For those who don't know, a work opportunity came up to move in my current role, along with our family, to Singapore for a few years. It started off as a joke between Elizabeth and I, but we quickly fell in love with the idea for a variety of reasons.
- We've been putting off a big Asia vacation for a long time, since we wanted a few weeks to get over jet lag and see a few different places to justify the long ocean crossing, and this was a great way to establish a home base and see lots of things in the region.
- Singapore has one of the best food cultures on the planet, serving as a culinary cross-roads between China, India, Thailand, and Polynesia. The food is both amazing, and if you get it from street vendors quite cheap. The first street vendor to be awarded a Michelin star is a chicken rice stall near the Chinatown MRT stop.
- It will be an awesome multi-cultural experience for the kids, and for us. I've lived in Minnesota my whole life, and although Minneapolis is an amazing and diverse city, this will definitely broaden our perspective and expand the envelope. It should do wonders for Amelia's Mandarin.
- There's very low risk, relatively speaking. Singapore is a safe, stable city-state (so long as you toe the line) and I am transferring over doing the same job for the same company. Even with the absurdly high costs of housing and school we've got a budget that works and allows us to live comfortably enough and also be able to travel and enjoy ourselves here.
Which is not to say that there aren't drawbacks. Of course we will deeply miss our friends and family and community that we have been building in Minneapolis. Although time won't stop in our absence, we're hopeful that the vast majority of the people and places we love will be there when we return. Also, Elizabeth is taking a relatively large risk with her career, coming here with no job lined up and no firm plan for whether or not she'll find a job (remote or otherwise) or be our tour and travel coordinator for two years while managing the household. Both options have pros and cons, and we'll be playing that one by ear.
Right now I'm in Singapore until the end of May to start to work out of the new office and get settled. Elizabeth just returned to the US after a week here touring the school Maxwell and Amelia are going to and also getting the lay of the land. I'll be back in the states frantically working to get our house ready to rent and our stuff ready to move from Memorial Day weekend until roughly June 25th, and then we pack all our belongings into a shipping container and our family into an airplane.
We are planning on getting an apartment with some extra space so that we can always have room for visitors. In fact we've already got our first houseguests lined up for February 2018... plane tickets from the UK were apparently too cheap to pass up to Tom & his family will be coming out for a few weeks. Singapore makes a great "home base" if you want to have an extended trip in south-east Asia, and we're more than happy to provide free lodging and show folks around!
Right now I'm in Singapore until the end of May to start to work out of the new office and get settled. Elizabeth just returned to the US after a week here touring the school Maxwell and Amelia are going to and also getting the lay of the land. I'll be back in the states frantically working to get our house ready to rent and our stuff ready to move from Memorial Day weekend until roughly June 25th, and then we pack all our belongings into a shipping container and our family into an airplane.
We are planning on getting an apartment with some extra space so that we can always have room for visitors. In fact we've already got our first houseguests lined up for February 2018... plane tickets from the UK were apparently too cheap to pass up to Tom & his family will be coming out for a few weeks. Singapore makes a great "home base" if you want to have an extended trip in south-east Asia, and we're more than happy to provide free lodging and show folks around!
The blog is a great idea!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget us - we plan on visiting the last two weeks of December. Happy holidays at 90 degrees every day.
Mom and Dad, who had the distinct honor of pretending to be in charge of your children while both of you were in Singapore
Hi Mike, this is Jessie Armstrong, friend from ancient MYS days, and only a tiny bit more in contact with our mutual friend Kit. I saw your blog share on Facebook and am enjoying reading about your big adventure!
ReplyDeleteSince in this post you were reflecting on pros and cons of your decision to move abroad with your family, I was wondering if, during your decision - making period, you came to any conclusions about what is the best period in children's lives for going abroad? My kids are still very little (9 mo and 2.5). So you think any time before adolescence would be equally good, or is there some ideal window? In your personal opinion, of course.
I will be eager to read more about your experience!
Hey Jessie! Good to hear from you!
Delete"Conclusion" is a strong word, but we did talk about how it's only going to get harder to pull them away from friends and school, and that we can either take advantage of this opportunity or do something like this when we're 60. Maxwell, our middle child, just turned 5 so he was going to be changing schools anyways, and we figured that Amelia (our 9-year-old) was old enough that she'd be able to stay in contact with her friends over email, but not so old that there's a significant risk of her missing something critical in her education due to the transition to Singapore and back. Grades 4 and 5 are still covering topics that Elizabeth and I could probably fill in on our own if we need to. I think if Amelia had been much older I would have been worried about her coming in late to a junior high or high school and having extra challenges finding a group of friends.
In my experience traveling with kids it's pretty helpful if they can be either light enough to carry on longer excursions or big enough to hike themselves around so right now we're kind of in that sweet spot. Though we'll see what happens when Callie gets bigger!
Are you thinking of going on an adventure somewhere? :)
That is very helpful, and makes sense to me. How old is Callie?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you really do have fantastic timing! And your eldest's Mandarin will soar!
We aren't talking about it too seriously yet. We are still kind of on survival and adjustment mode, after moving back to Mn and going through a lot of changes (including 2 kids in less than 2 years). But I hour that in a year or two we will have caught our breath and can do so be planning around the idea of living abroad. I get the itch to move out of the country every few years. It seems like the big question is about whether at least one of us has skills that could be useful elsewhere, and whether that country uses English or Spanish enough for us to communicate. It's so cool that your job provided this opportunity!
Callie's 18 months old, so probably too young to remember anything but old enough to form life-long emotional reactions to the spice aroma coming off the market near where we're probably going to live. :)
DeleteWith English and Spanish, Central and South America could be your oyster! I hear that Argentina is pretty cool, even though their Spanish is a little wonky.