January 6th, 2005
Jeremy arrived in Singapore (Sg) on January 6th, 2005 to begin the new life he and Kelly were to lead for the next year. He got started by learning the layout of the country with his Singapore Street Directory, (compliments of his boss, Davis Ng) which he would refer to many times a day for directions and how to get from one area of the country to the next using Public Transportation. (The MRT-mass rapid transit- and Busses)



Getting settled in meant taking a trip to The Ministry of Manpower as we affectionately call it, MOM, to get his 'green card' which for him is called a "Q-1" card, which is based on how much money he will make per month. (ps...He's at the bottom of that list for this country) This card is your ticket to even being able to stay in the country, which Jeremy learned quickly that his application was REJECTED due to improperly filled out medical forms. The next few days were spent trying to get that issue resolved, with trips to the hospital for new health examinations and trips back to MOM for review. In the end, it was all worked out and luckily Jeremy does NOT have TB or HIV. Now he would be able to get a phone, open a bank acct, and begin to look for a place for us to live.

Then in true Jeremy fashion, he found two indoor climbing gyms and scouted them both out. As well, he made fast friends with a small bicycle shop owner and got himself a sweet single speed commuter.


(Jeremy's new bike)

Of the two climbing gyms only one of them was air conditioned, so that's where he got himself a pass. Climb Adventure (http://www.climbadventure.com) is where we plan to climb at least 3 times a week. There is a core group of folks that climb there, including some of the hopeful women participants in the "Climbing Mt. Everest without Oxygen" group happening in 2008! Climb Adventure is at the Tanjong Pagar MRT stop.

And the real window to Singapore lies with Rafi. Rafi is the security guard who works the late shift at Jeremy's boss's condo.


(MD Rafi)


(notice his turkey eye ring!)

Rafi has been helping Jeremy with the small stuff. Where to get stuff for really cheap, and helping him to get settled into life here quickly and easily. Rafi seems to know everyone, and everything. He is always smiling and quick to help out. He has a colorful history and is a "reformed" man since he's married and has a daughter now. But his past life is what's helping us now, to learn how to protect ourselves and find great deals and not waste time.

Getting Settled

Next the task of finding an apt.

Finding Housing is relatively easy in Singapore. There are a lot of places to choose from depending on what you are looking for. For us, finding a place without a down right skeezy looking bathroom was most important. Most Singaporeans combine their floor toilet, beday, sink, and shower into one fun wet splashing room!


(Skeezy Bathroom)
(standing in the shower, looking at the toilet)

Oh and proximity to work, cost, and quality were also taken into account. Jeremy looked at several apts and condos and emailed back prospects to Kelly (who was still in PA enjoying balmy 65F weather for January and finishing wrapping up the house and Oliver situation). Your choices of housing include, HDB (gov't housing), condos, bungalows, and mansions. Our choices included HDB or a few condos. (Remember we're at the bottom of the income groups here) For now, while Jeremy got the MOM stuff worked out, and until he could secure a place, he's been staying at his boss's condo which is HUGE and on the 13th floor offering breezy open windows all the time. You can even see the harbor out in the distance. Thanks Davis!

The HDB housing offered a few options for us, but when we weighed our options vs the price value, we thought if we could share a condo with one other person it would make for awesome amenities, great location and low price. So, we are going to live with one of Jeremy's co-workers, Ling.


(Ling displaying her green card)

Jeremy and Ling found a 2 bedroom condo just down the road from Davis's and even closer to Jeremy's work at NUS.




The condos and HDB housing are all pretty close to each other.


(typical HDB housing)

It's actually really cool to see how everyone does laundry here. They seem to be very conscious of energy and thus, b/c of the warm sunny weather, hang their clothes out on poles under their windows to dry. It brings such color to the otherwise tall looming apt bdgs.



Our condo though we'll likely dry clothes inside but near an open window. We do have a place starting Feb 6th and the amenities ROCK! There is a pool with fountains, a gym, spa, tennis courts and 24 hr. Security.


(our pool)

It has 2 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms, a small kitchen and living room and a porch. It's right across from a park, and so we'll have a view of greenery! Ling will pay $S 500 and Jeremy and Kelly will pay $S 800. That translates into about $800 total American dollars for the whole place.


And What's for dinner?


