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| HDBs in Singapore |
Here's a what i learned from scouring the streets of SG.
· Weather
The weather is hot but tolerable, kinda like in the Philippines as well. Living in HDB is a challenge, it’s like being in a maze all the time so be
always prepared to walk a lot. Good thing I have been boxing back home, this made me physically fit to endure the endless walking.
· Transportation is a breeze if you read all the signs, they will lead you to where you're headed. So read the signs! That's why they're there.
· SIM Card
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the M1 Prepaid sim card I purchased from the Changi Budget
Terminal for 33sgd. |
If you're looking to avail a prepaid sim card here in singapore, you will be required to present your passport. In short, even if you own a prepaid sim, your number will be registered unlike back home, if you own a prepaid sim you can do whatever you like it's not registered anyways which is quite unfortunate. My sister and I bought this M1 prepaid sim from changi airport's budget terminal for 33sgd although a phone call to the philippines is so much cheaper than texting (it cost me a dollar to send an sms to a globe number). M1 is actually sun cellular's affiliate so it'll be a lot cheaper to sms and call a Sun cellular number.
· Routes to various mrt stops are color coded. You may ask for a map from any mrt stations if you wish to have a handy guide to sg's transportation system, It's very organize. i don't like taking mrt back home because of the cramped up trains, but here in singapore? i learned to love it :)
· Safety
You can walk around singapore even during wee hours without worrying about your safety. Take note: mrts and buses are only available until 12MN.
· mrt stations are safe despite rubbing elbows with everyone in the escalator. Don't worry about your
backpacks or other belongings because there are NO pickpockets here in sg ever rest assured. They have death penalty alright?
· mrt stations are bombarded with security cams. Buses are equipped with cctv cameras as well.
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train ride is a breeze in SG because of
EZ card. |
· Don't forget to avail
ez cards as soon as you arrive in the country as much as possible. This is the only way for you to pay your fares in mrts and buses. If you don't have ez card you need to bring exact fare as there won't be any change for you although that's very rare. In my experience there's only 1 or two people i've seen who used coins. Some cabbies accept ez cards. You just tap the card as soon as you board the bus and mrt then tap again before you alight. The machine will do the job in computing how you will be charged. you being overcharged is never possible because your fare is computed by the number of km travelled.
· Cabs - If you pay cash, they will give you change even if it's only a few cents.
· Don't be surprised if you see a lot of senior citizens employed as bus drivers, food court cleaners/servers because in sg as long as one is able to work no matter how old they are, they can.
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visited some of Singapore's touristy locations such
Resorts World... |
· I learned upon talking with fellow filipinos that in singaporean culture some of the elders are being left behind by their kids so they're enforced to fend for themselves to survive even if they're really old to be even working (which is really unfortunate for majority of them). Some of them look like you average grandpas and grandmas and sometimes i feel bad but i guess that's how their culture is, well maybe some of them possibly still care for their elders.
· Singaporean dads are very caring and affectionate with their children as what i have observed. They're the ones who usually fetch the kids from school which is kind of different back home, usually moms do that. How i wish these kids will reciprocate their parents' love once they're grown ups.
· singaporeans don't like minding other people's business. Even if you wear micro mini shorts, no one will stare at you. In the philippines if you wear skimpy clothing and 'short' shorts (like you ran out of fabric), you will be stared at and get nasty and rude comments from men who don't have respect for women.
· In mrt escalators, stay on the LEFT side (if you're not in the hurry or you'll get a lot of excuse
me! from people passing through).
· Eating and drinking is strictly not allowed on mrts. You will be fined (if you get caught) and yeah it'll be hefty. remember, singapore is a 'fine' city. You can get fined for chewing gum or even carrying one upon entry to sg (if you get caught), not flushing the toilet, smoking in mrt stations to name a few.
· Crossing the street. you can't just cross the street anytime you want and be the one to stop the cars as if you're a traffic enforcer. There's a designated button attached to the traffic lights which you need to press to enable you to cross the street. It's timed and like stop lights for vehicles, there's also a red light for stop and green for go although there are some who bravely cross the street even if the red light for pedestrians is on, no country is perfect i guess.
