What is it with this trip?

I've lived in Singapore for almost 2 score years. In that time, I've never, ever had an ambulance or fire truck come screaming up to my doorstep. Well, that's good.

But one should start wondering about things when all one is doing is:

1. Sitting at the table, cheerfully typing in a blog entry and thinking about lunch and shopping.
2. Thinking about the freeze-butt weather and considering thermal points of entry in Parka To Wear Today.
3. Trying to decipher some Eastern European's English translation of a software user manual.

The last thing one would expect is a SCREAMING LOUD DEAFENING SIREN BUSTING YOUR EARDRUMS AND MAKING YOUR ROOMMATE'S MOUTH GAPE OPEN WIDER THAN CAPTAIN AHAB'S WHALE AND SCREECHING OUT this grating siren. Alert readers will remember that the fire alarm incident at my workplace sounded like BREEEE! etc ad nauseum.

Well, this morning's was DOOWEEEETTT! DOOWEEEETTT! DOOWEEEETTT! DOOWEEEETTT! DOOWEEEETTT! DOOWEEEETTT!

After hurriedly grabbing the wallet and coats (it wouldn't do very well for me to escape a burning building only to freeze to death, would it?) we pounded our way down the metal escape route (see, we didn't use the elevators) and finally reaching the ground floor with head swimming (from going round, down the stairs), we made a cautious approach to the front lobby.
This finally arrived, and burly firemen burst calmly into the building, past deafened tenants and a harried-looking building supervisor.

Thankfully, it was just a burst hot water pipe (will I be able to take a hot shower tomorrow morning? Stay tuned...) and not a fire. All the same, it took the fireguys so long to reset the lifts that Pepper and I decided to puff and wheeze back to the apartments to get our stuff, for the afternoon's shopping trip. Man, what a day.

On the bright side, Pepper and I waddled over to the Deli for some hot breakfast..

Nothing like a hot tasty breakfast after braving -4 fahrenheit temps! The friendly waitress, after learning that we were stupid enough to walk there, summed it up nicely.. "Are you guys crazy?"