The one item in Singapore that is more expensive than in the US: tennis balls

How hard can it be to manufacture green fuzzy balls? Apparently in Singapore, it's quite difficult. A standard can of three tennis balls here costs US$4, about twice as much as in the States. And it's even more expensive if you buy it just from any supermarket, the cheapest can only be found in the Indian hawker shops, where I know they are making a huge profit, because I noticed on the price tags they just crossed out the Indian rupee "RP" and substituted in a $-sign. Unless they altered the price also, that would be a huge profit.

I was actually shocked to read in the Chinese newspaper today (yes, I sometimes spend my hours, usually in the research lab, reading what little I can understand in Singapore's free Chinese paper "Wo Bao", which actually has the more difficult words translated into English in a little "Helper" vocabulary box at the end of each article, but that still doesn't get me through the whole thing), that Singapore was #10 on the list of most expensive cities in the world! What?! Zurich, New York, Tokyo, and all the usuals I know were on the top ten as expected, but then they also said that Singapore was just one ahead of Hong Kong, at #11. I couldn't believe that any non-Japanese city in Asia would make it even near the top ten list. Singapore even beats London by a long shot, which I believe they said was in the 30s or 40s... granted that is mostly due to the major weakness of the pound sterling these days, but still. After further translation, I found out that the rankings were based on a survey done by companies that calculate the amount of spending allowance they should give an employee that they want to send to any of those cities for a business trip. Aha, that makes much more sense. If you really wanted to blow through a load of cash, like going to the nicest hotels and eating at fine restaurants, you could certainly do that in Singapore, but only just as easily as you could find a hawker stand across the street from that fancy buisness dinner that serves the usual $5 or less complete meal. Whew, for a moment there I thought I was seriously underestimating the value of Singapore dollars over my entire trip here...

Speaking of the research lab, I guess I'll put up some pictures of the lab I work in:
Yes, I know... everyone here puts up pictures of beaches and club parties, etc and here I put up a picture of me in clean-room garb next to an O2 plasma-etch machine and in the lab cubicle where I spend my Dilbert hours in Singapore. Sue me, I'm a geek at heart. But hey, it's another side of Asia I haven't seen before, so I'm making good use of time here.

I'm actually secretly very anxious right now about my research back home... Dr. Lou emailed me saying that the group we worked with back at ETH is now interested in publishing a paper on some of the work we did while we were there. I'm jittery just thinking about it. Man if I could manage to get some science article authorship cred as an undergrad, that's a sweet deal if I'm looking at grad schools later. Please, please, please... let me see some "R. Pei" at least once in Science or Nature magazine... ok maybe not that high up but somewhere nice. Yuekai Sun has an article with his name on it from our lab... makes me wish sometimes that I chose to do research in simulation rather than actual experiment work. You can publish stuff a lot faster when you do just simulations, because heck they might not even work in reality... and probably don't, no offense Yuekai :)

Anyway, at least I can come back to Rice in the summer and tell my profs that I at least learned some new tricks while on my escape vacation... err, I mean, "study abroad"... in Asia. Today I just spent more than 3 hours out on the 7th floor rooftop of the Engineering Workshop in one of Singapore's hottest afternoons, with no clouds out for even a scrap of merciful shade, 38 frickin degrees (Celcius, ~98 degrees Faranheit), and no wind... for a solar panel lab. I was so glad I brought an umbrella with me, to give some shade while I worked. And the labbie kept saying, wow, you guys are so lucky there are no clouds out to mess up the experiment... and I'm thinking, dude, just throw me off the roof now and end my misery. We spent those 3 hours of torture measuring the solar panel I-V characteristics, at different tilt angles as well, and learned a thing or two about what it feels like to be on the verge of heat-stroke. I hope Dr. Massoud will appreciate the work I've done to prepare myself for working some more on his beloved "Rice Eco-Technology Challenge" pet-project. Solar power to the market, here we come... not.

OK time to stop blabbing for real now, as much as I like hearing myself talk, or I guess... watching myself write. Test in two days, need to start being serious. I'll leave on this question to ponder... What is home?

I'm Ryan Pei and I approve this message.