So I realized I've talked a lot about our move but haven't talked that much about what it's like in Singapore so here are some of the things I've learned:
Location:
When I told people we were moving to Singapore, most knew it was in Asia but had no idea where. The whole island is only about 30 miles by 30 miles and is at the southern end of Malaysia near the equator. Indonesia is also really close. We can easily take trips to parts of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia by plane in about 2 hours. We can also get to Malaysia by bus since there are bridges connecting it to Singapore which would take us less than an hour and we can take ferries to some islands in Indonesia that would take less than an hour. For perspective on how far we are from other places in Asia - Beijing is about a 7 hour flight, Hong Kong is a 4 hour flight and Tokyo is a 7 hour flight.
Temperature:
It's hot and humid....all the time. The temperature is usually in the high 80s There aren't seasons here so we don't get to look forward to a break from the heat. Pretty much every time I go outside I start sweating. You know those days in Cincinnati during summer when you don't want to go outside because it's too hot and humid - that's what it's like here every day. People here must just be adjusted to it though because I see people wearing jeans and sweaters who look completely comfortable, meanwhile, I'm sweating in shorts and a tank top. At night when the sun goes down, it does feel nice out and we can usually eat outside which is nice.
Transportation:
We have decided not to have a car. It is extremely expensive. If you want to buy a car you have to get a certificate for about $65,000 and then you can buy a car that will be about twice the cost of the US. Then gas is about $8 a gallon. There is the option to lease but that would cost over $1500 a month for a Camry. Given the cost it is amazing how many luxury cars we still see on the road. We usually use the MRT and the bus which has been fine because we're less than a 10 minute walk to the MRT station and we have a few bus stops right by us. We'll take a cab if we buy something that's too big to carry home. Taking a cab is much quicker (about half the time) than the MRT/bus but the MRT/bus is a lot cheaper. The MRT would probably cost about $2 a ride for a cab ride that would cost about $15. I became comfortable with the MRT system right away because it's really easy to navigate but for the buses I have to look up the routes because there are so many I just have no idea where they all go - fortunately we have Google maps and apps on our phone that make it much easier to figure out.
Dining:
Eating out can be really cheap or really expensive - there's a pretty big range depending on what you want. We can eat at the hawker centre for less than $5. The negatives are finding a seat (at some that are crowded it can be really difficult to find a place to sit down), no air conditioning, and they don't provide napkins - you learn quickly to start carrying them with you.
Dine in restaurants vary in price but if you want to have alcohol you're bill will quickly go up. Most places by us will have happy hour specials but when it's not happy hour it will be at least $10 for a beer or glass of wine - and that's getting the lower end offerings. I can get pretty much get any US food I want here. As far as US chains go, there is McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Starbucks, Subway, Chili's, Dominos, Popeyes, Long John Silver - just to name a few. Unfortunately, there is no Skyline Chili so if anyone wants to ship some over let me know and I'll give you my address : ) I can also get just about any type of food I want - we can get Italian, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Indian, German, French - you name it we can get it.
Housing:
We were hoping to get a house when we moved here but all of the houses in our price range were not close to the MRT station which was really important to us since we don't have a car. We have a 3 bedroom, 3 bath apartment with 1600 sq ft. It also has a maid's room and bathroom - the maid room is basically a storage closet and the maid bathroom is a toilet with a shower head on the wall - I'm not exaggerating when I say you are basically on the toilet while showering.
Most people here do have live in maids which is why a lot of the apartments come with a maid room/bathroom - we have no plans on getting a maid right now. Most of the maids are from Indonesia or the Philippines and only cost about $400 a month but you also have to pay all of their living costs + $200 to the government each month. We're on the 3rd floor and right above us there is a pool and a gym. Our place is nice but by no means up scale and it's $4500 a month! In Cincinnati I could rent a mansion with that budget. Speaking of mansions, I take Candy for a walk down the nearest side street to us since our road has a lot of traffic. There are walls around the houses so you can't see them easily but I started looking more closely and realized that these houses are huge. I decided to look it up to see how much these houses are renting/selling for on this street - the rent is about $20,000 a month and I saw one on sale for $35million! Not only that but these houses have multiple cars in the driveway - not the Camry I mentioned above either - these are all BMW's, Mercedes and Range Rovers. We are definitely the poor people in our neighborhood : ) I read something this weekend that said that almost 20% of people in Singapore are millionaires - guess they are the ones driving all the fancy cars we've been seeing.
Also, there are a few differences in housing vs the US. When we go to shower we have to flip a switch to turn on the water heater. Each bathroom has its own water heater.
The kitchen does not have hot water. We also don't have a dish washer. It's very uncommon to have a dish washer and if you do, it's a separate appliance not built into the cabinets so it takes a lot of extra space. For air conditioning, we have a unit in each room built into the wall. There are remotes for each of them to turn them on and adjust the temperature. Unlike the US, it doesn't just kick off when its the temperature you want it to be. We were told if we just leave it on at night when we are home that it would be about $200 a month but if we left it running all the time it could be $600-$700 a month. We've been leaving it on just at night and the bill wasn't too bad so we'll work on increasing our usage a little bit because I've been pretty toasty during the day : ) The ovens here are also smaller so some of the cookie sheets I've brought won't fit into the oven. We have a lot less closet space here so things we used to hang we are now folding up and putting on shelves - I have bags of hangers because we have so much extra now. Our washer and dryer set up only has 1 outlet so we can only use one at a time. The washer takes 2 hours and so does the dryer so when you can't run both at the same time you can't get too many loads done in a day. It's a little inconvenient but you get used to it.
Currency:
The currency here is Singapore dollars. Overall it's pretty similar to US dollars - there are coins for everything $1 and under and bills for everything over $2. As of today the conversion rate is 1USD = 1.25SD. When I give costs on my blog I usually try to convert to USD.
Language:
There are 4 official languages here. English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. Pretty much everyone speaks English here though. When I'm at the hawker centres I have some difficulty communicating with them because some don't speak English but I can usually just point to stuff and it's fine. Other than that I don't really have any issues. People here do speak with a bit of an accent though so sometimes I'll have to ask them to repeat things. .
