Settling into Singapore
Right, so, I’ve been radio silent for quite a bit now. To be fair I did warn you that I might not write as often when I settled in and made friends. If you expected more from me, that’s on you.
Well, now I’m on a bus for four hours and don’t really have much else to do. I can’t turn on the light and read because it seems as if people like to sleep on long bus rides at night. Who’d have thought?! No big party bus vibes. Sad. It doesn’t matter, I’ve been procrastinating doing this for a while…it’s high time I give the fam a proper update. It’s nearly the end of month four at the time of writing this but I’m going to try to start from the beginning…
Singapore was not totally unfamiliar when I landed here for the second time on May 31st 2023, I had visited previously in February the same year to scout out if Southeast Asia was someplace I could see myself.
Aside from leaving family who has lived in the States for long periods of time, my other concern was the weather. It is consistently between 86-90 degrees Fahrenheit ( that’s 30-32 degrees Celsius, a scale I’m still learning how to ‘feel’ ) but the temperature wasn’t really the issue. Back home during the summer months it’s consistently hotter - often reaching above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. But it’s the never ending 86% humidity that worried me most. I had heard if you walk outside *FOR EVEN A SECOND* and you are *SWEATING*. With that exact emphasis.
To my surprise, though, I discovered it’s actually bearable and maybe even pleasurable. When exiting the plane, you can feel life return to the skin ( especially when coming from a dry Chicago winter ). The humidity makes your skin feel healthier. While Singapore is on the equator and it is hot, the evenings are often pretty decent - at least nice enough to sit outside for dinner or go for an evening walk. For the nights that are actually preposterously hot, any indoor space is basically an indoor freezer so if you get hot you can simply act like you’re going to actually buy something the nearest 711 on your way to the restaurant - which in my case, may be McDonalds on any random night.
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Oops. We hit a bump. Guess this is my sign to segway into something more interesting than a tangent on just the weather.
When I landed in May I had traveled to the opposite side of the world *again* but this time to start a new beginning and with only 1 backpack, 1 large suit case, 1 small suite case, and a CPAP machine. 4 items. Coincidentally, I also had four goals:
Find a place to live
Obtain a SingPass and start contributing in the Singapore Jump office
Make friends
Travel
One.
Like any big city, there are plenty of housing options for one to explore which range greatly in features and price in Singapore. However, due to the limited amount of space that Singapore has due to being an island they are all expensive. By far, the most popular accommodation is an apartment - of which there are two common types: HDBs and Condos. What the heck are HDBs? Well in short, HDBs are residences built by the Housing and Development Board ( HDB ) which is a government organization responsible for doing just that, building public housing and coordinating development. Incredible. They do it very well though, over 80% of Singapore’s residents live in these HDBs according to *the internet* and over 90% of those people own the property for a 99-year lease ( something foreign to Americans but common in Asia ). I think when most people think of public housing they don’t think of the words which describe HDBs, like “clean”, “accessible”, or “safe” but that’s exactly what they are. These HDBs aren’t generally available to expats unless a certain set of requirements is met.
That’s where the second common type of apartment comes into play - the condos. Condos in Singapore are like fortresses. They have strict security in place - which is odd considering Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world. These “palaces” often include incredible amenities, sprawling pools, and a modern design. You’ll see a lot of nice cars at these places - think like Lamborghini and Bugatti’s. While not true for all condo buildings, it’s definitely a theme. They are also usually among the most expensive housing options in Singapore, where a single bedroom would easily run your $5000-$7000 SGD monthly ( ~$3600-$5000 USD, before utility charges ). Ouch.
Housing in Singapore is very expensive nowadays which is partly due to expats like myself moving into town and partly because of COVID. When COVID hit they stopped building housing which skyrocketed prices even further inflating the market. Similar inflation occurred in major US cities as well, but it was especially harsh here.
