Firstly, we are going to be moving to Singapore in May '08 and will be living near the Bukit Timah / Sixth Avenue area. We have tow daughters, ages 11 and 13 who will attand the Cancadian
International School. We would love to meet up with other families with simiar ages daughters.
Secondly, some information we found out while on our house-hunting trip.
1) Housing - we had a top end of S$17,000 and viewed numerous houses from S$12,000 upwards. All were pretty good locations, some in better condition than others. So, yes, there are houses out there in that price range. We had a hard time trying to preview houses on the net before we went. Our relocation person told us that realtors hardly ever update their pages since houses tend to move pretty fast and they can't keep up. We likede the first house we looked at, but checked out some more to be sure of our choice, and put an offer in that day - there were other families looking at it the same time we were!
2) Swimming Pools - a strange one! Don't limit yourself to asking your realtor to find you a house with a pool. Most landlords will put in a pool for you! We found it all very strange, but the pool company will basically come in, dog a hole, drop in a pool, put in a wooden deck, and hey presto! You have a pool! After your lease is up, the come dig out the pool and fill the hole with dirt. Basically you rent your pool. Depending on your landlord, it can be included in your lease.
3) Dogs - don't be concerned about bringing large dogs and it limiting your housing selection - most landlords don't have a problem - unless your dogs chews up the front door of course!
4) Furniture - we decided to ship some stuff, air cargo some items we needed immediately, and lease the bulky stuff. For about S$1,800 per month we were able to lease two sets of twin sized bedroom furniture incluing mattresses, a king size master bedroom, a queen size master bedroom, living room, dining room, and 3 desks. Includes rug and lamps.
5) Towels, bedding, electronics, etc. - overall I found the quality very poor. You could probably get better stuff at Wal-mart here! Unless you're willing to pay handsomly for it! There is an IKEA, and next door is Courts, an electronics store. Another store for electronics and appliances is Best Denko (?). We compared televisions since we wanted to get one we could bring back here. Some are made that you can bring back. It turns out that they're at least 50% more expensive than what we can get at Best Buy in the USA. They seem to be somewhat behind in technology so the prices are still higher - they've already dropped in the uSA becasue the novelty's worn off! Smaller appliances like clock radios, hairdryers, toasters, we budgeted S$50 each - some will be more, some less, and depends also on what quality you want.
6) Dogs - we checked out a few of the dogs parks. The three we checked seemed very clean, very orderly, and used by locals and expats.
7) Food - we visited a couple of different food chains. Cold Storage is like a Tom Thumb (USA) or Tesco (UK) - costs more than other stores, but you're paying for the convenience. Carre Four is more like a small versions of Wal-mart or Target. It has groceries, some limited clothing and furniture, housewares, etc. The prices seemed better though if you were to go and stock up on larger items.
8) Vehicles - we haven't yet leased a vehicle, but i know that when I do it will be a small one! Between the HUGE busses, taxis and motor-cycles, there's not much space left on the road for you! You can get a small sedan for around S$1,300. One thing you'll need to get is a Cash Card. It functions somewhat like a toll-tag but looks like a debit card. Every vehicle is equipped with a card reader on the dash. You put the card in there and when you park or go on the "tolled" roads it's automatically deducted off the card. You'll also have to buy parking coupon booklets in increments of half-hour and one-hour pages. You just punch out the tabs indicating the date and what time you started parking. These are only used in areas when indicated.
9) Dining out - you could eat at a different restaurant every day for the rest of your life. You could live a 100% western diet if you really wanted to. Just about everything is available. Food chains like Burger king and Subway are abundant, we aslo saw Carls Jr, KFC, lots and lots of Starbucks, Ben and Jerrys!!!! Phew! In other words, you won't starve.
10) Taxis - they're everywhere. Drivers speak english, as do most other services. It's so easy - don't have to remember where you parked your car!!! They're inexpensive - S$14.00 from Swissotel to Changi airport. Most average trips around town to Chinatown, Plaza Singapora, etc. ran around S$4.00 one way.
11) Clothing - if you're bigger than a size 14 stock up now! I saw in a couple of windows signs reading "NOW STOCKING SIZE 14" Yikes! My 13 year old daughter, US size 0 was in shopping heaven - everything fit her!!!! I, on the other hand am stocking up on every item of cotton clothing I can lay my hands on for the next 30 days!
12) Schools - we got our girls on the waiting lists at ISS and CIS back in October last year. We looked at the American school, but because my eldest daughter is not an American citizen, she wouldn't get in. I didn't want the girls in different schools so we looked around for other school we liked. We toured both campuses for CIS and ISS. Both are very different to what we have here is the USA - so blank that out your mind to start with. I know there have been posts for pro's and con's for both schools on this forum, so this is my 2-cents worth. The Canadian school seemed much more approachable, organized, friendly, clean, maintained. The ISS school staff were either very stand-off-ish (in the office) or pushy - the person giving us the tour. They wanted my girls to write a page long essay about why they liked the ISS school and wanted to come there - BEFORE we saw the school. They just stared back at her dumb-founded. Eventaully rattled off something, and when my eldest daughter asked the youngest if she was done and could turn in her paper for her, the staff member reprimanded her for cheating. All this, while we were all sitting around the same table! I really wanted my girls to hear about the school and what they kids did,e tc. but they were busy writing their essay. I must say that my decision was made after the first 5 minutes.
The Candadian school was also an old campus, although the new one will open in July '09. I got a much better feeling from the staff, teachers we met, and the overall condition of the campus.
I really hope that for anyone moving to Singapore that this information has been of help. I know we were hungry for any information we could get, and also know that not everyone is as fortunate as we were in that my husbands company sent us ahead of time.