Can We Take The Service Lift?

Whew!  We needed some groceries in this house, two teenage boys and lots of activities calls for some food. 

Scott had off for some kind of holiday here in Singapore, honestly I don't even know what holiday it was yesterday (Wed)  but in Singapore you get all major religious holidays off for all the major religions represented on the island.  So he was off what better time to venture out with our car and get some groceries. 

We decided to go to the "Giant" which is like a super WalMart because we needed some power strips, a crock pot.....and groceries.  According to the I-phone app "go there" the closest one is 5 miles away and in the Vivo City mall, it said it should take us 14 minutes to go there.  Wait....14 minutes to drive 5 miles?  Yes, it actually took us about 20 minutes.

Singaporeans like to shop and well, everyone else was off for the holiday too, so they all joined us at the mall.  It is a pretty mall and big.

Things are geared up for Christmas already so the Christmas music is playing and the malls are decorated, they Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Singapore so I guess they don't wait for Thanksgiving before starting Christmas.

It is interesting shopping here.  There are some things we recognize but a lot of things we don't and most things I have no idea what they are or what to do with them.  We found some Ramen Noodle type thing... but could not read it so just exactly what kind is it?

but wait..... is that.... English on that pack??  Why yes it is, Scott, Keegan and Caleb found some packs with English on them

so we came home with "cracked pepper crab" ramen, and "curry" ramen and then.... chicken ramen.

I have been searching and searching for something whole grain!!  It is called "whole meal" over here but is hard to find none the less so I was thrilled to find some high fiber crackers, at least that's what I think they are?

The day proved to be exhausting and by the time we sat down to some dinner at an "Express Thai" place in the mall we were a bit over loaded and somewhat cranky.  Things got better after we ate, good thing as we had that long car ride back with all the traffic.  Scott drove today, I still am a bit uncomfortable driving and so with it being a holiday and lots of traffic around I did not feel that today was the best day for me to drive.

We got back to our condo with a trunk full of groceries, pulled up to the lift lobby doors to unload before we parked the car and were met by the management who informed us that the lift was down and a little boy was stuck in the elevator on the 6th floor.  They said the boy was crying and scared and that a person was on their way to fix the lift.

Oh no!  That poor boy. 

We live on the 11th floor!!  Remember we had a trunk FULL of groceries and we were hot and tired and culturally overloaded....  so we asked can we take the service lift, which goes up to our back door?  They agreed to let us do that and let us in the lift with their key.  Whew.

But wait... the back door key is different than the front door key so we could not get in.  At least the groceries were up and waiting out our back door but we were stuck.  They were working on the lift

but we had been waiting for 1/2 and hour already and who knows how long it would be.  They did get the little boy our rather quickly so I was relieved that he was not still stuck in there.

We met an Irish family in the lobby and they said that if we left the kitchen window unlocked that the guard could unlock the safety bars on the main window and we could climb out the main window and over the air con service area to get through the kitchen window.

We DID leave the kitchen window open so that is what we did, Scott climbed up and over, 11 stories off the ground and opened our back door.  After putting everything away we all collapsed on the couch to watch National Treasure 2.

Whew.