Never grow up

Greetings from Krabi, Thailand this time around. The beauty of being positioned in Singapore is to have the possibility to make a quick decision to go rock climbing on signature rock formations overlooking Andaman sea. Door-to-door time from a resort near Ao Nang beach to office was 3,5 hours this morning.

I trust I will never be too adult not to get amused by this type of stuff.

In your face, Tokyo

Singapore has done it again. Yet another top of the world position. Not only does the tiny nation have the largest ferris wheel, aquarium and indoor stadium in the world. Also it is already old news that there are most millionaires per capita living in the city of Singapore. A report released this week rated Singapore as the most expensive city to live in. Replacing Tokyo from previous number one position and beating (?) Paris, Oslo, Zurich and Sydney.

One thing that easily helps Singapore in this competition is the concept for Certificate of Entitlement. A special permission must be bought for 10 years at the time to own a private car. Not only are the cars ridiculously expensive to start with, but the new car owner needs to cough 70+ k SGD just for the entitlement to own a car. Personally this doesn't really concern me as it also translates into a metropolitan of 5 million people with no apparent traffic jams to speak about. Seriously now, there is heavier main road congestion in metropolitan Helsinki with measly 1 million people and greatly larger land area. Worth noting also is that the squeaky clean public transportation runs like a charm.

Having just missed my train in Paya Lebar station. But no worries. The next train will arrive in 2 minutes time.

Also the study mentions soaring utility bills as benefactor for the high rating. This is something I can relate to. The utilities (particularly electricity) is relatively expensive. My monthly utility bill varies from 100 SGD to 450 SGD correlating clearly with the amount of air con usage. If memory serves me correctly while in Helsinki, living in a same size apartment I would not expect to pay more than 250 € (~450SGD) a year for the electricity bill!

Finally apartment rental rates are just otherworldly in this most densely populated country in the world (yet another top position by the way). I am paying 3 times more rent that I was paying in the city of Helsinki. Obviously back in Finland I didn't have a vacation resort like yard with no less than 4 separate swimming pools, but still a considerable addition to living expenses.

To be fair, there are plenty of things which are less expensive here than in Finland such as eating in hawker centers, riding taxis, costs of various professional services (haircut at my local low-end barbershop costs 2 SGD a visit). You can see further details in this cost of living comparison web site.