Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Singapore - Family Travel with Alison
Interview with Alison from Singapore.
A world explorer and mother of young children..... who shares her story about living in Singapore with her family.
Follow Allison: https://www.instagram.com/semicuratedlife
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Hosts
Carol Springer: https://www.instagram.com/carol.work.life
Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Hi, welcome to our podcast when Next Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. Each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. In today's episode, we are visiting with Allison, a world explorer and mother of young children, who shares her story about living in Singapore with her family. We really appreciate you joining us and we would love if you could support us by simply following or liking this podcast in your favorite podcast app. Enjoy. Well, so nice to meet you, alison. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. So what time is it there now? So we're in it's 10 AM. 10 AM am, okay, fantastic, on Friday, yeah, all right, so we just love to hear about your story, how you got there. I think you mentioned, um, your husband got a job there on Instagram, or um, yeah, so we moved here in June of 2019 and prior to that, like, we had been talking about moving abroad somewhere and we didn't quite know where, but we just wanted that experience for our kids and for us, and he actually had a work trip out to. He had a second one out to Singapore and he came back from that trip and was like you know, I really think we could live in Singapore it's. I met some families while I was there. It just seems really easy. And I was like, oh yeah, I've been to Singapore, I think I could do that. It's like kind of Asia light and literally that was on a Friday, on Monday. His boss was like, by the way, there's this job opportunity in Singapore. I'm not sure if you'd be interested and it was just like the universe was telling us that this is where we're supposed to go. So, wow, how it happened us that this was where we were supposed to go. So that's kind of how it happened. Yeah, that was like six months before well, I mean nine months before the whole COVID as well. Yeah, we had about eight months here before COVID hit, so we did have a little bit of normal life, but now it's been two years of COVID.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so you, uh, so you said you have kids there as well. Yeah, so I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old. So I moved here when I was pregnant with my second. She was born here, um, and now she's two. Oh, that's fantastic. So no, it doesn't work that way. So she's an American citizen born in Singapore. How does that work? So if they're born there, they're still in the US because the parents are Correct. They don't have dual citizenship. No, it depends on which country it is. So Singapore doesn't offer that. So I think that's a fairly uniquely American thing to offer citizenship to people who are born there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm actually working on a project right now. I want to building some kind of network now with moms in different countries so that you can easily talk to another person and kind of get that information, either through like a one hour phone call or meeting up for coffee when you get there, or even providing services, having the person who lives there already be like I can take you to this government office and translate for you if you need help with that. That is awesome. That is awesome. And how are you doing this connection to Facebook group or just LinkedIn or just networking and email to start? That's what I'm working on right now. I'm not like a software person and so I'm trying to figure out the best platform for it, so I'm looking at potentially some kind of like.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I'm seeing what's available now and hopefully I won't have to have something new built, but I would love for each person to have like their own profile and show what they offer, so, and where they live and a little bit about them, so like, if they're like I'm a retiree, I'm moving to this country, or I'm, like you know, an empty nester, or I'm just a single person, or I'm a family with small children, or my family with high school kids, like you can kind of see if someone matches you and and the same area where you're going to, yeah, I'll send you a link to this platform where they have these communities and you can have like these different channels. I'm like you do it on Slack too Awesome, you know, but this is a little bit more. My kids do a lot on discord. Yeah, there's a lot of platforms like that and even in newer ones, even then, discord now. So I'm just learning about all this as I go. So I had the idea to figure out, idea to make it work. Yeah, I want to keep in touch and figure out what you're doing and also, if I can, we can help provide info. I mean, I'm Swedish, I'm first generation, so like my whole family is over there and and also other places and things or anything in terms of countries that we have that we've done and connecting you to whomever you know? Um, yeah, love to do that too. That's great, that'd be great. Yeah, and also, you're from Colorado as well, or you spent? Yeah, we moved here from Denver, yeah, yeah, so what made you know?
Speaker 1:I grew up in Michigan, um, I went to school there and then I moved directly to Japan to teach English for two years, so this is my second round in Asia after college. And, yeah, so I taught English in a junior high school in the middle of the countryside. It was literally surrounded by rice fields. I was the only non Japanese person at the entire school. I really stood out at school assembly, but I was. The Japanese government at the time had a program called the. It was the assistant language, alt, assistant language teacher program, um or jet program, japanese exchange and teaching program. So in every junior high school and high school they had a native English speaker and they would help the Japanese English teachers who were there, and so there was five teachers at my school, so I would help them in their different classes and I don't know, provide a non-Japanese face to their students, because they didn't have many opportunities to see that. So I was there for two years.
