Kooky.

I do think Tanjong Rhu is a bit isolated; we looked over there when we first arrived in 2002 and discounted it for that reason. It takes ages to get in and out. That said, there is access to the stadium area and, as ex-reg says, there is more going on there these days. The condo complexes are very big, which also put us off, but certainly lots of white faces; Costa Rhu IIRC has lots of Aussies.

En Bloc means the complex is scheduled for redevelopment, but it can take years to get to that stage.

EM is right, singaporeexpats is the site to use. Lot of good advice from EM about renting in Singapore, too. Don't blindly accept any Lease Agreement given to you; Singapore LLs can be very tricky indeed! If you go on www.expatsingapore.com and do a search you will find lots of discussions on that, and there is a poster called Aliya (a personal friend) who is a lawyer and gives very good advice.

Englishmum

If your children go to a local school they'll almost certainly be speaking in Singlish lah...! When you say 'native speakers' do you mean English speaking with a British accent?

I don't know the gender or ages of your children but you could join ANZA (Australian & New Zealand Association) as they have loads of activities for parents and expat kids eg. soccer, netball, athletics, scouts, playgroup for little ones, school holiday events etc. A few years ago I was a co-ordinator for Anza Soccer - more than 1000 expat kids - and most of them were Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and American plus other mostly European nationalities. Training is on a weekday but matches are on Saturdays, usually from September until around Easter:

http://www.anza.org.sg

You could also join the British Association (S$150 per year per family from Jan-Dec) as it now allows generous access times to use the facilities at the British Club and there's always loads of kids there (mostly British and Aussies/Kiwis).

http://www.britishassociation.org.sg

Have you visited any local Singaporean schools yet? You should check with the Ministry of Education as to which schools will have spaces to take your children as there is strict admissions criteria (unsurprisingly all the places in the 'best' schools go to local children whose parents were alumni or do loads of voluntary work there, live in the vicinity etc.). Expat kids whose parents are not PR's are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to choice, which I totally understand.

You don't want to sign a lease and find that your children will end up in a school miles away....not much fun if one is placed in a morning session and the other one is placed in an afternoon session (a major gripe with some local parents I've spoken to). Some schools still operate Saturday morning sessions too, although I think the govt. is trying to phase them out.

Also bear in mind that class sizes in local schools tend to be much higher than in the West....40 kids to a class is common, and it does seem that so many Singaporean children go to 'enrichment' classes and have extra tuition outside of school hours eg. Kumon maths, so you might want to budget for that but your kids may not need or desire extra classes in any case.

I'm not that familiar with condos on the East coast but the first time I lived here I used to play mahjong with some Aussie wives of SIA pilots - they lived in various condos along Meyer and Amber Roads which I think were very inexpensive/reasonable rental charges but with good access for the city and East Coast Park.

mameha

Englishmum: thanks for the informative post.

I am exposed to Singaporeans at work and I have found that their English is not quite 'native' level if you compare them to UK/US/Oz nationals. It is more like the creole used in the caribbean. Even when they try hard (e.g. writing a CV or copy for our company website) I find a lot of poor grammar. This is not a problem, but I just would like my kids to get exposure to British accent/phrasing as much as possible as they will probably end up back there for secondary school or university.

The kids are now just turned 2 and 3. So we would do a 2 year lease and scout out a primary school, then move close to it ready for them to start there. By that time we would have become PR as it seems I can get PR within 6-12 months (I would be on P1 or P2 visa at first).

The tip about anza is good. I love football so I want to get my son into that and hopefully make friends at the same time.

40 kids to a class it OK. Its like that here in Japan too. It seems Japan and Singapore have a similar education system (sit still, shut up and pretend to listen and don't question anything). This is fine for me during early years, but they need to learn critical thinking from around 16 in my opinion.

Is the East Coast park nice? I went to a restaurant there briefly (Jumbo seafood) and it was OK, but seemed to be close to that huge main road (noise) and many ships/rigs just offshore (more noise). Does it feel polluted to do a long walk there?

