Our new home

Looking for a flat to rent in Singapore has been an interesting experience. Properties seem to only come on the market when they are available immediately, and there seems to be a great sense of urgency when viewing flats. For example, the estate agent will tell us to bring a chequebook along so that the deposit can be handed over to secure the flat. Flats which are advertised one day could be snapped up by the afternoon or evening. Estate agents also seem to work at all times of the day and every day of the week - which reflects the work ethic in Singapore, but that is another story for another day.

We arrived in Singapore on Thursday afternoon, viewed 2 flats on Thursday night and 2 on Saturday.  We decided on one and handed over the deposit on Sunday, together with photocopies of our identity cards. We are renting a HDB (housing development board) flat, so the owners then had to ask HDB for permission to rent it out to us. They managed to get approval to rent it out to us on Thursday, and then they handed the keys over to us on Saturday.

So here we are in our new home... this is what it looks like from the outside.

It's a typical block of HDB flats along a main road.

The bus stop is just in front of our block, with a covered walkway of course so you can keep out of the rain (or more importantly, stay under the shade out of the sun).

This is how it looks like from the back - clothes are often on bamboo poles outside the flat to dry.

This is what the common corridor looks like, with individual flats off it.

The view from the common corridor outside our flat - as you can see, we live along the MRT (mass rapid transit) train track, and the MRT station is about 500m away (the white bit on the far left).

The view of the flat from outside the main door... with my dear husband inside the flat.

The view from inside the flat looking out of the main door. It is not uncommon to leave the door open and lock the gate so that there is a breeze coming through the flat. Otherwise the flat can be quite hot and stifling.