Speaker 1:Then I went to graduate school in California for two years, ended up in DC working for the government and I hated it. And then I started doing photography on the side and I had a business trip out to Denver and I loved it and I was like I'm going to move here, I'm going to get a Subaru and a dog, and I'm just going to move here and do it. And three months later I had quit my job, I had packed up my Subaru, I drove across the country and I just did photography and that's what I've been doing for the last 12 years, and I met my husband there and then we ended up in Singapore. That's awesome. I have a Subaru and a dog. Yeah, our second car is the Jeep. You know classic Colorado. I have Toyota Venza, but I don't need the snowmobiles. So here for now and a dog. Yeah, for now and a dog. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Have you heard our podcast? If you haven't, it's about a gentleman, paul, that went to japan to teach english as well. So it's it's so interesting to hear like we won't go down that path so much, but that I want to do that now. I want to go teach english in japan. Yeah, it's amazing. It was great. I mean I was 22 when I went there and I was not getting paid very much, but that's okay, it was. It was a great experience. I was able to travel all over Southeast Asia on my holidays and it helped me appreciate Asia as a whole. I think absolutely so.
Speaker 1:You've been two years in Singapore. Oh, oh, sorry, carol, two years in Singapore. Your kids are two and four. Is there a long-term plan to stay there? Are you staying in Singapore or what are you thinking? No, I think this will be our last year here. We're still trying to figure out kind of our exit from here. Our kids are going to be going into real school next year or my son will at least and it's very expensive. We're not really eligible for local school year, so for private school it's between the cheapest I've seen is 12 grand a year, up to for the American schools about $50,000 a year Crazy. I've seen some things here in the Bay area like that too, and it's just, it's hard, especially at five.
Speaker 1:And I forgot to circle back and ask you photography what kind of? My sister's a photographer too. She does people, but what kind of photography. Do you do People? Yeah, so I do a lot of like headshots, personal branding photos, a lot of family photos, a lot of families who are leaving Singapore photos at the moment. Yeah, and I used to do a lot of events. I used to do weddings before I had kids, but I've kind of phased out of that. It's a little bit too much for me at this moment in my life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, do you want to make a plug of what? What your or I think you probably need people in Singapore that are are there, yeah, face-to-face and seeing them? Yeah, which is why I'm working on this other project where I can work on things that are not face-to-face. I can be online, so, no matter where we end up, I can just do it and not have to build up my clientele again. Yeah, do you think you're go? You'll go to a different country or do you plan on US? Yeah, that's the plan right now.
Speaker 1:I think we're going to move to Bali next for about six months. We just don't feel like we finished Asia and it's just not been the experience we had hoped for with travel. So we want to go to another place in the region and Bali is set up really well for expats. So there's easy access to school and help and foods that we're used to and outdoor exploring the beach. So I think that's where we're going to end up for a while. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of first Singapore, how was it when you first came? What are the things that you really like and enjoy? I know with COVID it makes it all different, but, yeah, been able to experience so far Singapore is great. It's. It's very safe. There's very, very, very low crime. It's very warm all year round, which is nice. You don't have to pack your kids up in clothes. They can just walk out naked. Basically, it's English speaking, so that makes it a lot easier. When I lived in Japan, it was so hard I never knew if I was getting mail that was spam or if it was like my energy bill. I just couldn't read it Right. So having everything in English was super, super helpful.
Speaker 1:There's a really large expat community here. It's a big hub for a lot of companies in Asia, so it's really easy to make friends there's. It's so different than 20 years ago living abroad as far as getting foods that you're used to, ordering things on Amazon, and it was great before COVID with travel, because Singapore has such a big airport and it was just easy to go two hours in any direction and be in a really cool spot. So those are some of the really great things about Singapore. Our kids love it. It's really kid-friendly, we have lots of good playgrounds and indoor playgrounds and in general, people enjoy having children around. So it's been a good experience. Another really great thing for us is that it's pretty common here to have a live-in helper. So we have a live-in helper with us who helps us with childcare and cleaning and cooking and running errands, which has been a game changer for us.
Speaker 1:It's been a really really, really nice perk to living here, I can imagine, and so so the primary language for everyone is English. So like if you're in that train station, you'll hear everything in English, and then it'll be in Chinese, malay and Tamil. So those four languages are kind of the primary ones, but the main one is English, and then I would say the second would be Mandarin, chinese. What was that fourth one? You said Tamil, tamil, tamil, tamil, tamil, india, india. Oh, okay, t-a-m-i-l. Tamil. How have I never heard of this before? Okay, yeah, and how is it in terms of like culture and are you able to. Is it pretty much just a duplicate of the US and what you've done, or how is it like a typical day or year and things like that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they celebrate all holidays here. Well, I mean all major. Like right now we're getting ready for Chinese New Year, so that's probably the biggest holiday here, so that's next week already. But also like Deepavali is probably the biggest Indian holiday, so we celebrated that in November, october, somewhere in there. So, and then also like Hari Raya, like big Muslim holidays we also celebrate here. So our kids, like at school, are learning about all these different holidays. They're all public holidays here, so it's pretty cool to learn about these holidays that we wouldn't know about otherwise.
