Sorry for the lack of content and/or pictures today.  We’ve been learning the in’s and out’s of our company’s financial system the past two days.  Ugh. 

I’m just glad the money comes in and eventually shows up in our bank account pretty much intact (theoretically speaking.)  Just kidding–it gets where it needs to.  We actually have some pretty impressive financial folks working hard on our behalf.  It just doesn’t make for good blog material unfortunately.

On a separate topic, the vehicles here in Singapore all look like brand new luxury cars.  I asked a few folks about this because I have not seen one single car that didn’t look like it just rolled off the car lot–brand spanking new.  Turns out (to dissuade people from buying vehicles) the laws state that when someone buys a car they can only drive it for ten years and then they must get rid of it.  (Supposedly this is true, but our company owns a car that looks a bit older than ten years so maybe there are certain exceptions…) 

The person that told me this law (who was not a native of Singapore) also told me that the tax that a person must pay in Singapore to own a car is equal in value to the car.  So essentially, you would be buying one car for the price of TWO!

The first question that came to my mind was where do the cars go?  Singapore is an island (if a large one) with many people (over 4 million).  What happens to the cars?  I guess to sell the vehicles they must drive them north to Malaysia.  Crazy?!?  So owning a car in Singapore is quite a status-statement.

The cars here don’t ever look dirty either.  They glisten.  There must be another law about keeping them clean; or maybe folks keep them clean so that policemen won’t pull them over because the dirt adds a few years to the appearance of the vehicle?