I was looking for something in-between a HDB or Condo I guess. I wanted to live like a local in a local neighborhood and learn as much about the local culture as possible. The “sites to use” to find a place to live is not apartments.com like in the US. It’s 99.co or propertyguru.com, both pretty much local to Singapore. Initially, I had a realtor who was to help me find a place, but I ended up on these sites anyway mostly due to curiosity but partly because my realtor hadn’t reached out yet. Basically the first night I went searching, I found it. The one and only 56 Eng Hoon St, Tiong Bahru Plaza.
I loved everything about it and basically had my heart set on the place. It is a good size, great location in the historic Tiong Bahru neighborhood, right above a famous cafe, and near local wet markets and hawker centers. Best of all, it’s immediately adjacent to the brown line MRT station which allows for an easy commute to the office. I scheduled a tour for that Thursday. I’d arrived on a Tuesday.
Despite finding what I was hoping was the place, I still looked with the realtor at other properties on Wednesday. The realtor put together a list really fast. Many of them were fairly small for my budget and without much character, but they did look livable and were always part of a condo complex which did have a lot of nice amenities I would have used regularly ( such as a pool, probably not the gyms ;) ). The older the building was, the larger the space, but places still seemed a bit cramped. I enjoy hosting parties and dinners so having space was important to me ( thought I haven’t hosted many parties since being here ).
Thursday rolled around and I met the realtor at Tiong Bahru Baker, just below the place. This place wasn’t technically a condo or HDB, it’s a private apartment that’s rented out by the owner. It looked just like it does in the pictures above and was pretty spacious. The entrance was up about 2 flights of stairs and the previous tenant had plants and vegetation growing in the stairwell. There was a lot of foot traffic for the condo because of the location, price point, and size…and after seeing it in person I knew this was the spot.
While the realtor ( who was amazingly flexible and very helpful ) started the process of renting the apartment on the spot, I ended up chatting with the previous tenant who had lived here for 7 years but was moving back to his home country. He mentioned he needed to get rid of his furniture before moving, which worked our really well for us both in the end. I mentioned I’d be interested in purchasing everything if the price was right and he was on board. A day or two later everything was in order and I’d signed the papers. I moved in shortly after and started getting comfortable - unpacking and purchasing new bed stuff from Ikea.
Today is looks pretty much the same as when I toured. I’ve added my belongings but purchasing furniture and items from the previous tenant pretty much had me set. The only thing left do do was fill it with lots of tech goodies, my favorite thing about a move. “Smartifying” the place. I’ve been very happy here and the commute to the office is really easy, just a short MRT ride. Not too much more to say here I guess.
Two.
The next goal was to get registered with the government and start work. This section is fairly short cause it’s relatively boring.
Each person residing in Singapore has a unique identification number, not dissimilar to the Social Security Number system in the US. However, the government here has made this number much more useful through the SingPass program. This program allows you to create new bank accounts at the click of a button and much more - mostly because this program also includes all your personal information that the government knows about such as your current address and other particulars. When you move to Singapore it’s much easier to get started if you’re able to get this SingPass setup quickly. Fortunately, the process was relatively painless. Provide a few particulars here and there, attend an appointment at the Ministry of Manpower, and then wait for your employment pass card to arrive, which you could use to sing up for the Singpass program.
After my employment pass started and everything was sorted, I was able to start work. I had taken the first week off in Singapore to get all the personal items sorted. I knew it would be harder for me to do these admin items after starting work.
The office is in Asia Square in the Central Business District ( CBD ). Asia Square is a 1 block by 1 block complex ( a square! Wow! ) which houses two tall skyscrapers with a food court, outdoor hangout space, and many restaurants in-between the two towers. Our office takes up an entire floor of Asia Square tower 1 and features many of the same amenities our other regional offices have, such as kitchens, showers, comfortable desks, and readily available refreshments. However, unlike our Chicago office, we have incredible views and the entire outer wall of the office is large glass windows. Lots of natural light, which I love.
I knew pretty much everyone on my team from previous visits and because Zoom is a thing, but I was looking forward to getting to know everyone more and become part of the team in Singapore. The Singapore office is also much smaller than the Chicago office, so I was also looking forward to getting to know others at the office who might be on different teams…I ended up finding this was very easy to do because of the small nature of the office. This kind of leads in to the next section on making friends.
Three.