Speaker 1:It's a pretty inclusive culture, so anyone is allowed to build a church or a mosque or a synagogue or temple or whatever, as long as it's open to anyone to come. Obviously, those rules have changed with COVID, but I mean, you'll see, like going down the street, you'll see like an Indian temple and then there'll be, like you know, a mosque and then maybe a church down the road from that and then a Buddhist temple down the street, which is really cool. It's very diverse in that way, I can imagine and are like a typical day. Is it similar just with churches and, you know, with the Indians in terms of prayer times or different things, or there's not a lot to do the call to prayer here, so you never hear that. So it's different than a lot of Muslim countries in the region. The weekend is the same it's Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 1:I'd say the biggest difference for us in daily life is it feels like things don't open very early here, like my kids are in school in the mornings and most shops don't open until 10 or 11. And it's really frustrating because I'm like when do people go shopping for whatever they need? Like markets are open earlier and we have a 24 hour grocery store now where we live, but I just I didn't understand when people are supposed to buy their groceries. It's and, but then you go to the mall at like six or seven or eight at night. It's packed, it's so crowded, so then we're going to bed at that time, because that's when our kids go to bed. So yeah, and do they have a lot of like grocery stores, like supermarkets or more? Like you go to the bread store and then the meat store and then the cheese store, kind of like old country Europe. Yeah, so there's.
Speaker 1:There are like normal grocery stores like we would have in the U? S. They're usually a lot smaller, but it's also like a very urban environment here so they wouldn't be huge Like they would be in the suburbs of the U? S, so we have one within walking distance. We can get there in a couple of minutes because we don't have a car here. We typically order most of our groceries and that's kind of the norm.
Speaker 1:So anything that's heavy, like milk or detergent or drinks of any kind, I always get delivered and that's very easy to do here. There's also they call them wet markets, which is a more local traditional market where they have the fruit stall and the fish stall and the egg stall and you can go there as well, and usually as part of that then there's like a hawker center attached to it, so that means it's like a prepared stall. So it used to be the people that were the street vendors and I think in like the sixties or something they were like. This is too dirty to have them all on the street. We're going to round them up and have them in a place we could control the cleanliness and have them be in a hawker center. So that's another like really local thing.
Speaker 1:Here it's a very cheap way to eat. You can usually get food for two or $3 and it's very local and tasty. So I like Mexico, where it's a gamble whether or not you're going to get Montezuma or have a problem. No, no, no. And they're all rated. The government's very involved in most aspects of life here. So when you go you'll see like an A, b or C and that's how clean that they've been rated by the health department here. So are the C's packed? I'm curious if anyone goes to the C's. I've actually never seen a C. I have seen a B once in a while, but no, I mean food in general it's yeah, it's very good here. You don't have to be worried. The water is fine to drink. It's all very easy to live here, nice.
Speaker 1:And what's the typical foods? It sounds like probably Indian, asian. So there's a lot of like Chinese food because a lot of people are from Chinese heritage here. A lot of really good Indian food. There are all kinds of Western food. One kind of food that's really interesting here is called Peronican food. So Peronican means there was like Chinese traders or whoever who came down and married local people. So Peronicans are from all the way, from, like, phuket in Thailand, through the Malay Peninsula down to Singapore. So a Peranakan could be someone who a Chinese who married a Thai, a Chinese who married a Malay, or an Indian, or like local Singaporean. So it's kind of a mix and they've mixed up their food so, like the Peranakan food can be a mix of, like Chinese and Indian, malay. So it has, like these, really interesting flavors and spices and it's really, really good. I would recommend it to anyone who comes to visit.
Speaker 1:I actually just did a cooking class and I loved. I think, like when you travel, doing a cooking class is one of the best things that you can do, because you learn about the ingredients and what's in it and how to do it and it's just so different from what I was used to. So I've lived here, you know, almost three years now and I had didn't know it. Most of the things we were cooking with were and it was super, super fun and very delicious Fusion here, right, yeah, yeah, it's like a kind of fusion, but it's an actual people group now in the culture, but it's an actual people group now in the culture and they have their own kind of like houses and like beadwork and artifacts, like it's a really fascinating culture to learn about if you're interested in that kind of thing. That sounds really good. It's called Peronican Uh-huh, peronican, okay, cool. And so have you tried cooking in this yourself? Then, from the cooking I need to, my parents are actually visiting at the moment and I was like you should cook the things that we learned how to make, so maybe we'll do that this week.
Speaker 1:Is there like a primary meat or vegetables or what is it kind of? Is there a classification of what they do or no? It's all different kinds of meat. The thing we made was one was pork, had pork, and then the other one was with like prawns, large prawns. That sounds good, and is it spicy, primarily, or just flavorful? It can be, but it's mostly just flavorful. Yeah, that sounds fantastic.
Speaker 1:And your kids will? They eat all of the different foods. Well, our kids are just like normal kids who are kind of picky eaters, but I mean they love rice and noodles. I mean they'll just at school they have chicken and rice, I think some form of chicken and rice every day for lunch. Mine was like mac and cheese and that was it. Yeah, we do a lot of mac and cheese here at our house too, but we always try to offer the other things and I think they're being exposed to a lot of stuff. I mean, they love dumplings, they love most noodles, so they're yeah, they're just they have. They have a more Asian bent to their likes and dislikes, I think even to western food at this point. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So I have a question about the like layout of the land, because now I have this image where Singapore is just super urban everywhere. Is there like more suburban areas? I mean without actually just like going to the countryside where there's like a farm or something? But is there, like you know, some places where people live, where there's a little land around here? Is it pretty much all urban? So Singapore is about 15 miles from top to bottom and about 25 miles east to west, so it's very small. There's like five and a half million people here, so it's very dense population dense.
