December 22, 2008 • 11:54 pm
A Gazebo in Mandai Orchid Gardens
On a sunny september sunday morning, we exchanged our wedding vows in front of our loving family and gracious friends. The weather couldn’t be finer, the garden couldn’t be prettier. And I would never have imagined the best wedding I have attended to will be my very own. Everything worked out so well (music, petals, food, last minute wedding vow additions) that till today I still dare not believe it, much less understand how I, an earnest freak show at best, actually deserve such bliss and fortune. Maybe the old chinese saying is true – Silly people have silly luck. So grateful that all the people I care about are around me, sharing in our joy. Thank you all. :)
Filed under: Wedding , Mandai Orchid Gardens, ROM, Solemnization, Wedding
August 18, 2008 • 11:15 pm
Our invitation cards!
After some trial & error work on my mac, printed with our trusty home inkjet printer. =)
Filed under: Wedding , Cards, Invites, Solemnization, Wedding
Where I Stay Currently
Over the last six months since the proposal, we’ve managed to obtain most of the wedding services we need like venue, wedding boutique, photographers and even secured the help of a well respected (and our favourite!) surgical professor to solemnize our matrimonial vows. Everything has been pleasantly smooth sailing but one stand-out problem remains unsettled and that is the most basic issue of housing.
Property in $ingapore as we all know is broadly divided to cheaper public Housing Development Board (HDB) flat apartments and expensive private properties in the form of condominums and landed housing. In the typical scenerio, private property is financially beyond reach of a young couple starting out (sans generous parents & blank chequebooks), so the singular choice is only public housing. Now while our award-winning public housing policy has managed to allow most $ingaporeans to at least own their own roof, it is a flawed system that is an omnipotent ulcer in every young salaried $ingaporean couple.
There are two methods of obtaining a HDB flat – either a new flat from the HDB or 2nd hand resale from a previous owner. Paradoxically an old resale flat is more expensive than a new flat due to the standing policy to match resale market prices to private sector sales. On top of that, older flats are usually found in established mature towns and resulting high demand, thus causing the prices to shoot up to unrealistic values. Though there is a policy to subsidize new couples buying expensive resale flats, the subsidy comes with many stipulations and is usually insufficient to offset the high prices demanded from the previous owner.
The more favourable path is to buy a new flat that is not only brand new but also cost efficient. The catch is that purchasing a new flat requires you to toss your name in a hat to ballot with the rest of the country and the odds of success is usually 1 in 5 (we’ve personnally tried more than 5 attempts over the past 1 year and the trend is recurrent disappointment). New flats also take about 3-5 years to build which means unless you start looking for a flat once you start dating, chances are you’ll be standing right in my homeless shoes now. There is another option of privately-build public flats which take an accelerated 2 years to finish building but again, they seem priced for profit of the construction companies rather than policy of cheap housing for the citizens.
What this all means is that our options are: 1. Take up a high loan to buy a ready resale flat. 2. Take up a high loan to buy a private-contract flat 3. Keep waiting for a new cheap flat and bunk in with your parents in the meantime, inviting ridicule and over-crowding tensions of the family. 4. Keep waiting for a new flat and pay exorbitant rentals in another place temporarily 5. Don’t get married at all. Okay the last point is pretty irreverent.
We are currently still exploring our options between a point 1 to point 4. Even though there is still more than year before our actual wedding, this problem is like a invisible mini-bomb constantly ticking at the back of our minds. Some days, just some days, you wish you had richer parents.
Filed under: Wedding , HDB, Housing
