House hunting

March 2014

For the first few weeks we were living in a serviced apartment at Great World City. We had a 16th floor 2 bed apartment that overlooked the Olympic sized swimming pool,and 2 major roads that you could hear sports cars racing up and down at night time. There was a tiny kitchen and an even tinier laundry area. Any food prep or cooking in the kitchen was an extremely hot and sweaty affair as it; understandably, did not have air con, opening the door to covered but outside laundry area just let in the noise and more hot and humid air. We ate out quite a bit in the 5 weeks we lived there.



 This became home for a while,it was convenient and a great base to start house hunting from.

Before we had left the UK we had filled in a relocation agent's questionnaire about the sort of accomodation that we required. It asked whether we wanted a landed house (house with a gaden in UK speak), town house, Condo /Apartment. Then in what location, the price range, i.e. monthly rental amount, and  how many bedrooms. We agonised long and hard and decided that we needed somewhere within a very short walk of a MRT having decided not to have a car whilst out here (way to much money), it didn't need to be large (good thing as property is very expensive here) so we chose to look for an aprtment.
  Our lovely agent JL sourced about 20 properties and in the second week took H and I on a whirlwind tour of them. I was against living higher than the 12th floor, and ideally wanted to be as close to the ground as possible, I had been told not to live above the 25th floor as it is too far from reality but not on the first floor; likely to get too many insects and maybe snakes!
  With very little real knowledge of the different areas available or what sort of amenities we would really make use of we narrowed the 20 down to 4 and took N with us for the second viewing. We all agreed that one of the apartment's seemed to fit the bill best, and that's where we are now and for the next 2 years.

   Our apartment is on the 9th floor of a 37 storey condominium. From the top floor you can see almost all of Singapore and all the way to Malaysia. We are on the floor with the lovely infinity swimming pool,the "garden" area and a small gym.



 We have 3 bedrooms; the master bedroom has an ensuite bathroom and walk in wardrobe, what luxury! The sitting/dining room is a big open plan room with the kitchen to one side, so even when cooking you can feel the air con if needs be. Behind the kitchen is the "maids area", this has a tiny bed room just big enough for a bed, no air con, a minute shower and toilet cubicle and a laundry area. Needless to say we do not have or need a maid so we use her room for storage.

We have a large balcony around two sides of the apartment and overlook the pool and the tree filled area below and if you open the balcony sliding doors and the back door you sometimes get quite a nice "through" breeze (still hot and humid but at least it's a breeze). So I have somewhere I can have plants, my little garden; pictures to follow when I have a few plants.

Then moving in day arrived on the 1st April-April Fools Day (whether this is apt or not we will find out in time). The movers arrived with our container load of boxes and furniture. In a few short manic hours everything was unpacked and in a place. N. had rather conveniently had to go back to the office leaving me with the unpackers, it was quite stressfull being asked every few minutes "where do you want this Ma'am?" I had no idea where I wanted half of our things and did not feel comfortable being called Ma'am.

Still we were in and with our belongings around us it was beginning to feel sort-of like home.