Since +3 isn't from SG, he's been renting a place since moving here. His first was a bedroom in Bishan, and eventually moved to a one bedroom + one living room + one kitchen + one bathroom place in Chinatown (fondly referred to as 201). He's been staying there for years, and I moved in with him gradually (a weekend here and there, which became more frequent till it made more sense for me to stay with him since my gu ma was staying with my parents).
Soon we were living together and while we naturally had our teething problems, they got sorted out pretty quickly and we fell into a nice and comfortable routine.
It was in this home that we became friends and subsequently fell in love. Where we had our first kiss, had fights and made up. Where we danced and made up silly songs and lay on the sofa watching movies. Where we invented meals and shared cups of coffee and tea, looking out the window at the trees outside. Where we grew plants and made aquariums and flushed countless of (dead) fish down the loo (with accompanying funeral trumpet song as well). This is the first place we stayed in together as a married couple. Where we found out we were expecting a baby. :)
However, the management of the property didn't manage to win the tender from the government and soon everyone in the block got letters indicating that our lease would be expiring. We had about a month and a half's notice and everyone had to be out by mid-September.
By the time we got the letter, I was already pregnant. Our new home in Punggol wouldn't be ready till the end of the year or early next year, and it didn't make sense for us to look for a new place to rent for half a year. My dad suggested we move to Sengkang for the time being, and we gladly accepted.
Spent the whole month of July slowly packing up and making arrangments to have our stuff put into storage. We decided to move out by end July so that we wouldn't have to pay rent unnecessarily for September.
We got boxes and organised our stuff (we being mainly +3 since I wasn't allowed to do heavy lifting and was exhausted all the time anyway from being pregnant in my first trimester).
It's amazing how much stuff one accumulates. We donated our furniture to +3's eldest sis, who had a flat in Lavender that was still pretty unfurnished. In return, she loaned us one of the rooms in her flat to use for storing our stuff. We also gave away most of our books (there is a book exchange corner at the National Library where you could leave/take books) and old clothes (to nanny).
We finally got the movers to move the stuff out, cleaned up the place and returned the keys. Such a bittersweet moment knowing that you are leaving your first home, but excited that a new chapter of our lives was about to begin.
So, thank you 201, for all the memories we built in the past couple of years.
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