Living in a cold water flat in Singapore.

Singapore is essentially on the equator so there is a period of adjustment for the erstwhile expatriate, unless you have moved here from the Sun, then good to go. Arriving in 1991 we needed to acquire housing, and here is the terrace house we lived in until we departed for Korea in 1998. It was on a street called Jalan Puteh Jerneh, a Malay phrase meaning “clear whiteness“.

Address: 24 Jalan Puteh Jerneh

These cold water flats were built in the 1940’s as British Army troop barracks. They are called terrace houses in Singapore; what we would call a townhouse here. Being cold water only we also purchased a couple of these “instant-on” hot water heaters; one for the shower and one for the kitchen sink.

Instant-on hot water heater

We tried to survive without air conditioning for a while, but eventually broke down and got two small A/C units, one for each floor.

Split Unit A/C

We did a lot of our food shopping up at the Holland Village Shopping Centre, and the open air food stalls behind it, jst a short walk down Taman Warna.

For movies and fancier restaurants we would take a bus to Orchard Road, just down the way.

Orchard Road