Leigh's thoughts

Sitting at starhub right now, waiting for a rep. To help me with a refund on my phone deposit. Could be awhile, but I don't mind. It's wonderful people watching and like everything here, it's in a mall, so I feel at home. The shopping here is indescribable; I had been warned, but I wasn't prepared for the enormity of it. You can find everything you want and/or need from high end to low end. Bargains seem to be available, but pretty much everything is about 20% more than in the states and I haven't found the outlets-yet. Tomorrow we will head to ikea to furnish our condo-kids in loft beds and us in a queen. We could go king again, but then we would have room only for the bed-we plan on a few end tables too. White or light sofa to mask Callie hair :). We are trying to visit Callie every day, and she longingly gazes at josh. She loves when we all go, but when I tried to take the leash and walk her a bit, she just ran back to josh. Not sure when move-in day is, but Callie may have to reside at the pet hotel for a few days. The quarantine facility is wonderful, so I am sure the kennel will be good too. We take the mrt/subway every day, and it is a little walk. We are trying to build up our stamina in the walking department as we are going to try relying on the mrt while here despite most of our expat colleagues already procuring a car. I am not opposed to the car idea at all-I am not judging them. I would like to try the walking thing for awhile, hoping it will help the waistline and pocketbook! On that line, it was really amazing to get a place to live under budget-could be the first time ever. With the extra housing allowance, a helper may be in the future. If a female is single raising a family or both parents work , there are tax breaks for having a helper-sounds like a pretty sane way to support working families. More later-josh just got here with his new phone!