Happy Hunting

Apartment hunting in Singapore isn’t like apartment hunting in the States… here it’s more like house hunting, with different real estate agents representing each individual unit within a complex, where letters of intent precede offers, and prices and contracts are negotiated. When the average cost of a 1000-sq. foot place is $5000/month, you can see why.

Eager to get out of Prada-ville, when our realtor asks us where we would like to begin our search, I pipe up with, “Geylang!” In response to the confused and horrified look on her face, Brad assures our agent that I’m just kidding. And I am… sort of. Geylang is home to Singapore’s notorious red light district. Now don’t go getting the wrong idea… I’m not into the skin trade or anything, but as an artist and aspiring writer, being surrounded by prostitutes and brothels seems like a far more colorful canvas on which to paint a potential story than, say, boring ol’ Orchard Road, which has offered me nothing but the twangy sounds of talkative Australian expats and women hiding behind sunglasses that look like the windshields of their Maseratis. But Brad’s probably right: we don’t want Dagny to get the wrong idea when we tell her we want her to be a “working girl” when she grows up.

Sensing my detachment with our current surroundings, our agent assures me that Brad and I can’t afford anything in the Orchard Park area anyway J And so we head out to the east coast…

So far I’ve mostly stuck to walking around Singapore. But now I get to experience careening around the island in the back seat of a very nice Mercedes. All the cars here are nice—by law, none can be older than about 10 years in order to curb emissions and keep the roads clear of broken down beaters. Two days of driving around with our agent, though, has confirmed for me that I will be sticking to walking or the MRT (subway) while here. Everyone drives fast. And a little crazy. Motorcycles are like buzzing flies, darting around cars and racing up between them. They’re expected to, which is the upside to owning a motorbike—but the downside is that cars can pretty much bump them into the curb if space allows for it.

Back in our own car, our realtor scared the living daylights out of me as she repeatedly straddled the dotted lane lines and, on occasion, the solid divider line. And holy crap, the woman would not stop texting as she drove! A couple of times, when her text message was just too long to type out one-handed, she would turn on her flashers and simply stop her car—in the middle of the lane, mind you—until she’d finished. Yikes.

The east coast turns out to be pretty darn nice, with miles of boardwalk along the shore, ample green space, and a much quieter feel than the central districts. The swimming pools are like mini-Atlantises, which is perfect for Dagny, who would play in the water from sunrise to sunset if I let her. But it still feels… not… quite… right…

Then our agent takes us about 10 minutes up the East Coast Highway to Katong, and I fall in love. Lining the streets are hawker stands and independently owned restaurants, shops selling handmade crafts and—gasp—nothing American or European or Australian in nature. Katong is absolutely perfect, and after an amazing lunch of local laksa (noodles, prawns and fishcake cooked in coconut milk and chile), ohta (fish wrapped in banana leaves) and rojak (a mix of bean sprouts, cucumber, pineapple and turnips), I declare the east coast our new home.

More to come on Botanical Gardens and Buddhist temples... finally, let's get to the good stuff!