Hallelujah!
We finally signed a lease on an apartment. We don't have to move again for 2 years. Hurray!
Our home in Singapore will be an apartment in the condominium Water Place - which is just outside the city center on the other side of the waterway that turns into the Singapore River and Marina Bay to the West and into the Kallang Basin and Geylang River to the East where our new neighborhood is enveloped by it and by the Singapore Strait.
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The complex houses 7 buildings between 15-20 floors with 4 units on each floor. It was built in 2004 (not too new, not too old). Our 3-br + 1 (that's the indication used for maid's quarters) unit is ~1350 sq feet with a master bedroom and a shared bathroom. The fixtures are fairly modern and the apartment, even without our weathered Swedish furniture feels like an IKEA showroom.
The condo's amenities incude 1 main swimming pool, 2 "fun pools" - one with two floating goals and one with a basketball net - a Jacuzzi, and two children's pools with a water slide and other playful water fixtures. There are 2 tennis courts, 1 multipurpose court used for soccer and hockey, a small outdoor playground, an even smaller indoor play area, a karaoke room, a reflexology path, and several BBQ pits (some with gas stoves in addition to the grills) and picnic areas. There's even a nice koi pond and you can get food pellets from the guardhouse to feed the fish!
BBQ pits, tennis courts, and the karaoke room have to be booked in advance and there are associated (symbolic) charges. The occupants of most apartments are foreigners, and of those about half are Western (and I include Australians and New Zealanders in this group). That is part of living in a condo versus an HDB, which is, for one reason or another, where most Singaporeans live.
We saw this condominium in our first day of apartment hunting. We liked it immediately, although at the time we felt it was too remote from public transportation - less of an issue now that we're addicted to having a car. The apartment we are now moving into is also bigger than the one we saw originally; we actually ended up viewing ~8 in total once we decided on this neighborhood - there is quite a high turnaround in this expat-friendly area. The surroundings are very family-oriented, have more of a feel of a suburb and not so gritty like the city center. The complex is also a scenic stroll and foot bridge away from Kallang Leisure Center and the Indoor Stadium where there is good shopping and entertainment and some nice waterside restaurants - along with the nearest subway (MRT) station.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Heritage View - More Temporary Housing
We have been trying very hard to find suitable accommodations, but as you can read in past entries we have some issues with at least the available units that we can afford. The new buildings have very, very small apartments and we hate paying a premium to live in small cages. Units in old buildings are often in disrepair or lack some of the nicer amenities you can find in the newer buildings like a pool area with water slides, or a covered parking lot.
Anyways, now we have been kicked out of our corporate apartment because they are fully booked. So we moved to another corporate apartment provided by LMB Housing Services (Heritage View codominium) a bit further from work but still in the center of the city. Commute is pretty good, but the shopping nearby is limited. This area is near some big campuses (INSEAD and Singapore Polytechnic) so lots of young students live here. The apartment is spacious, the pool is nice, and we don't have to find cardboard boxes to live in - for a while I was having trouble finding temporary accommodations; maybe it's the Singapore Super Sale, or the Youth Olympics but hotels and corporate apartments are largely booked solid until end of July. Anyways, the A/C's work - so no complaints.
And now our helper can start living with us.
Anyways, now we have been kicked out of our corporate apartment because they are fully booked. So we moved to another corporate apartment provided by LMB Housing Services (Heritage View codominium) a bit further from work but still in the center of the city. Commute is pretty good, but the shopping nearby is limited. This area is near some big campuses (INSEAD and Singapore Polytechnic) so lots of young students live here. The apartment is spacious, the pool is nice, and we don't have to find cardboard boxes to live in - for a while I was having trouble finding temporary accommodations; maybe it's the Singapore Super Sale, or the Youth Olympics but hotels and corporate apartments are largely booked solid until end of July. Anyways, the A/C's work - so no complaints.
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| From Settling in Singapore |
And now our helper can start living with us.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Help, The
This weekend we went to shop for a live-in maid. This is something I've been both dreading and looking forward to. The idea of affordable and convenient maid/nanny services was one of the original appeals of life in Singapore. But the idea of finding a suitable person to look after Lizzy and live in our home haunted me. It's like shopping for a new member of the family.
The process, it turns out, is quite simple. First you find one or more maid agencies - there are many, many to choose from and we just went with a colleague's recommendation. There are a few malls in the center of the city who have entire floors dedicated to housing such agencies, which broker contracts between migrant domestic workers - mostly Filipino, Indonesian, and Malay women between the ages of 18 and 50 years old - and, well, people like us. The one we used was in Far East Shopping Centre on Orchard Rd. You call the agency up and briefly describe your specific needs and they send you over some resumes to review. You book an appointment to interview the maids you're interested in. You agree on pay and some other logistics with the maid you choose. You sign a contract, the agency takes a finder's fee, and the maid moves in - most homes and condo apartments have an extra small bedroom and 1/2-3/4 bathroom suitable to house a maid near the kitchen. Oh, yeah, you also have to do an online course in how to be a maid's employer - covering your responsibilities toward the employee as mandated by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). You also register the migrant worker with MOM, which begins levying a monthly tax from you for providing your maid a work permit. Finally, you have to get health insurance for your new employee and the agency helps you take care of that as well...
At least that's the technical description. The actual experience is a bit more colorful. One discomforting element in the process is that when you walk around the mall looking for your agency you pass through many other agencies and the place starts feeling like a market for legalized human trafficking. The migrant workers have to find a job within a few weeks of entering or losing their previous employment arrangement or else they face expulsion from the country. Many of them seem to be on their last day before their work permits run out, as they bring their suitcases to the agency where they sit the entire day waiting for their chance to get picked to be someone's maid. It is nerve-racking. The rules of engagement also made for an uncomfortable interviewing setup - chairs arranged just outside the agency's office in the middle of one of the mall's corridors, other maids-to-be and shoppers milling about.