· ordering food from hawkers; properly enunciate your words in english if you're a foreigner so you will be understood. It will help to use sign language like for example, simply gesture two (like a peace sign) if you wish to order two of this and that and so on.
· Hawker food are cheap and tasteful. I think singapore has the best food i've tasted so far but pinoy dishes are the best-est hehe (of course).
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Sentosa, accessible from the Harbourfront MRT station. Nope,
I did not go for a swim 'cuz we have tons of awesome beaches
back home :) |
· Cleanliness; Singapore is really clean although some restrooms in quite a few malls aren't (trash bins left unattended or full of used tissues for example) although i can only count a few. generally, everything you see around is 80% clean and like what i said, no country is perfect but at least people here obeys the law.
· Law and order; Speaking of the law, people here would rather commit suicide than face death penalty. recently, this malaysian guy attempted suicide after he killed his girlfriend (also a malaysian) paranoid she will break up with him. the guy pushed his girlfriend off the building which killed her instantly. the guy then, fearing for his life (obviously since heinous crimes are punishable by death in this country), tried to jump off as well to commit suicide but failed so he's now in the death row. that's how scared they are that they'd rather commit suicide than die through death penalty.
· Tap water is potable although i heard that on some locations the water isn't very fit for drinking Well, i guess it really depends how sensitive you are.
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One of the awesome temples I went to when I visited SG.
See those intricate figures? |
· save trees, no tissues in hawkers; they don't provide tissues for some reason so bring your own. senior citizens who works as custodians will collect your plates and whatever trash you have on the table from time to time.
· MRT seats; there's what you call reserved seats for elderlies, pregnant, injured person. So as much as possible refrain from sitting on those which is the same back home
· Orchard road ; this is where you'll see a lot of fellow pinoys. i've seen a lot of shops with filipino employees to assist you and stores selling local goods (boy bawang, mr. chips, toiletries etc). If there's chinatown for chinese nationals, then the orchard road is our little district.
· lucky plaza; this is the place where you will find a lot of remittance centers like LBC, Banco de Oro kiosk etc. So, if you wish to send money to your relatives back home, then this is the place to be. just remember lucky plaza is really crowded during sundays because this is pinoy rest day in general.
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Chinese Garden in Jurong East. It gets pretty scary in Jurong
during thunderstorms by the way.. |
· WIFI. Singapore is blanketed with wifi spots so surfing the net is not a problem at all. I was even able to get my e71's email functionality to work here because of excellent wifi connection where i live. A lot of them though are secured. If you're a job seeker by the way, do bring your own laptop, ipad or what have you because almost all houses/HDB units are equipped with wifi so surfing the need and sending in your email applications/resumes won't be a problem. Outdoors it's pretty difficult to get unsecured wifi signals, actually there isn't any except for wireless@sg which you need to register to get wifi access.
· I thought lavender street is as pretty as the name but it isn’t. punggol, bishan and sembawang is a lot better and people friendlier. Not very much people speaks English lavender for some reason which is quite ironic because lavender has a lot of hostels for backpackers usually caucasians. By the way, according to the residents of sg, Punggol used to be a dumpsite.
· SG have tons of newspapers that caters to different nationalities but i only read the straight times because it’s written in English.
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The Japanese Garden also in Jurong. It's the same place where
the Chinese Garden is located actually. You just have to take
the other entrance.This place is oh so perfect for pre-nup
photoshoots. Seriously, it is :) |
· reloading your ez card and prepaid sim is called ‘top up.’
· HDB (Housing dev't board) units is no different from the condominium units we have back home. Propane gas (a.k.a 'Gasul' back home) is not used in households because they have gas pipes.
