Things to do when we land

Chanced upon this in a Facebook group and thought the information is really useful.

Non-exhaustive but these would be some of the things to do upon landing.

1. Apply for tax file number on the Australia Tax Office website. This will be helpful for work and centrelink applications.

2. For families: Apply for Family Tax Benefit A (based on each child that you have - somemore if you have a newborn) and B (to give help to single parents or families with one main income), and Childcare Benefit and Rebate (if using childcare services) at Centrelink. Bring along all necessary documents - children's immunisation records included.

3. Setup NAB account - no monthly account fees, regardless of balance.

4. Purchase a car through carsales.com.au.

5. Optional - Purchase ambulance cover. Costs around $150 for the whole year for a family.
(edit: I listed this initially as optional but after looking at the prices, I'd probably get this)

• Was curious about this so I googled for some information.
• Victoria - ambulance costs ranged from $102 to 1690, depending on how far out you live.
•  NSW - $281 to $5851 (maximum charge) --- eyes popped out on this one.
• ACT - $234 to $904 (+$12/km for every km travelled outside the ACT)
• SA - $205 to $918 (+$5.30/km)
• WA - $450 to $916

6. Apply for medicare card for free consultations at selected GP and all public hospitals.

7. Convert car license to the state you are living in. Here's how for WA. Useful as it acts as identification in Australia.

8. Find a property to rent/buy. Been using Realestate, Reiwa and Domain for Perth.

9. Apply for Rent Assistance? Need to read up more.

Pretty sure there's a lot more to do.

Winds of change

After being kindly and blowing the haze away from Singapore during the F1 Night Race, the wind has done and about turn and started blowing the haze at Singapore and boy is it a doozy!

Check it out! The 24 hour average reads 263 while the 3 hour average reads 317, the latter being in the Hazardous range.

Sometimes I feel that Singapore as a society tends to complicate things too much. 24 hour and 3 hour averages only complicate things for the common man. Still that's the official word.

It's just that it doesn't help when you look out the window and you think to yourself, "No way that is only 100 PSI!"

At times like that, I tend to rely on http://aqicn.org/city/singapore/south/.
Which at the moment is telling me that it is 371 PSI outside .

Was 353 when I took the screenshot.

Anyway the Ministry of Education just announced the closure of schools for tomorrow, 25th September, due to the hazardous air quality. Yay! No school for students but teachers report to work as per normal. Not so yay!

I was remarking to J the other day that the haze had become such a regular yearly affair that Singaporeans were become blase about it. We're certainly can't ignore it now!

Seriously though, it's been an ongoing issue since 1997 and it's close to the 20th anniversary - it's certainly gone on for much longer than the F1 Night Race which is only in it's 8th edition. It is at times like these that I give up on the power of the human race to right the wrongs that we see around us. Every year we'd hear of some summit or other to tackle the haze, some grand plan will be paraded and then the haze comes and goes.

It's been 18 years and nothing concrete has been done about it.

Let's have a look at what lies across the Indian Ocean.

Good, clean fresh air in Perth.
Not sure what's going on in Tasmania though.

Am so looking forward to breathing that in.

Soundwise

Unlike most Singaporeans, I am not migrating because of some deep-seated dissatisfaction with the Government.
More on that on another day, if ever.
I really dislike politics.

I think, I think ...
I think if I'm being honest, I don't know why I'm leaving.
I think if I'm being honest, I know why I'm leaving.
Contradiction?

Perhaps. Maybe it could be best explained thus...
There is not one overriding factor that is forcing this move.
There are instead many little little reasons, nudging for the move.

A weird opening for a post but it all began though with me wondering what I would miss aurally. That's right. What would I miss hearing from Singapore? It is a weird question but I've come to realise that I process quite a fair bit through my aural senses.

The first sound I would miss? I have been missing it actually - for the last 20 years or more.
Back when I was growing up, we lived in HDB flats that had wooden windows.
These windows opened outwards and you had to use a latch to secure the windows to the walls.
Now apparently, some of us never bothered to latch the windows and when the winds blew strongly, windows would swing violently along their hinges resulting in a estate-wide 'Bang' that was an immediate indicator that the weather was about to turn. Technology before its' time - a rain predictor.

A brass latch and no, we didn't have the sparrow on all our windows.

The second sound? It comes about in the dead of night. I stay up late most nights and some nights I stand gazing out from the kitchen windows. Singapore is asleep but not asleep. It is a silence that has an underlying hum ... maybe a car returning from some late night jaunt ... a bus rumbling along on its way to the interchange ... a hum that slowly, slowly gathers in strength as the dawn approaches.

The third sound is made up of myriad sources - a Chinese funeral, a Malay wedding, the traditional lion dance troupes, the auctions that occur during the 7th Month Ghost Festival (seems to be dying out though, this one). A cultural mix-tape if you will.

All these of course not taking into account the voices of my loved ones that I would be leaving behind. Those are irreplaceable but thankfully with the aid of telephony services, they shall not be too far away.







So soundwise, what would I NOT miss from Singapore?
Now that I've thought about it, there isn't a lot.

The sounds of construction. The rat-ta-tat-tat of the drill. The jerky sounds emanating from the construction vehicles.

The overall hum of urbanization during the day. This one is weird considering I love the hum after midnight.

Loud-voiced foreigners.

And that's about it.

A rambling thought leading to a rambling post ... heh