but yeah, i'm an aussie grad student looking to move to singapore in hopes of finding some work. now i don't have PR or even a employment pass, so as you can imagine, i'm not starting out in the greatest of positions.
luckily though my sister and her family are already established in singapore, so i'll be staying with them for at least a few weeks while i look for work and an apartment (which isn't an immediate concern)- so thats my situtation at the moment.
my concerns revolve around looking for a job, but also how to ship my stuff over to singapore. when i say my stuff, i don't mean large furniture or anything like that. i'm talking about my person belonings, such as my PS3, dvd/blu-ray collection, books and photo albums as well clothes (that i can't fit in my check-in). so my query is, what kind of service would i be looking at to ship this stuff over to singapore (taking into account the price and time - i don't want my stuff in a container somewhere waiting to be filled before it actually ships off, which i hear can take up to a month)
also, would i incur any tax when shipping the aforementioned items into singapore, heard horor stories from friends who shipped their personal belongings over to the UK such as mountain bikes and stuff, and the tax was even higher than the cost to ship it over there for some reason. so is there a way to check if there is such tax/can see how much it'll cost me using a courier or similar service.
finally with the job front, because i don't posess PR or employment pass (which i assume i can get once employed) i'm not sure how successful i can be. i'm a trained interior designer, but am serisouly considering NOT using my bachelors, as i really am looking for a different career path utilising my english skills (despite the manner of this post, i'm actually quite the literary wordsmith ... ... ...) so what can i do really to start working in singapore, because i'm more than willing to begin a career in the publishing, marketing, design fields despite not being formally trained, i do possess abilities that lend to quite a number of jobs, ideally i was trying to work as a design journalist - sort of a dream job for me!
well these are just my own musings before i leave for signapore (early april) and any imput from the community would be more than helpful. with the job hunt as well, i've set up a small online folio, a sampling of my previous works which i welcome people to view and hopefully pass on to potential employers
www.nxnlai.com
all the best to the xpat community!
nat