· toilet bi-fold door; this is what i noticed about hdb toilets, all of them have bi fold doors. back home, we don't use bi-fold doors, it's common only with walk-in closets π
· rubbish chute
each hdb unit is furnished with their own trash corners. in punggol (where we stayed when we arrived in singapore), their 'rubbish schutes' as what they call it isn't installed per unit, it's per floor. they have one rubbish schute on each floor where they need to literally 'shoot' their garbage through this small metal door and it will go straight to the rubbish/trash section possibly at the ground floor. how cool is that? in bishan, rubbish schute is found underneath the sink. you just need to open this li'l cabinet beneath the sink and you'll find their small version of rubbish schute so you don't have to go out to throw your rubbish.
· The clothes rack or
sampayan (where you could hang your clothes to dry) are poles positioned diagonally either an the back or side of the house. You need to use the washing machine (nobody does hand washing) to do your laundry and must strictly spin dry them or else you’ll be scolded by your neighbors for getting their roofs wet (dripping clothes is a no-no). with some of the hdb units we resided at, so far, some of them have heavy poles and yes i have dropped a pole at one point and i hid so the neighbour downstairs won't see me lol. unfortunately, i lost one shirt because it dropped exactly on the neighbor's pole downstairs, i did not bother to get it anymore because some of them can't speak english anyways. geesh π³
· Cab drivers are very good with driving directions and since they don’t understand English that much it’s best to write down the address where you’re headed on a piece of paper. They don't ask for tips neither or overcharge their customers. Cabbies are also equipped with terminals to swipe your credit cards in case you don't have cash handy. Only few cabs by the way allows you to use ez cards. The other day when I asked the cabbie driver to tap my ez card he got confused looking for the black strip, i told him instead it's not a credit card but an ez card hehe. I paid him cash instead to save us both from all the dramas teehee.
· Slippers and shoes; they're quite expensive here and so as sling bags and handbags. So, if you have a lot of them back home just bring one as $5-10 is actually quite expensive for me for a slipper. I have this cute bedroom slippers I purchased back home but unfortunately i can't use 'em in going to the market so i tried checking out how much they sell slippers and i found it quite expensive. I missed my sling bags at home (sigh) cuz i have tons of them in our flat :( but fortunately i got one pair of slippers for $3 from 711 in sembawang.
· sidewalks/pathways sidewalks have designated pathways for bicycles and people. bicycles also have their own 'horns'/bells to let you know a bicycle is approaching (only if you're walking on the pathway for bicycles). it's not strictly implemented though that you take those designated pathways, it's just for your safety.
I’m still learning a lot so I’ll keep this bloggie updated every once in a while..
Here's a video clip to wrap up our Singapore adventure. Enjoy :)
My sister and I had a difficult time finding Aerotel because we hopped from T3 to T1 via Changi’s Skytrain and Changi is so vast so my only landmark was the escalator and boarding gate D41. We reached Aerotel at around 4:30PM for our supposed 4PM reservation (6hours). We were already tired from walking and almost on the verge of giving up when I finally saw gate D40, my guiding light and from there we took the escalator and there it was, just right across from the escalator. The reservation was under my name but my sister gave the receptionist her passport (because we’re already both confused as to who’s reservation it was since we had tons of them during our trip, we hopped from one hotel to another) so I said it was my reservation thus handed the guy at the front desk my passport, he asked for our boarding pass, offset our check in time to 4:30PM since we came in pretty late (check out at 10:30PM instead of 10PM) gave us our keycard then instructed us to take the door with ‘EXIT’ sign to get to our room. The hallway was really cozy, it was dimly lit and looked far more different than the other transit hotels we’ve been. We were assigned to Room 25 and you just have to tap your card (facing the wifi sign) towards the door to get in. 
Amenities
Aerotel is also spanking new, the room was spotless and very cozy. I love that they have tons of wall outlets to charge our electronic gadgets. We slept soundly for couple of hours just to recharge then woke up at 7PM to get ready, prep up for our flight back to Manila. If only we could stay longer we would because Aerotel is so nice and clean and so quiet too, perfect for light sleepers. I also noticed they do not have windows which I guess was done on purpose. 
