I do know is that I will have a much larger wardrobe in Guelph, which will include lots of long johns and parkas.


Housing/Rental
3 Bedroom Condo in Singapore $1,450 CAD / $1,900 SGD
3 Bedroom House in Guelph $1,200 CAD / $1,550 SGD

There is no point trying to compare renting a house in Singapore to renting a house in Guelph as in Singapore you can expect to pay at least $4,000 SGD / $3,000 CAD for a house. The Singapore prices are not higher due to western style of living this is the actual average cost of a place in Singapore. If you wanted western style living you can expect to pay at least $2,500 to $4,000 a month for a condo.


Cars / Automobiles
Singapore entry level 2007 Honda Civic: $56,250 CAD / $73,000 SGD
Singapore fully loaded 2007 Honda Civic: $62,400 CAD / $81,000 SGD

Canada entry level 2007 Honda Civic: $16,980 CAD / $22,000 SGD
Canada fully loaded 2007 Honda Civic: $23,630 CAD / $30,650 SGD

In Singapore a combination of government corruption and local dealership greed has made owning a vehicle almost impossible. As the price of the same car in Singapore can buy you 3 in Canada, not to mention that in Singapore you are only allowed to own the car for 10 years. After 10 years you have to re-buy your car from the government otherwise it becomes scrap metal.

Me being a car nut this has really been one of my biggest problems living in Singapore as sadly to say I haven’t owned a car during my life in Singapore, but I can assure you I will own one (maybe even two or three) when I am in Guelph.


Food / Mc Donald’s
Big Mac in Singapore $3.00 CAD / $3.85 SGD
Big Mac in Guelph $3.76 / $4.90 SGD

Ok right now all those who know me in Asia are probably laughing and can add to that list the lady who answered the phone at the Gordon Street Mc Donald’s in Guelph, but I had to compare the cost of a Big Mac. So it looks like its going to cost me $1.05 SGD more to bite into a Big Mac, maybe I should have held out for a bigger salary or maybe I should just buy more shares in Mc Donald’s. (The price was updated as someone mentioned to me that the Tower Street Mc Donald's originally used in the quote was in Fergus)


Those are the current differences I could find, but will add more once I am in Guelph. Hope to make note on the taxi cost, bus fare, silly things like power costs as I know my friends back in Bangkok are always talking about how much power costs them, as well as anything else I come across that would make a good comparison.

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