We picked "Allen", who is from the Philippines but has been working as a maid for 20 years in Singapore, China and even, briefly, in the USA. The reason we liked her on paper was that she was older, educated, and had no children of her own for us to feel sad about... The reason we liked her in person was that she spoke very good English, she seemed quite intelligent (college-educated even), and Lizzy took a shine to her from the get-go.
We don't have a place for her to live with us yet, as we are in a small corporate apartment, so for now she commutes to work - and we're getting used to having the help.
The process, it turns out, is quite simple. First you find one or more maid agencies - there are many, many to choose from and we just went with a colleague's recommendation. There are a few malls in the center of the city who have entire floors dedicated to housing such agencies, which broker contracts between migrant domestic workers - mostly Filipino, Indonesian, and Malay women between the ages of 18 and 50 years old - and, well, people like us. The one we used was in Far East Shopping Centre on Orchard Rd. You call the agency up and briefly describe your specific needs and they send you over some resumes to review. You book an appointment to interview the maids you're interested in. You agree on pay and some other logistics with the maid you choose. You sign a contract, the agency takes a finder's fee, and the maid moves in - most homes and condo apartments have an extra small bedroom and 1/2-3/4 bathroom suitable to house a maid near the kitchen. Oh, yeah, you also have to do an online course in how to be a maid's employer - covering your responsibilities toward the employee as mandated by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). You also register the migrant worker with MOM, which begins levying a monthly tax from you for providing your maid a work permit. Finally, you have to get health insurance for your new employee and the agency helps you take care of that as well...
At least that's the technical description. The actual experience is a bit more colorful. One discomforting element in the process is that when you walk around the mall looking for your agency you pass through many other agencies and the place starts feeling like a market for legalized human trafficking. The migrant workers have to find a job within a few weeks of entering or losing their previous employment arrangement or else they face expulsion from the country. Many of them seem to be on their last day before their work permits run out, as they bring their suitcases to the agency where they sit the entire day waiting for their chance to get picked to be someone's maid. It is nerve-racking. The rules of engagement also made for an uncomfortable interviewing setup - chairs arranged just outside the agency's office in the middle of one of the mall's corridors, other maids-to-be and shoppers milling about.
We picked "Allen", who is from the Philippines but has been working as a maid for 20 years in Singapore, China and even, briefly, in the USA. The reason we liked her on paper was that she was older, educated, and had no children of her own for us to feel sad about... The reason we liked her in person was that she spoke very good English, she seemed quite intelligent (college-educated even), and Lizzy took a shine to her from the get-go.
We don't have a place for her to live with us yet, as we are in a small corporate apartment, so for now she commutes to work - and we're getting used to having the help.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Front-Ended
Today I was involved in my first car accident in Singapore. I wish I can tell you a funny story about driving on the wrong side of the road or some silly unorthodox signage that I could not understand, but there is nothing uniquely cultural about this incident. I was stopped in the middle of a parking lot waiting patiently for the car in front of me to settle into a space so I can get into another of my own, when the driver decided to drive back directly into my front bumper. I am not sure if this was a failure to listen to the many beeps and blips that are coming out of the rear-bumper sensors that I see on every car here, or overconfidence by the driver, or negligent and purposeful vandalism... All I can say is that when I got out of my car to get the details of the other driver, I got accosted by her boyfriend/husband/brother and blamed for not honking my horn before I got hit by them...
Later in the day I went to the rental company's office to file my claim report, and the rental office was kind enough to offer the driver to settle by cash for a meager sum - it was fairly minor damage all-told. This crazed maniac asked to speak with me while on the phone with the agent and tried to convince me to take some of the responsibility for the damage. Why? Because of my negligence in honking in a timely manner. Maybe their bumper sensors don't work after all and they expect other stationary objects on the road to alarm them instead. I politely declined to take any responsibility, and when that didn't work I did it less politely...
The next twist in this story is that I was asked to collect the settlement payment from this person on behalf of my rental company, so I arranged to meet her after work - we both seem to occupy a desk in the same building. It turns out she works at Bloomberg - we sort of guessed because the collision happened at 8am, when all Bloomberg employees here have to report in. She was quite amicable by this point. I got my cash and we parted our ways. Other than this, and some wrong turns, driving here has been pretty straightforward. Only thing to watch out for is that if you end up taking too many wrong turns you might find yourself crossing the border to Malaysia by mistake...
Later in the day I went to the rental company's office to file my claim report, and the rental office was kind enough to offer the driver to settle by cash for a meager sum - it was fairly minor damage all-told. This crazed maniac asked to speak with me while on the phone with the agent and tried to convince me to take some of the responsibility for the damage. Why? Because of my negligence in honking in a timely manner. Maybe their bumper sensors don't work after all and they expect other stationary objects on the road to alarm them instead. I politely declined to take any responsibility, and when that didn't work I did it less politely...
The next twist in this story is that I was asked to collect the settlement payment from this person on behalf of my rental company, so I arranged to meet her after work - we both seem to occupy a desk in the same building. It turns out she works at Bloomberg - we sort of guessed because the collision happened at 8am, when all Bloomberg employees here have to report in. She was quite amicable by this point. I got my cash and we parted our ways. Other than this, and some wrong turns, driving here has been pretty straightforward. Only thing to watch out for is that if you end up taking too many wrong turns you might find yourself crossing the border to Malaysia by mistake...
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