Our family has been staying in an HDB (Housing Development Board) executive apartment at Yew Tee for 19 years. We first bought the apartment from HDB (aka public service in charge of housing development in Singapore) in year 1993, and finally got hold of the keys to the unit (i.e. allowed to move in) around mid 1994 (just a few months before the arrival of our eldest daughter Cheng Yee).
My wife and I used to stay in a rented flat at Clementi when we were married. We then moved into our new HDB (Housing Developmental Board aka government funded) apartment when it was ready for residing in 1994 (a few months before our eldest daughter was born). We have been staying in Yew Tee since then.
Yew Tee was a new housing estate then. When we were first moved in, it was rather quiet and "deserted". Only a few families were staying in our neighbourhood then. At night, we could hear the howling of the wild dogs strolling along the quiet street/bushes nearby. There were only a few cars parked at the multi-storey carpark. It was so isolated/deserted and not under the radar of the neighbourhood police, that our old, miserable, small Toyota Starlet was broken in by petty car thieves twice .. the key hole in the front /passenger doors were priced open twice. There was nothing valuables in the car for the thieves, but the repair caused me a fortune (considering my meagre monthly salary). I remembered tryng to save money by parking illegally along the road nearby, but ended upwith a traffic summon equivalent to the monthly parking fees for the multi-storey carpark.
The last stop of the MRT station was at Choa Chu Kang when we first moved into our house. It was about one year later that theMRT track connecting Choa Chu Kang to Yishun was completed, and we have the Yew Tee MRT station within 5 minutes walking distance from our house. We were quite fortunae to have De LaSalle Primary School located just next to our block, and Choa Chu Kang Community Centre just one block away. Needless to say, my children all attended primary school at De LaSalle Primary School, and had their tuitions at the Lewin Tuition Centre @ Community Centre.
My wife and I were rather poor when we first moved in. Hence, we only renovated our house to the bare essentials - e.g.lights, single unit air-condition at master bedroom, fans at main living hall, kitchen cabinets, wash basin, cooking stove, store room shelves, heater at bathroom, and some additional power points, and simple painting. We did not make any additional storage spaces/buildin cabinets, cornices for the ceiling etc. Our furnitures were quite simple as well. We made do with what we had for several years, and added some build in cabinets in our study room and ChengYee's bedroom after we returned from United States in year 2000.
The house may be simple, and some may even say "plain and messy". However, we are quite happy and contented with what we have. We had been "house-hunting" from 2001 onwards - unfortunately our budget was still quite tight in the first few years - and missed the opportunity of bargain buy (on hind sight) of some of the properties put up for sale before financial market started to pick up again in 2005-6.
It was only in recent years that we finally bought a unit at Dakota Residences; and we are going to move in soon... in one month's time if all goes according to plan!
Here are glimpses of our Yew Tee neighbourhood and some of our fond memories:
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| shoes in front of our house |
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| block 557 @ yew tee |
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| plants/flowers at ground floor of block 557 |
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| view of church from our balcony |
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| yew tee park nearby |
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| view from service balcony |
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| corridor in front of our house |
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| living room - how spartan it looks |
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| study room |
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| getting ready for school |
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| view from multistorey car park |
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| corridor in front of our apartment |
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| making dumpling at service balcony |
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| making dumpling |
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| dinner at home |
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| kicking the angry bird |
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| kitchen |
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| showing off |
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celebrating birthday
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