Speaker 1:So most people live in a high rise, especially Singaporeans live in it's called the HDB, it's public housing. About 90 of singaporeans live in public housing and they mostly own it, or maybe it's 80 and 90 of those people own their unit. Uh, anyway, the vast majority live in these apartment blocks, okay, and then we live in. It's also government owned housing, but it's old military housing for the British military, so we would call them probably row homes. So we have two levels. We have a small garden in the front and the back, so we have a little bit of outdoor space, which we didn't before. We were in a condo before we moved here in a high-rise. There are some landed houses, but they tend to be quite expensive and since COVID they're really, really difficult to get, because everyone wants to live in them now, to have more space. People are working from home and want to have a little bit more space. There is I don't want to say it's countryside, a little bit of countryside, but we don't really have like farms, so if almost all food is imported here, oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:It looks like the center of Singapore looks green and blue, like there's little lakes or greenery. It's very, very, very green. Um, everywhere you look there are trees, everywhere. Um, it just the everything and there's like trees growing on trees, like it just can't help itself. So they're constantly, like in our neighborhood, cutting things back and you're like, how is there anything left? But it just keeps growing. Um, and if there's new construction made and they've displaced trees, they have to replace them somehow, whatever they've displaced. So they like to call themselves a city in a garden. So I see your central catchment, not nature reserve.
Speaker 1:I kind of pull a treetop walk. It looks like in the middle. Oh, that's the, the McRitchie reservoir, so that's a really popular place to hike. You can hike all the way around it and there's monkeys and it's very shaded and it's nice, but you're always going to see other people. I think that's what's hard for me here, compared to being from the U S. Anywhere you go, you're always going to see other people. It's not like you're just going to be the only one on this hike or at the beach or wherever. You're always going to be around other people. Densely populated and very popular, yeah, yeah, very dense. Yeah, oh, that's it.
Speaker 1:And uh, in terms of um, so like camping and outdoor activities and things that you'd like you said you like to do hiking, are there things like what is a typical? What do people typically do activities and things? In Singapore Some people do camp, which is kind of crazy to me because it's so hot. Um, I don't think I could sleep here, um, I always sleep with the air con on every night. Just, it's too humid and hot here for me.
Speaker 1:We go biking. We have, um, some nice biking trails near us that used to be a railroad track, so we go on that. We try and get out early with the kids, because it does get hot by about 10, 11 o'clock. Go to a park. We do have some beaches here. They're not amazing but they're fine. So there's like little cafes where you can go and, you know, have breakfast and the kids can play in the sand and the water for a little bit. Or we do like a beach picnic or something like that. We enjoy doing that on the weekends. Or even just there's a cable car that goes from kind of the main Island and then there's like this little smaller Island where there's a lot of like resorts and things. So we'll take the cable car over to Sentosa. Um, my kids really like that.
Speaker 1:So do you go up to the rest of Malay or all those islands across the Singapore street, or how easy is that to do? Or is that, you know, you've got to go through the borders closed? Yeah, the border is basically closed right now. So with Malaysia at the moment. Malaysia used to be like people would live there and come into Singapore to work and go back. It was a commuting kind of thing and since COVID it's been shut down the land border. So they're trying to reopen it, but they can't just open it completely. So right now there's buses that go back and forth that people can get on, but it's really hard to get tickets, from what I understand. Then there's a whole bunch of islands and from Indonesia just south of us, and before COVID it was so cool you could just take a boat and there was like a really nice spa you could go to for the day and then come back. Or there's kind of some little resort towns there and again, people would commute from the islands there into Singapore and then go back via ferry, but it's closed.
Speaker 1:Still. There's been talk of a travel bubble, but there's just a lot of logistics to work out. So right now there are some locations they call it a vaccinated travel lane, like we can go to the U? S and come back without quarantining because it's part of this vaccinated travel lane. We're planning on traveling to Thailand next week through a vaccinated travel lane. It is so much work. I think I spent three days getting all of our applications together and everything that is necessary for the Thai government and then coming back to Singapore as well. It's a lot, but there's no quarantine on either end if you do it through these channels, which is nice, okay. So say, in the future hopefully next year, when there's no more lockdown.
Speaker 1:So, across the street those islands, is there one island that you've been to, like you go to the spa, and how long is the ferry ride? Is it two hours? Is it just a half hour? Is it? Yeah? So that was in Bintan. Yeah, it was um less than an hour, I think, to get there. Yeah, it was less than an hour, I think, to get there. I want to say it was like 45 minutes, okay, yeah, and there are a couple of Singaporean islands you can go to that are within a half an hour.
Speaker 1:Singapore has I don't remember how many I want to say it's like 50 islands, but only some of them you can go to. There's one called Pulau Ubin, kind of on the north east side, that you can rent bikes and ride around there. And then there's a couple on the south that have nicer beaches but they're just not very built up and you have to kind of pack everything you need, like water and everything, on this boat and then get off and walk for a ways. And we did it once. It was a lot of work with with small children, but I don't know if I recommend it with kids in fact, but it was, it was something new to do. I mean, I think we've done every single thing you can do on this island at this point okay, excellent.