Inselaffen

Try to get a PEP rather than a P1 or P2. You are then not tied to an employer and if you lose your job have upto 6 months before having to leave.

singaporeexpats.com is a useful place to get an idea what the condo's look like but don't trust the prices they have on there. most of the apartments listed for rent don't exist.

make sure you get a good diplomatic clause in your lease. its the one that allows you to break your lease if you have to leave. Normally it is only invokable after 12 months and you have to give 2 months notice (i.e.14 months). In this market I would try to negotiate it down to 6 months. I wish I had known this when I signed my lease.

Englishmum

True. Also if your company is not arranging the lease through their HR dept. then I would definitely get a lawyer to go over the lease before you sign it. In our previous leases we would often cross out things which weren't acceptable to us and return it for review, and then getting the company's legal dept. to read it through before it was signed.

There are many reports about bad landlords on http://www.expatsingapore.com and I suggest you read through some of them to get some tips before signing that lease!

Mameha - are you Japanese? My husband has a friend (a guy who used to work for him but now in a different company) who is half-Scottish and half-Japanese and grew up in the far north of Scotland. His wife is Japanese and they are PR's here. I'm sure that they would be willing to offer advice if you need to know anything Japanese related - they have a huge expat community here and I live close to the Japanese school.

You are probably spot-on about the similarities between Singaporean and Japanese education....bit like a pressure-cooker and very competitive if you ask me.

I'm afraid that as Singapore is a city-state there aren't that many places to find peace and quiet! Construction seems to be taking place absolutely everywhere and even if you move to what you thought was a quiet place, it isn't unknown for a neighbouring building to be demolished and a new one to be constructed! I would think that Pasir Ris in the far north-east of the island is probably the quietest place I've encountered other than nature parks and where the lovely black & white houses colonial houses are...but many of them are now being reclaimed by the govt. for redevelopment purposes eg. at Seletar airport, and soon the Medway Park estate popular with expats (roads named after towns in Kent) will be replaced by 'University Town'.

East Coast Park is very busy at the weekends and many local families like to book a barbie pit (they don't seem to do picnics with cold food!). It's v. popular for people to roller-blade, run or cycle there (we take our own bikes but you can rent them) or just walk. I wouldn't swim in the sea, goodness knows what the container ships and oil tankers put into the sea there but it doesn't seem clean like one would expect on a tropical island! The ships are quiet and rarely use their fog-horns, but I guess that traffic noise from the parkway could be annoying.....unless you get a sea-view it makes more sense to be a road or two back from the parkway.

Inselaffen

we live overlooking the ECP (Cote D'Azur) and the road noise never bothers us. we don't sleep with the window open though.
we are one the 6th floor but we looked at an apartment on the 17th with great sea views. The road noise up there was actually far worse than on the 6th.

custard26

i live near holland village & i love it
good mix of blonde, black, brown /& even purple hair

Kooky.

I've just got back from a 3 day stopover in Singapore. As the taxi driver who took me to my hotel said, there is hardly any chicken in Geylang Not sure why they've cleaned up (it's usually done when some bigwigs are coming into town) but I'm sure it won't last long.

xizzles

I believe that's due to the Asian Youth Games (a prelude to the Youth Olympics) that will soon be held in Singapore - we can't have the young athletes expending energy doing gyrations in Geylang now, can we?

Kooky.

Ah, is that what it is? I knew there must be a reason; cheers.

I got all nostalgic driving up Guillemard Road and along my old Lorong, on my way to No Signboard. Then I remembered the cacophony of hawking up every morning between 6 and 7; the continual cantopop blaring from the apartments out back; the FWs asleep next to my front door on pay day, empty bottles by their sides; the rats finishing off their curries; my time in hospital with dengue...

Still miss it all a bit, but not enough to go back - despite my friends taking bets on it.

Inselaffen

aren't all the Athletes locked away with swineflu?