FOOD! Ahhhh, lovely, glorious, abundant, cheap cheap cheap food! Any kind of awesome cultural food you could want. Chinese, Japanese, Muslim, Indian, and probably more that we haven't found yet and some that we've eaten but didn't know what it was. The place to buy it cheap and fast is at the Hawker Centers.



Hawker Centers are basically open air food courts, under a pavilion with seating and food stalls side by side for you to walk up and down to make your choices. There are separate drink stalls where you can get fresh juices, coffee (iced or hot) and BEER! Tiger and ABC Beer



are the beer of choice. But you can still get Heineken or Guinness if you want. For the locals, they have to approach the beverage stand, but for us, as Americans, they seem to come to us, waiting on us, very special. THERE IS NO TIPPING in Singapore. And if you eat strictly at the Hawker Centers you don't even incur the 5% GST charge either making for very cheap meals. The one thing bad about eating in an open air center like this is most everyone seems to smoke. However, for entertainment we've been searching for all the creative packaging on the cigarette boxes. Despite the graphic warnings, people smoke, and smoke a lot.



(there are many more...)

We have had some amazing dishes. Some of them looked a little iffy, but in the end, tasted wonderful.





Walking through the Hawker Centers you'll find all kinds of vegetarian fare, and even chicken, pork, mutton and fish. The chickens still have their heads on. The fish may be dried or boiled/steamed. The pork we've had has been in these dough balls which are delish! The average cost of a lunch or dinner is about $S3.50. That's without a drink. We've been trying to carry water with us as that is the one thing that is scarce at the Hawker Centers. There are public toilets, which are very different from our toilets in the States. A true Singapore toilet is merely an oblong shaped hole in the ground, that you squat over. And, no Toilet Paper is provided in most situations, so we carry our own there too. Hmmmm, so what do you use? Well, there is water to 'rinse' like a beday or there is nothing. Sounds great at an eating establishment, eh? Those toilets we reserve for Emergency Use only and don't shake anyone's LEFT hand!

Now Breakfast is a different matter. For Jeremy, this is the meal that he's missing the most. Not getting to eat the daily egg sandwiches is hard. The typical meal is really just like lunch or dinner. But if you search hard enough, you can find breads and pastries, have your coffee, and even Jeremy's favorite, peanut Butter Pancakes, which for an order of 3 cost $S2.00 and you can never eat them all!

(Peanut Butter Pancakes & Iced Coffee)

Which is actually the case with most of the dishes here. Too much food! So, now wherever you go, it's important to take some tupperware along for your leftovers. Breakfast leftovers provide a great midmorning snack and sometimes even enough for lunch. While lunch leftovers provide a great mid afternoon snack or even enough for dinner. So you can see it's easy and cheap to eat in Singapore! We have also learned that you may not get utensils where ever you go. Many folks eat with their fingers, which can be fun for a while, but there are no napkins provided, (you must bring your own there too) but what has become our norm, is to carry our own chopsticks. Jeremy has a beautiful set that he got when he was in Okinawa Japan, and they are readily available at Hawker stalls, or in our case, we bought a few sets so when you come to visit you'll have your own pair to use, and they come in a fancy sleeve!



By now you are wondering if Kelly is actually here or not.

Kelly arrived on Jan 19th, 2005 at midnight. Right on time. Thanks to our wonderful Friend Francis, and his Mom, Kelly was able to fly from the State College airport, with her two checked bags, each not totaling more than 70 pounds and one carry on and one computer (that's it folks, really!) with all the necessary paperwork, passports and ID's and notes from Francis, to Singapore in style!