Speaker 1:And then I'm looking at the islands and I'm not sure I'm following these little ones like palau, semau, um, I don't know, there's a Pandan Strait, I don't know. It's right around there. Universal Studios, singapore, it's like below that. There's a whole bunch of little islands there. Um, oh my gosh, universal Studios. There is, um, and we have been to it. Yeah, there's a couple islands. They're called St John's, kusu Island you can go to. But then some of them are used for like, there's a garbage island where all of the garbage goes and they burn it all, I don't know very safely, with no emissions, but that's one. And then singapore has the fifth biggest port in the world, so a lot of them are used for shipping kind of thing. So there's like some that are just for containers and moving things around. So there's only a few islands that you can actually go to.
Speaker 1:And then, across the way to this I don't even know what this is, it's a Singapore Strait and across from that was that what you were saying was really close by where it says I'm going to totally botch this and I apologize Sekupeng Sagulong Batu. It's like across the way, like across Singapore. So that's Indonesia, yeah, indonesia, okay, and that's okay. Oh, there's a lot right there. Is that far away? Or can you see it from? A lot right there? Is that far away? Or can you see it from? No, you can see them, yeah, yeah, um, and then Malaysia's even closer. We can see it. We just can't go. Yeah, that's even worse. Right, like, wait, I could check it out. Yeah, and I know with young kids it's they're they're very busy, um, so that keeps you, I'm sure, very busy as well. Yeah, but, but I mean, I think that they don't know any different. They're happy to be here, so, yeah, so you talked about holidays.
Speaker 1:So do they celebrate in a cell, like mostly the religious holidays or the culture? Like, is Halloween celebrated there to your kids? Do they get a chance to dress up? Yeah, it depends on your neighborhood. Our neighborhood has a lot of expats that are really into it and I guess pre-COVID, before we lived here, it was, I mean, like a party in all the streets. But even we thought it was great this year Our kids dressed up, we were really careful to try and be socially distanced and some people had little chutes down with the candy and our kids loved it.
Speaker 1:It was great. So they did. Some places do Halloween. It seems to be kind of catching on here. So my neighborhood the houses are kind of spaced apart, but where you live Halloween is awesome. Right, the house is together. Yeah, it hit 50 houses in a night or in an hour. Yeah, we don't have to be out that long. But I think living here it's so funny. We realized that costumes are made for cooler weather. I mean, our kids are just it's like polyester or like padded something and they were just so sweaty by the time they got home, but they had a great time anyway. That reminds me of back in my day, which it was a while ago we're talking sevents and 80s and you had like the plastic mask with a little tiny hole and sweating inside. Yeah, it's just like that. Yeah, a little plastic. That was definitely hot, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, in terms of like, if someone were to want to come there and it's so great to hear your story and how cool with what you did even earlier before moving there what do you recommend to get them acclimated? Like, how was it just for, like, your first day or your couple of days coming into Singapore and that experience? And then what were some of your, what have been some of your favorites, and your kids too, in terms of touristy things and then things maybe that aren't touristy but that you've really also enjoyed? Like you've mentioned, I think I was able to connect with a few people who lived here before I came, and that was really helpful just to kind of know what I was getting to. I guess what to pack, what to leave behind you do not need cold weather clothes here ever, so just anything. You're going to maybe be on a plane with that's like the coldest you're ever going to be or at the movie theater it's very, very cold there. I think I don't know. Your first few weeks are just like taken up with a lot of red tape and trying to get all your government cards that you need and things like that I liked just walking around and you go to a grocery store and see what's there, see what kind of shops and restaurants are in your neighborhood.
Speaker 1:I really like taking a Google map and starring things. You can save locations on Google maps. So if I see something on Instagram, I'll save it and then if I'm in that neighborhood I'll be like oh yeah, there's that coffee shop right here that I wanted to try. I have an hour before I have to go to my next thing and I have something that I can do and I do that too for trips Like, if I'm going somewhere, I'll just star things on my Google Maps.
Speaker 1:I think joining. There's a lot of Facebook groups you can join, so I've used them just to kind of search for stuff. Like I couldn't figure out how to get my Apple TV to work and so I, you know, went on one of the groups and searched and someone had the same question and I was able to fix it myself. That was good. I followed different people on Instagram, which was really helpful to see what life with kids was like there, to figure out what stroller I needed, to get stuff like that we just would make lists of things we wanted to try lists of foods we wanted to try and we've kind of still been knocking it out, still three years later.
Speaker 1:And then how transient are people there, you know, since, like you're new, you might leave in six months. Do you find that a lot of expats are there for one year, two year, or are you finding a lot of either expats that stay for a really long time, or is there a pretty good local community that have been there like grew up there? I mean there's a lot of locals here, I mean majority of local Singaporeans. For expats, I would say average, I guess it's probably two to three years. It seems like people stay. I think COVID has pushed a lot of people to leave who had been here for a long time or for a short time. It just feels like a lot of people have left over kind of the new year time period just now, but a lot of people are still coming in.
