The Great Condo Hunt

Good evening!

John here. Since my partner was kind of out of commission today I figured it is probably my time to shine, or write, or whatever. Blogging it is!

Today we started looking at condos for real. Not just the online oh-look-this-seems-fancy type of looking but proper travel-to-the-place-and-speak-with-an-agent stuff.

It seems that agents are very courteous here in Singapore as everyone keeps insisting they pick us up, not only at our home but if we've previously been with another agent. Very relaxed mood, not at all the hectic and aggressive kind of behaviour one usually associates with finding a place to live. It is like... like they actually care about whether or not you like the place and want you to find a decent home. Team Singapore go, I guess?

So we begun the day by getting picked up outside our door by a nice couple, agents both of them - very romantic, and driving to a place called Heritage View. It was relatively close to where I work and generally well regarded among expats, or so it appeared when we arrived as it felt like walking in to a photoshoot of Hipster Lounge Magazine. Still not sure if it was a luxury resort or if decadence is the word here - tons of pools, hang out areas, a large-ass fountain - you name it! The condo itself was not much to talk about, so let's not.

After spending enough time at the place to not seem rude towards the agent, she was very nice after all, we excuse ourselves to go to another viewing. This time at Pasir Panjang; a more rural area nearby Haw Par Villa, which for your information is a place we have to go some time since it looked like a park made out of pink ice-cream and Chinese statues. The agents, who coincidentally were also a couple, pick us up by the gates of Heritage View and drove us there.

Lo and behold, time passes and we found ourselves at a condo grounds called Le Heu. In hindsight I am starting to think it is a play on words, as in "The View". Later we discovered it was actually called Le Hill, total let down.

It's a bit further away from the MRT and civilization in general but the view was gorgeous. Might be worth it. Very nice condo too! I thoroughly enjoyed it, I think Ellie might too once she actually gets a chance to pop by. If we do go back, this might be underwhelming once we have seen more places. Now you are of course sitting on the edge of your seat asking yourself "when, when is this happening?" and I won't leave you hanging. Tomorrow we have two, or maybe three, showings scheduled with a bunch of different agents.

It feels like being the first salmon arriving for the annual river run only to find that the bears forgot to set their hibernation alarm; so a group of hip other-sexed salmons got there even earlier, because taking risks is totes cool in their society, and suddenly you find yourself not only an early bird but a very, very wanted such.

They left us at Vivocity to continue our Sunday business, I mentioned they were pretty darn courteous right? So we spent some time eating since we missed lunch and got both Ellie and I new sim cards. Bank? Check! Phone? Check! Visa? Double check! Give us a house, furniture, another computer and a little cat and we are set for life.

Now this was great and all but the highlight of my day was travelling to the Botanic Gardens and meeting up with a new, local, friend of ours. Not sure if he wants to be mentioned by name so I'll skip that part, but he bought me a delicious latte, spent a little over three hours listening to me rant about LEGO, life, backstory, accents and my perceived difference between Singaporean Chinese and Chinese-Chinese. At the end of it all he was still smiling, showed me the cheese section of Cold Storage and drove me home. If that does not equal to a solid first encounter you need to reconsider your rating systems.

All in all a pretty neat day. Mad props to Annika for spending her valuable time re-enacting the second coming of Jesus but mom style, although she never died in between being my full time mother and now, but eh, all metaphors can't be that thought out.

Now let's see if you can piece these pictures together with the story itself.

See you later.