Staying in a foreign land alone is not as helpless as I imagine before embarking on my attachment to Thailand. In my workplace, I met quite a lot of Singaporeans from the Singaporean community here in Bangkok. This is a photo of one of the pavilion in the grand palace.

I really salute to them as they are able to not only speak Mandarin and English well but also able to converse fluently up to five foreign language or more (French, Thai,Japanese,etc). Most of them are self-taught linguist and I suppose they learn it to be able to interact with a locals a lot since they are mostly businessmen or family members that had stayed here more than 2-3 years. I hope during my short three and half month stay here I can also pick up basic Thai so that it will be easier if I am to be posted to work here in the near future or if I decide to come here for a tour again. =D But it takes a lot of determination and persistant to keep on learning which I afraid I lack. However with the hope of getting a better bargain for the clothings and gift I will buy back, I suppose I will be learning fairly hard I hope haahahhaa =).

I suppose to I am out of the time to only realise that things are really cheap here. 1 SGD can get me a plate of hawker food, 3 SGD can get me fastfood, and 6-7 SGD can get me Japanese food that cost 12-15 dollars in Singapore. However you will get more discount if you can speak Thai.There is high tendency for certain shop to charge foreigners that cannot speak Thai a higher price this especially true for clothings etc.

Well I have suffered a bit like I bought a pair of shoes that costed 2-3 SGD dollars more expensive than another store. Lets not dwell on this issue or you will be thinking how stingy I am hahahaha XD.

Last but not least the Singaporean community here is more than privileged then ever to be able to help the unprivileged locals in Thailand. I personally witnessed that on the STCC Farewell party for the Ambassador of Singapore where the well-off Singaporeans,the ambassador and other representatives here donated spontaneously to help the Baan Nong Pla Sew School in kachanaburi to improve on their current campus that don't even had electricity supplied to it. Sometimes they even need to dine, assemble, and study in the shades of the trees. And You should be able to guess what will happen to them when it rains.

Not having a degree is not a sin but not everyone shares my view at least I met successfully diploma holders that have also established themselves in life with courage, determination and perservance.