Speaker 1:I think it's a difficult place to work if you don't have a job already coming in. It's a difficult place to work if you don't have a job already coming in. They've made things more difficult for people who either are coming in with a spouse who's working, like me, or if you just come here looking for a job. It's really hard to get a job unless you're super specific in a certain niche. They have to really make sure that there's not a Singaporean who can do that job. Right, so your work is is are you your own business owner? Then I would assume right, yeah, do you have to pay their government then, or you have to us, or both? How does that work? Yes, so as an American, that's something to consider.
Speaker 1:Coming to Singapore, you, after a certain threshold of income I forgot what, what it is, but we're over it you have to pay taxes in both countries, so it's not beneficial in the way it is for other people. I mean, like Australians. They don't have to pay taxes back in Australia, they only pay taxes here, for example. So we are paying on both sides, so it's not financially advantageous for us to live here. In general, the cost of living is much higher than in the US.
Speaker 1:Okay, have you been to Vietnam at all? We have. Yeah, I've heard that. So, to balance things off, I heard it's very inexpensive to go visit. Did you experience that as well? All the countries in this area are much less expensive than Singapore, which is why traveling to them pre COVID was great. So, yeah, vietnam's great, thailand's great, indonesia's great. We went to Laos, yeah. So how many countries have you been to have you since we've been here or don't? Just in general?
Speaker 1:And your life sounds like you're pretty adventurous. Oh, I don't even know. I think I was around 40 last time I checked. That's incredible, that's super incredible. Good for you. Is your husband pretty adventurous as well? Yeah, I wanted to live other places. Yeah, I mean, I obviously to some degree, but sometimes one spouse is driving it more than the other. No, we're both. We both really enjoy it, and how great for your kids to have you two and then also being able to travel. Um, you know and experience all these different cultures and countries, and it sounds incredible.
Speaker 1:And have you picked up any other languages in your travels? In japan, I learned a little bit of Japanese. I can talk about the weather and order food at the restaurants I spoke. I was a French major in college, so I speak French. I lived in France during college, but here it's just English is the main language, so there hasn't been like a lot of incentive to learn anything else. Our kids' school is half English, half in Chinese, so they understand quite a lot of incentive to to learn anything else. Um, our kids school is half english, half in chinese, so they understand quite a bit of chinese at this point. Oh, that's fun for them. That's a great skill to learn as well, for sure, yeah, languages.
Speaker 1:And then, when you were mentioning also kids and traveling, are there certain things that touristy people should do or see in Singapore and others that maybe aren't mentioned, that you also would recommend, that maybe are off the beaten path? I think probably the top tourist things to do here there's Gardens by the Bay, which is a really cool outdoor gardens, but they also have these indoor conservatories that are like 72 degrees, so they're a little chilly. That's a nice thing to go to. They have a really big water play area for kids that is currently closed. I keep hoping it will open because it's amazing. And then also, the zoo is probably one of the best in the world. They have four different parks within the zoo, so they have like a night safari. They have a river safari. They have the big bus, the hop on, hop off buses that you can go around or you can do like a river boat ride and see the city from the river. The city is just really pretty.
Speaker 1:I read a week or two ago that Singapore is maybe the most Instagrammable city in the world or something, because it really does have such cool architecture and it's it's very new. I mean, 50 years ago Singapore was very different than it is now. It was not a city, it was yeah, it was very different. So, and those hop on buses have been that in some other cities Is it a good way to just sort of kind of really get your bearings, like, say, you're going to visit for two weeks or three weeks, you know, get on the bus and then are they usually pretty entertaining, or is this like, honestly, I've only done it for the Christmas decoration ones?
Speaker 1:I don't know the normal route, but there's different pockets that are really interesting within Singapore. I mean, there's little India and you can go there and you really feel like you're in a different place and we love going down there for the smells and the restaurants and the flowers and the temples and all that. And then there is the Arab Quarter, which has like this really beautiful mosque at the end of the street and like the shopping lane and cute shops around there and like beautiful wall murals and that's a really interesting place to go to. Chinatown is great, really beautiful temples again, great food. You can just see like people you know live in their life playing mahjong out on the street. So I think it's fun to kind of wander around those neighborhoods as well, and that would be a definitely think something I would recommend people doing hoods as well, and that would be a definitely thing something I would recommend people doing.
Speaker 1:Um, what's, what's mahjong? Um, it's kind of like chinese dominoes. I guess would be the closest thing. Okay, have you seen crazy rich asians? Like at the end the mom is playing that. Yeah, they're playing it with the. Yeah, they're as they're talking about. Yeah, got it, that's not wrong.
Speaker 1:And then you don't have a car, you said as well, so you just get on. So it sounds like it's pretty easy to not have a car and to get around all of singapore. Yeah, um, it's very easy to get a taxi and they're pretty inexpensive. And then public transportation you can get almost anywhere. You need to go on the train or the bus. Cars are just really expensive here that you have to buy, like basically a permit to have a car, which is about $50,000. So add that on to however much the car is expensive, which is funny because this is like I have never seen so many expensive cars in my life here it's really fun to see. I mean, there's like you know Aston Martin and Ferrari and you know everything which. There's, all these sports cars. You're like where are they going? Where are they going to ride them so fast? Because you can't even go anywhere that fast here. No, the formula one is coming back, um again. So it's been canceled the last two years, but the formula one will be back in october this year, so that's exciting. Absolutely, that sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, and I'm looking at um.
