Letter to the Family

This is a letter Martin wrote to his family.... I thought it gave a very practical and articulate view of our new life!  Enjoy:

Dear fam,

A couple of you have asked me to send a report, and sorry it's taken me so long to do so but I only just yesterday got the Internet installed in my new place so I can sit and email at my leisure. I plan to do a Facebook post with pictures soon, which will probably be much more interesting than this letter, but I want to wait til I've got some daylight so I can take pictures of the apartment.

I hunted high and low for an apartment for the better part of 6 weeks, saw probably close to 40 different places all over the island, signed a soft contract on one place and then backed out, and finally put a deposit down on our place just over a week before the family arrived.

Most expats here live in private condo communities -- basically a group of high-rise apartment blocks, with a pool and an exercise room, surrounded by a high wall with one or two entry points manned by security. Most locals live in "HDB's" -- government-built large apartment blocks without the facilities. They are similar to some of the public housing projects you may see in large cities in the States, only cleaner and better-maintained. Then there are the "landed houses" most of which are really like duplexes or townhomes, more expensive and occupied by the well-to-do.

We opted for the condo situation, for the convenience (pool and close to public transport), the family atmosphere -- lots of children out playing at any time of day -- and because it was what we can afford. I really got lucky and answered an ad in the paper for a 4-BR penthouse, even tho I figured I probably couldn't afford it and I had been looking only at 3-BR places, I thought what the heck. It is in a working class neighborhood, far from the places most expats like to frequent. The owner I think was anxious to rent it and she was happy to find an American family, and so accepted my offer which was still about at the top of our price range.

The result is that, improbably, we actually have a little more space here (2400 square feet including patio) than we did in our little Cape Cod in Maryland. The bedrooms are tiny but there are three full bathrooms and the living area is ample. There is a large (for Singapore) deck overlooking the nature park and an interior garden which is a great kids' play space. There is a big pool downstairs which we usually have almost to ourselves (in contrast to our neighborhood pool in Maryland which was always jam-packed), and there is a kids pool with playstructure and waterslide.

The neighborhood is, as I said, working class and there are few caucasians in evidence. right outside our condo backgate is a sprawling open-air market of the kind you might expect to see in Asia -- a warren of passageways lined by stalls like hair salons, cell-phone shops, jewelery stores, bakeries, fruit and vegetable markets, hardware and household goods stores, etc. There are several "hawker centers" serving Asia's version of fast food -- from fried noodles to tandoori chicken to grilled fish, squid and stingray to Singaporean chicken-rice. The subway is just a 5-minute walk.

So we have here just about all we need. The only trouble is when we want to go anywhere else :(. We are a bit in the boonies. My commute to and from work is about 40 mins -- definitely not bad by US standards. But it also takes us about 50 minutes to get to Church by subway. We usually take a cab there (S$15, about US$12) and take the subway home. Similarly, we travel close to an hour each way when we try to go anywhere around town (hospital, popular expat restaurant areas, plays and cultural events). So, pretty standard I guess for the Californians but might seem a lot to the rest of you.


Food is the biggest adjustment probably. Western foods are here, but at larcenous prices. I over-estimated my ability to be able to buy local ingredients and make something delicious out of it. Hoping it will get better when my cookbooks arrive. Fruits and vegetables are plentiful, fresh and cheap. Dairy, not so much. Meat is unfamiliar. We're going to have to learn more ways to cook fish to survive here.

For the kids, the strangeness is particularly acute. We're working on finding local foods at the walk-up stalls they will eat. Watermelon and honeydew is a staple, as well as rice and some chicken depending on how it's prepared.

Wow, I'm going to need a couple of installments for this. either that or an editor. I'm going to jump off now to spend some time with my wife, more later . . .

Love,

Martin