I resigned from my position in NYK back in April 2010. After that I started helping my father in Bintan. As I thought that it would be a permanent career change, I assumed that it would be logical to move to Indonesia, closer to where I'll be working. Another reason is because I'll be earning Rupiah, living in Singapore would be too costly.
As Bintan (Tanjung Pinang) is 2 hours away from Singapore, my wife and I thought that Batam would be a better place to stay in. It has better accessibility to Singapore with better facilities in general and definitely more developed than Bintan. And so we made the decision to venture to the unknown - off we went to Batam.
We got ourselves a house in Batam and had it renovated. My father originally bought the house a long time back and had the old building demolished and replaced with a new one. And as I told him about my intention to stay in Batam, he let me stay in the house.
By the time we thought the renovation had been done, we left Singapore for Batam. But to our surprise, there were still minor completions needed on arrival - things that we didn't notice in the beginning such as water proofing the walls, adding shelfings in the cabinets, getting cutleries, cleaning equipments and basic things for daily activities. So we ended up staying in the hotel for 1 whole week instead of the originally planned 3 days. Not only that, we didn't have a car yet, and ordering one from the dealer needed 3 months. So we resorted to walking and eventually purchased a scooter by December.
We stayed in Swiss Bel-Hotel (now called Swiss Bel-inn). I can't say it was unpleasant, but it was quite a trying experience. My son was just 5 months old then. So you can imagine he was eating canned fruit puree and milk all the time, I washed the bottles at the bathroom basin, sterilized the bottles using hot water and the three of us just slept on one bed.
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| Top: View from hotel balcony, Below: My wife feeding Lincoln on the bed |
Finally after 1 week, the house was ready. We couldn't wait to move in and enjoy the space.
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| Actually these photos are from our earlier visit in July, but this is how the house look like |
It is a 3 storey house with 4 bedrooms and an office. The location is very good too in Nagoya, near to the Nagoya Hill mall and the recently built Nagoya City Walk. We had big dreams and big plans. It was such a big change from staying in a small condominium.
I also enjoyed going to the 3rd floor balcony and take photos during the blue hour. Here's one of my better early shots.
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| View from 3rd floor balcony of my house as the sun sets |
And that's how we finally settled in Batam, starting a new chapter in our lives. Whenever I remember this experience, I can only think "how did I do that?".
~ Photos taken with Canon 5D Mark 2 + EF 16-35mm F2.8L II ~
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