Speaker 1:I was kind of going narrowing in on the map just to see um more of what you were saying and it's like there's so many American things too, like Pizza Hut, mcdonald's, starbucks, which was tripping me out, and, of course, other things too, but it sounds like they've got Apple store here. Awfully, chocolate. I was like I can't believe I'm that close on the map that I'm actually seeing all these like things. Yeah, they have everything here. It's like people ask me what can they bring? Like you know, my parents asked we don't have Trader Joe's. That's my favorite. Is that in Colorado? I don't know. Trader Joe's Is it there? Yeah, yeah, like one of my favorites here too. But really we can get pretty much everything here, yeah, and how much in terms of cost of it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did have someone on early in the podcast that did live in, or lives in Singapore too, but from where exactly are you? Again, did we mention that already? I live in Holland village and where's that? It's kind of south and a little bit west of downtown. I'm looking at like um a map and I see. So if I go south and west, well, I don't know if I'm western. Yeah, I just typed in holland village. Oh, that's better. H-o-l-l-a-nandy, yeah, I like the country not too far from the botanic gardens. Yeah, so we're really close to botanic gardens. Oh, that's probably it would be top on my list too.
Speaker 1:That's one of my favorite places in singapore. It's just really like old growth trees it's. I see a new kind of plant every time I'm there. It's a beautiful, beautiful park. It's kind of like our central, like there's always tons of people walking there in the morning, exercise classes going on. It's a beautiful place to Tai Chi, pretty big out there it is. Yeah, so there'll be like a lot of old people doing their like exercises or they're always like slapping parts of their body.
Speaker 1:Then I see the museum of ice cream. That sounds interesting for kids. Yeah, well, that was in the U? S. I think I was going to say yeah, oh, really, yeah, I want to say six months ago something like that. It's very I don't know how long Very pink, very Instagrammable. My kids have been asking my parents to take them there while they're here, so I think they're gonna go. Is it a museum or is it? Okay, it's like a travel museum.
Speaker 1:So they had like a almost like a jacuzzi or it's like a flat pool and it had these little balls in it. And then, um, you just walk around and they had like a animal cracker and look at this little animal crackers, but the cookies that have like pink glaze with a little things on them, and they had a carrot, like you could sit on one and you just walk through and then there's ice cream and the owner well, it's a husband and wife. The husband was there and we ended up talking to him for a while and just sharing ideas and he was super fun, and then his wife. They had one in New York and one in San Francisco. I took my daughter a couple of years ago, but how cool it's over there now. Yeah, it's really fun. Our kids loved it. There was and they had like kind of local types of ice cream as well as like some Haagen-Dazs and different things. So it was great, they loved it.
Speaker 1:I'm a huge ice cream fan, so what's the flavors that are big there? Well, a very local thing is an ice cream sandwich. So they literally will slice um a piece of ice cream so it's like a rectangle and then they put like like white bread basically around it and it's like an ice cream sandwich. That's a very local ice cream thing to do. Yeah, um. So there's a guy in a couple of different places around the city where I know you can get that, is it good? And they had that bread. I don't eat the bread part really, I'll just like use it to eat the ice cream. They had that at um, at the, at the uh ice cream museum. I think too Okay. And then, like McDonald's does special local flavors here of their like soft serve, which I think is really I never go to McDonald's except when I'm abroad, but they have pandan right now which is.
Speaker 1:It's an aromatic. I don't know how to describe what the flavor is. It's a green plant and they call it the vanilla of Asia, but it doesn't really taste like vanilla. But it's a very subtle flavor and it's usually combined with coconut and it's green. So the ice cream is green right now. It's really nice.
Speaker 1:Gula Malaka is another flavor. It is made from palm flour and it's like kind of like brown sugar, but it can taste a little bit more like coffee or like molasses or brown sugar, depending on how it's made or where the plants were, and that's in a lot of desserts here. It's really nice and usually combined with pandan and coconut. There's another badung. It's like I think I think that's how you say it b-a-d-u-n I. I have to look that up. I might be wrong on that one, but it's like a rose water kind of flavored drink, but McDonald's makes an ice cream out of it. It's really nice. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Go McDonald's. Who knew? I know Well, they have like a special for Chinese new year right now, like they have like the prosperity burger and prosperity fries, cause you know it's all about prosperity and being auspicious and luck and abundance and all these things for Chinese new year. So they do have special sandwiches here that they did not have in the U S. Yeah, I don't go to McDonald's, but yet now I want to go to the Singapore McDonald's, like when I go to Singapore, like I'd like to go to McDonald's and try their ice cream and see which is kind of hilarious that but, um, that's really cool.