Outside of family, friends are one of the most important things to me. I enjoy spending time with close friends and “shooting the shit” as you might say. When I was younger I think I was much more into materialistic things and fancy toys, but my priorities have shifted a lot since college. In my hometown I lived in the country so catching up with friends meant there was a lot of planning involved. Most times it was easier to stay home and play video games and tinker, hang out with the family, and sleep than to journey into town for a few hours. College was the first time I was close to my friends such that we were always together. During this period I realized I enjoy the company of people much more than anything else. I’d never really liked fishing, I found it boring, but with the right people it was so much fun. I’d always liked driving, but road trips with friends were next level. I think moving to Chicago after COVID reinforced this even more for me because it was another place to meet a lot of amazing people, and I did. The thing I miss most about Chicago is the people and friends I made there - I really don’t think Chicago is anything special on it’s own. You get the point, probably.
So moving to Singapore is another opportunity to meet a lot of amazing people in my mind. However, the first month in Singapore was somewhat lonely outside of work. At the time it felt kind of shitty, but I think it was ultimately a blessing. It forced me to slow down a bit after the big move and the chaos that comes along with that and get back into some things I’d missed for a long time.
I purchased a keyboard piano. I’ve always loved music; my parents encouraged me to learn Piano as a kid. But I was a rebellious kid and didn’t see the value in it, so I dropped it and I’ve basically forgotten all of it. Now I listen to music almost 24/7 because it helps ease my mind, allows me to explore different cultures, and express myself I guess. I want to be able to play an instrument again because it just feels more engaging. So yeah, I bought a Piano and practiced relatively frequently for a few months. Now it’s less so, but I still play fairly often. It’s been a good avenue to relieve stress and get back to the basics.
Similarly, I’ve gotten back into reading. I realized in Chicago I was watching a lot of TV after work and spending a lot of time on YouTube but not really improving myself from those activities and I felt like I’d hit a wall in terms of personal growth. I’ve tried to start reading on topics like habit forming, current events, and historical events.
A somewhat new hobby for me has also emerged - photography. I think this stems largely from my desire to travel and document it. I bought a starter camera and have been trying to get more familiar with it. It’s going ok, but not great…hopefully you’ll see some improvement over the next couple of years.
ANYWAY, these hobbies are probably not something I would have picked up if I didn’t have a lot of time to myself the first few months I was here. But as I said, friends and human connections are important to me so even with these things to do I still wanted to make friends.
Coincidentally, the bus I’m on now has many of them now ( skipping ahead ). We’re headed to Malacca, Malaysia where Marcus spent a number of years and where his family currently lives. Also on the bus is Dylan, April, Debbie, Kristine, and Anway ( a long time friend from Chicago ). I met all of them through work. It’s a solid group and I can tell we’re going to have a great time. It’s suffice to say that after a while in the Singapore office I’ve been able to make some connections with some pretty incredible people - and people that are down to travel nonetheless. It feels kinda weird to write about them here cause I know they’ll read this but you’ll definitely hear more about them in future blog posts. I’ll include some pictures of the trip since I’ll probably publish this after the trip ( as you know, I’m publishing this much later whoops ).
Four.
Singapore is smack dab in the middle of Southeast Asia. It’s one of the things that most excites me about the move to Singapore. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and many more countries are all just a short or medium flight ( or bus, in this case ) away. And each place has such a different culture and something unique to offer and explore. I’ve already been to Indonesia, a neat place called Bintan, and am currently exploring some of Malaysia. I have plans to go to Thailand soon ( for a couple weekends actually ). By Christmas I’ll have been to many many more times the number of countries in the last 6 months than I’d been to in the previous 24 years of my life. I think I may try to go for the 30 by 30. We’ll see. Unlike goals 1 and 2, and exactly like goal 3 of making friends, this goal to Travel doesn’t really have a specific thing to “check off.” I’m planning to share more details on this trip to Malacca and other trips in Southeast Asia in their own blog posts but no telling when I’ll get to them. The goal is to travel not necessarily to blog hahaha. Hopefully all of these adventures will also feature many old, current, and new friends.
