Air conditioning in Singapore, a friend or a foe?

Before moving to Singapore I had to make a series of difficult and painful decisions, one of them was selecting my wardrobe items. My luggage size and weight were limited, so I had to compromise… My female need of bringing all my clothes and shoes with me, even the ones I didn’t wear for the last 2 years, lost with my husband’s convincing arguments: you won’t need this, you won’t need that, this is not nice, you won’t wear this there, it’s definitely too hot for all those sweaters, jumpers and jackets. Well, the all-knowing-Google advised me the same, so with a heavy heart I donated majority of the clothes I took years to hand-pick. For all those who always trust men and Google, DON’T! Let me elaborate…

Singapore is the first and only country I have ever been to where you put your jacket on when you enter any building and you take it off while going outdoors! It is not a joke, I am dead serious… The average temperatures are usually 32/33°C during the day and 25/26°C at night. The climate is very consistent here; it is very hot and humid all the time, so as a result air conditioning is used everywhere! Or should I say overused…? Offices, shopping malls, public buildings, trains and busses, taxis even, in other words – all living spaces! Your first reaction is probably the same as mine – it’s too hot outside, get me some AC!!! Yeah, it is nice maybe for the first several minutes... As my body took over a month to get used to the thirties’ temperatures, it was not easy to manage the change from the air-conditioned about-twenty degrees office to thirty-something outside… My colleagues told me they have jackets at work so I brought a sweater, but little did I know that my thin cardigan was not enough… Now I have a cardigan, a sweater and a pashmina and on top of those, very often my colleagues see me at my desk sipping hot green tea with my hands stuck to the teacup to warm myself up! I am not the only one though; my colleagues wear their jackets every day as the office feels like a one big fridge!

Many people around me have a constant cold, no wonder I’m thinking, with such drastic temperature changes I say everyone is destined to have several of those a year… I did not have one just yet, because, as surprising as it is to my colleagues and probably some strangers in busses and trains I take every day, I put tights and stockings while wearing skirts or dresses to work. And I always wear closed-toed shoes to work, no sandals. Yes, I am hot on my way to and from work, but I am not that cold at work! Let me just narrow it down, I am hot while moving between the means of transport, which is from my apartment to the bus – about 3 min plus waiting for the bus; the longest waiting was maybe 5 min, then from the bus to the train (MRT, Massive Rapid Transport, a metro if you will; most stations are underground) - 2 min, and then not even a minute from the train to my office building. The bus and train are air-conditioned, so not only am I not hot there, most of the time I am actually chilly... Then, there is 9hrs at work every day, where I am cold most of the time, even wearing shoes and tights, so as you can see wearing layers is not such a stupid idea in Singapore!

Man, don’t I miss some of those clothes I donated…? What can I say… next time I will compromise better and consider my feminine side more seriously, right honey....?!? So a word of advice, if you are planning to visit Singapore, remember to bring some warm clothing! Not a joke…