Speaker 1:So, okay, you mentioned desserts too, that there were some cool desserts. What are the popular, really yummy desserts there? So I really like they have like a pandan cake. Again, pandan, um it's it looks like an angel food cake, but it's green. It has like a slightly different flavor to it. Um, that's really nice and light desserts here are usually called it's spelled k-u-e-h like cake, and so they have different ones like peronican ones like are usually made with like a mold or they'll be like layers, like you know, like those kind of pancake cakes we have with the crepes, like kind of like It'll look like that. There's a lot of ones to try that I haven't tried yet. A lot of things again that combine the pandan, coconut, gula, melaka.
Speaker 1:Now I'm getting hungry. I need to go out and eat some. Take a bite for us. I know that sounds fantastic. Well, thank you so much and I don't know, carol, yeah, I have my rapid fire questions. I just ask the same questions everyone and then we'll just like, maybe someday have like a big, you know summary of what we've learned.
Speaker 1:So, the popular religions I would is it mainly Muslim, or it buddhist, or is it just such a mix because there's so many people there? No, I mean, so most people have some kind of chinese background. Um, so I would say it's more buddhist or taoist, depending on you know, confucian kind of things, and there are a lot of, um hindus because of, um, the indian influence here. Um, there are a lot of muslims here, a lot of christians. Okay, um, whatever you want, you'll get. It's like, yeah, it's just, it's a real mix, all right.
Speaker 1:And then we talked a fair amount about food. But is we talked a lot about desserts? Is other than those like I'm just going to call the fusion, is there like a classic dish that you know, like pad Thai, like I just love pad Thai? Yeah, probably the most, the most uh, singaporean dish I would say would be like chicken rice. It's an actual dish. It's called chicken rice, so it's like it's a special rice that's made with kind of chicken stock. It tastes very like fragrant, um, and then there's like chicken sliced on the top. Oh, okay, that's very good. That sounds great.
Speaker 1:And what did you have for breakfast? Or maybe you haven't had breakfast. Have you had your latte or coffee yet? Yeah, I had my coffee, and I always I make a shake here because it's hot and that's what I want. Oh, so it's usually protein with a frozen banana and some other stuff put in Nice.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then what kind of music do you usually listen to? Is it mostly Western or yeah? Yeah, we usually listen to Western music here. Okay, is there a traditional music that people listen to, or it's just kind of pretty much the western, such a mix here, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's everything here too new, too new, yeah, sure, um, what's the money called there? Singapore dollar?
Speaker 1:Okay, and then where's the closest place to surf is? You said it doesn't sound like the beach scene is that big, but is surfing, um, sport? I definitely it's warm enough, but, no, you can't surf here. The water is actually quite dangerous around here, so you should only swim in designated spots. There's a lot of really strong riptides and things. The closest place would probably be Indonesia for surfing Bali yeah, bali. Indonesia for Bali yeah, bali, great. Well, thank you so much, and I would love if you have any pictures you want to send that I can share on the Instagram posts of these desserts or something that'd be kind of cool, or I just will find them on Instagram anyway, but or I can just do the golden arches from McDonald's. I know we just go to McDonald's. I mean it sounds like we go to McDonald's all the time, but we really don't. No, no, it's just interesting that they have those specific flavors of ice cream at McDonald's, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:So are you both thinking about moving somewhere? Do you have some places on your list? Oh, good question. I really want to go spend some time in Portugal and I don't really think I'd move. I mean, I probably move like for three months at a time and maybe six months, you know, and once the kids are off in college, my son plays baseball and you know we'll be watching a bunch of baseball, but I can see from January to April, take it off once a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, costa Rica is on my list. Spain I want to go to Croatia. I really I've never really been to Asia at all. I have, I know I haven't. I've been, like, lived in Hawaii for three years. That's as close as they got. So I really really want to go to Japan and Thailand. Super bad, yeah, and I personally. Japan and Thailand super bad, yeah, and I personally.
Speaker 1:It's funny because Costa Rica was my first. I went in 2002 for just a month and mostly worked and kids, and you know I haven't been too many places. But my goal is to like live in different places and then we'll have, so I have certain places here and then just travel and explore. Explore. But tropical is wonderful, asia is wonderful. I mean love to go back to Sweden and spend some more time, since that's kind of you know where I'm from and there's some really cool things to do there. So, but, like Australia, I'm dying to go to Australia, all over Australia and Europe. So are the Australians who would like to go back to their country? I can imagine for sure. Hopefully we'll get there soon.
Speaker 1:I'd love to stay in touch. Love to swap business ideas anytime. I love talking about marketing in any which way. It's so fun. Great, yeah, I want to hear all about what's your.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've launched it yet, but the you know the to share ideas with families. Do you have something already? I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I will share it with you as soon as I have it ready to go. I have people who want to be on it. I'm just trying to figure out how it's all going to work, so give me another month or two and I'll get back in touch with you. Okay, and if there's someone from California or Colorado, we can help in those areas. Great, great, thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely Okay, awesome, have a great day. Thank you so much. Okay, bye, bye. If you enjoy our podcast, be sure to subscribe to our show. If you enjoy our podcast, be sure to subscribe to our show. Rate us in your podcast app and follow us on Instagram at where next podcast. If you are interested in being a guest on our show or would like to nominate someone, please contact us on our website at wwwwhere next podcastcom. Thanks for listening.
