Smart Global Life

Our July bill came to $238.66. Five people in the flat, four family plus our helper, one month of electricity, gas, water and refuse collection. Depending on the exchange rate that's somewhere close to 300,000 won. For utilities. In Korea I don't think I ever paid anywhere near that, even in the worst week of August with the aircon running, and six years in I still pause for a second when the notification comes through. What's actually inside that number surprised me, though, once I finally sat down and read the breakdown instead of just paying it. I Was Wrong About Which Line Was Killing Us Electricity was $104.41 for 332 kWh in July. Here's the part that stopped me. SP prints a comparison right on the bill, and it showed neighbour average at 491 kWh and national average at 405 kWh for the same month. We used 332. Five people, aircon running most nights, and we're well under both. I genuinely did not expect that, because electricity is the line I'd spent years ...

 I've lived in Singapore for six years and I eat Korean food for lunch and dinner most weekdays. Not because I'm avoiding anything. My company runs a canteen, and the woman who cooks there is Korean with a long career behind her. Proper cooking, the kind you'd get at a gisikdang back home, the roadside places truck drivers eat at where nobody's trying to be clever with the food. It tastes like Korea. Genuinely. So the honest version of my Singapore food story is that I've had far less exposure to local food than someone six years in probably should. The Months I Actually Ate Local Every Day There was a stretch where the company canteen shut down temporarily, and I had to go out for lunch like everyone else. I ate economy rice. Every single day. If you haven't come across it, it's the stall with twenty or thirty trays of cooked dishes laid out behind glass. You point at what you want, they scoop it onto rice in a takeaway container, and you pay based ro...