Singapore has something called ERP - some people say it stands for "everyday rob people." It's this thing you drive under, and it steals your money. It could potentially cost you $8-$10 to get home - by ERP charges alone. This is to cut down on people driving their cars to the CBD and congested areas.
Taxis are TOO expensive during peak hours. There are CBD charges for getting picked up in the middle of the city, there are peak hour set charges as well as a faster meter during these hours. You pay ERP in the taxi...it's REALLY expensive.
So...people are meant to take buses and the MRT. Well, the MRT doesn't go everywhere, and sometimes your only option is the bus. Last night, Nicole, Paul and I were looking to take the bus to get some laksa in Katong, and it was around 7. Two buses that we needed didn't even stop at my stop, because they were already full. We waited for a full half hour. There were no bus options, the MRT doesn't go there...we couldn't walk, so we took at taxi - $18 to go just a few kilometers. It was more than $10 before we even started driving.
There have been other times at night when the MRT and buses aren't running anymore (they stop just before midnight), and we have to take a taxi, but we call and taxi and no one picks up...and it takes forever to find a taxi home. I know that stuff like this happens all over the place in the rest of Asia, but since nearly everything works so well in Singapore, I think I get really frustrated when it doesn't work so smoothly.
On a related note - in my Spanish class this evening, we learned the phrase "suffering pushes." That cracked me up. It's like when you're in a big crowd, and people are pushing you. You suffer pushes.
2 comments:
Entonces, ?como se dice "to suffer pushes" en espanol??
You can't just leave us hanging...
Empujones - when you experience empujones you suffer pushes.
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