Americans Moving to Singapore - What To Bring/Leave

Well, hopefully by now, we are on a jet plane leaving paradise.  We have had a wonderful adventure; we have met many incredible people, seen some amazing sights and embraced our time on a little red dot by exploring its wonders.

Singapore is a wonderful country.  It has taught me that we can live in harmony; all religions and not, all races as one, all languages but we still communicate, rich with the poor and elders with the young.  Respect is huge here in Singapore - the elders are regarded as precious; I see teens and twenties holding mom's, auntie's and uncle's arms in protection.  It moves me to my soul.  I am gonna miss you little red dot.  More than that, I am gonna miss you my very dear friends.  You are what made my life exciting.  Waking in anticipation of the adventures we could get in to, the places we went, the lunches we shared and the laughter.  Oh!  The laughter.  Yes, my friends, I will miss you. 


As we were preparing to be off on a new adventure, I was thinking about what made my move here so easy and the transition so smooth.  When I first found out we were moving to Singapore, I found a contact that led me to Pam.  Pam lived in Singapore and was instrumental in helping me bring what I needed, leave what I could get here and get through the culture shock of being here.  I thought it might be handy to tell you the comfort things we found vital to bring over from the states when we visited, what to leave and what you need to know.  If it had not been for Pam, I would have gone nuts.

For the next couple of days, I am going to be sharing lists... I could find the absolute necessity list, but not the comfort list.  So here goes:

Here is our all important list - and a few of our friends have added to it:

Misc Stuff

~Tylenol

~Aspirin

~Motrin

~Advil

~Imodium (buy the bottle, not the packets - you will be doing a lot of travels on this end - you don't want to be without it.  They give charcoal pills here... lol...)

~Sinus Medication

    ~Sudafed

    ~Benadryl

~Rolaids (none here)

~Tums (none here)

~Vitamins (very expensive here - and Sue swears by the gummy ones)

~Swim Ear

~Pepto Bismol

(most over the counter stuff in the states is not over the counter stuff here - often prescription only or they do not sell)

~Toothpaste and tooth brushes.  Yes they have them here, but they are expensive and the chances of you toothpaste tasting the same is slim to none.  It works, but if you like yours... 

~Feminine items if you are picky

~Shampoo and hair products, again if you are partial to yours.

~Band-aids (they have plastic ones that don't stick well - they call them plasters here)

~Antiperspirant - you can get antiperspirant here, but we like our brand; Arrid.  If you love yours, bring it.  :-)

~Bounce (they do have a very good liquid softener here)

~Bounty paper towels - they do have them here if you want to pay the price - if you are bringing a container they don't weigh anything, so toss them in!
~Gift bags and tissue paper - (we recycle - they are nearly impossible to find, and again... the price)
~Greeting cards.  Ditto the gift bags.

~Gas BBQ Grill!!!  (my hubby will tell you this is the number 1 thing.  If you don't want one for yourself, buy one to sell here - you would not believe the prices!  Thousands of dollars - and no I am not exaggerating).  You can get the small charcoal grills though.  I don't know how much they are.  Propane is delivered within an hour to your door after your phone call - so no worries there.

~Smoker if you like to smoke meats

~Small throw rugs (they have them here - the prices will stagger you)

~Make-up items if you are finicky

~Clothes and shoes if you are large or tall size - over size 14 womens is xxx-large here - beyond it is hopeless... lol... or you have to be very ready to give large quantities of money away)

~Top Sheets.  You can get fitted sheets here.

~Ice Trays

~Seasonal Decoration

~Good liquid measuring cups - the ones the writing does not wash off of.  We love glass ones - difficult to find here.

~Good rubber spatulas

~Cast Iron Skillets

Foods

~Miracle Whip (they do have it here, made in Malaysia and has a totally different taste - however a friend told me she has found it made in USA a couple of times in the 3 years she lived here)

~Kool Aid packets (they occasionally have the canisters)

~Soft Corn Tortillas (there is a couple of places that sell them, but they are not as good as the states ones)

~Velveeta Cheese (can get 1 lb of Mexican Velveeta if you like the $20 price tag)

~Rotel (sometimes you can get it here)

~Special seasonings like Jane's Crazy Mixed Up Salt, seasoned salt, and Tony Cachere's.  You can get all normal seasonings here,  and small bottles of seasoned salt if you like the price.  Trust me, bring your seasoned salt.  Also any seasonings you use in large quantities...

~Honey Nut Cheerios

~Fritos (non existent on the island, but they do go stale, so don't bring a lot)

~100 calorie snack packs

~Crystal Light

~Jello

~Pudding

~SOS Pads

~Canned chili (only have turkey chili here)

~Dryer Sheets

~Pecans (do yourself a favor - go get several large bags at Sam's or Costco if you use them.  They freeze well.)

~Mosquito Spray and wipes

~Thermal water bottle covers with silver lining.  What they have here sweats and gets everything wet. The water bottles are generally 600 ml size. We hike a lot so we like to have extras to pack in a back pack, which reminds me...

~Backpacks

What to leave:

~Most of your winter clothes, the only time you will ever need them is traveling or holiday - never, ever in Singapore.  Don't bring a ton of winter wonders, you will only have small places to store what you do bring.

~Do not bring BIG furniture.  Land is hard to come by here, so the condos are not made for big sectionals, dining tables, kick back recliners, large dressers, etc.  Leave 'em at home.  Everyone I know that brought furniture wishes they left most of it at home - at least the big stuff.  It is stacked in halls and bedrooms unable to be used.  It is basically stacked to the ceilings taking up much needed space.

~Leave  your great big baking pans.  Our ovens are barbie sized.  You can buy turkeys here, but you would not believe the people we see here with tape measures buying them.  The ovens are really, really (lucky to bake a chicken) small.
~Leave most of your jeans at home.  Believe me, you will not use them.  They adhere to your body like sticky shelf paper.  The heat is just too much for jeans.  And you will run into another problem here - there are no big, roomy washers and dryers here.  You are lucky to wash a pair of jeans and a shirt in the same load.  No kidding.  You will also spend half a day washing said pair of jeans and that shirt.  Washing is s-l-o-w here.

That  is all I can think about now... 

I have a friend who has also blogged about moving to Singapore.  HERE is her moving blog and HERE is her school moving blog.