Our new home

Within days of arriving in Singapore, we found ourselves an apartment. It is half an hour west of the city area at a place called Bukit Batok.

The complex or condo, is called The Jade and is right beside the MRT (rail station) of Bukit Batok and the shopping centre called West Mall.

So is very close and convenient to everything, including John's work. He only needs to go one stop on the MRT to Jurong East and he is at work.

Some people think we have moved too far out, but our reason was so that John could be close to work and plus it is cheaper to live further out. We do not have the need to live "right in the city", though obviously it is a nice place to be!

For myself, I find it convenient to be close to the MRT and all the shopping I need to do. If at anytime I want to go into the city, I take the MRT and I am at Orchard Road within 25 minutes. The trains run every 6 minutes during the day and more often during peak times. So one really couldn't ask for a better service!

There are times we want to go shopping closer in, like at Ikea, so we then take a cab. They are very cheap and it costs only $10.00 to get to the city centre.

So we feel that living at The Jade is the right place to be - for the moment.

The apartment has three bedrooms, two complete bathrooms plus a smaller toilet/shower combination. Off the laundry is a good sized storage or utility room too. Then there is a fully equipped kitchen, dining area and lounge and a large balcony.

It came fully furnished, though we did bring some of our things with us to Singapore. The only things we had to buy were an iron and ironing board and two electric fans. There are five air conditioners here, but we don't turn them on, in fact we have not had them on during the day yet. The bedroom one is on at night sometimes.

Not only is it cost effective to leave them off, but it (hopefully) helps the environment too!!