The flight was from State College to Wash/dulles, Wash/dulles to Chicago (almost missed that one, it was close and I had to run), and then Chicago to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Singapore....all stand by! This made for a super cheap ticket and I was able to get here for around $500. Now the best part. Of these stand by seats, the longest flight was from Chicago to Tokyo which lasts about 14 hrs and I got a seat in Business Class! If you've never flown Biz Class, do it! It's way cheaper than First Class, and soooooo much better than Coach. Lots of great food, hot towels, unlimited adult beverages, your own movie screen with many movies to choose from, and the seats are like Lay Z Boys in the air! You can recline to almost flat without even bothering the person behind you and there's so much room all around you, that even with your carry-on on the floor infront of you, which they allow you to do there, you can still get around the guy sleeping next to you without even disturbing him to go potty or to hang out with the other folks who can't sleep who are hanging out by the 'bar'. What an amazing flight! I had 2 glasses of red wine, and dinner and then took an Ambian trying to sleep most of the way there, but woke up just about 3 hrs later. I was basically awake for the rest of the flight, but I caught up on some movies I hadn't seen yet, and made some friends. The snacks were wonderful mixed nuts served in a ceramic crock, HEATED. Do this at your next dinner party! Dinner was awesome, I saved my menu! And the deserts, ahh, cheescake! I ate so much! And then you can have more snacks or sandwiches whenever you like, so while I was hanging out at the 'bar' I had a beer and an egg sandwich. Breakfast was more of the same goodness. But this time, I had an OJ. And tried hard to drink lots of water.

Jeremy stayed in touch with Francis to know of my approx. arrival time, and if I had even made it onto each flight as we had no way to communicate once I left the ground in SC at 6am. But, with smooth sailing, cooperative weather and empty seats, I made it to Singapore in the shortest possible time that I could've managed for the cheapest possible ticket. Fran, what's my damage total?

I sailed through customs...it was kind of a joke actually. They didn't really check me out much, and even when I declared that I was staying in the country for 365 days, they didn't even blink. So, I walked on by, and onto baggage claim. We were pretty scared to bring anything of any consequence with us to Sg. Like copied DVD's or music lists, but they never checked anything. I wouldn't put the Playboy on the top of the inside of your bag, but it wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be.

So, Jeremy hooked us up with a cab to get us back to Davis's which ended up being the most expensive thing we've purchased so far...$S45.00. That was b/c it was so late at night, and it was a van, and he just didn't talk to Rafi about how to go about getting a cab to go to the airport. The MRT stopped running at 11pm so that was out as an option. Since the MRT stopped running so early, Jeremy was at the airport plenty enough early. He was excited!

We arrived at Davis's, I got a tour and we went to bed.

I didn't sleep well. With all the windows open, even with a breeze it was still hot, and the traffic noise from below was pretty loud, even up on the 13th floor. Plus, Jeremy just had a twin sized bed. Pretty cozy. As well, Jet Lag began to take hold. We went to bed around 2am, and I was up at about 4am. This continued, the early rising, for the first 4 days. The next day for me was Thursday 20th Jan. We got up early, and Jeremy introduced me to the Peanut Butter pancakes and iced coffee.

(mmm, good!)

They were surprisingly good and filling! The coffee is super sweet, even for me! But wonderful as a cold beverage. The mornings are really a nice time to begin moving about, as it's not as blistering hot yet. Once the sun is up, it's hot, and humid, but being on an island, there is a breeze that seems to make it's way through the buildings and it offers some relief. Albeit a warm breeze. We began the lessons with the MRT and went to MOM to get my paperwork begun so I could stay. It takes two weeks to process working papers which is just fine, b/c I really want to feel comfortable with getting around on my own here. At MOM you have to start the process and then come back 3 hrs later to pick up more paperwork. So, we went to Chinatown to walk around.

(road decorations)


(Indian Temple)


(Chinese Festival at night)


(a street vendor)


(colorful stairs)


(Chinese Temple)

I really liked Chinatown. It has lots of open air shops and tons of food and cool temples and Buddha. We also got me a cell phone (which came with 2 free oranges) and so I had a lesson with that as a non cell phone user. Jeremy and I synched our phones, and he taught me how to text message so we could save money. We've bought used cell phones and they have these cards in them called SIM cards. You can store stuff on the card, or on the phone, but it is essentially like a prepaid phone. You buy 'top up' cards to add more minutes to your phone, and we plan to sell them back when we leave. Each phone was $S80.00 and the minutes were $S25.00. This should last me for a while since I have no one to call locally except Jeremy and Rafi!

We did so much running around that when we got back from Chinatown and checking things out, we went up to Davis's and I just wanted to lay down for just a moment and lift my feet, and I was asleep! Jeremy came in and laid down and we were both out until about 9:30pm. Just in time to scoot down to the closest Hawker Center, grab a quick bite for dinner and go back to bed. Early rise...but I tried not to bother Jeremy.

© December 6, 2008