I spent 3 very intense days looking at schools and homes and also got to catch up with some friends. Its going to be great moving back, especially on the friends front. The restaurant front, well there is definitely sticker shock!!! maybe back to hawker for me!!
So I started off looking at schools, I visited a total of 6 schools, 3 belonged to the same chain (PSH) and the other significant one was the Chinese International School (CIS).
Two of the PSH's I visited I bumped into people I know. Based on phone calls and websites, I went convinced that the likely choice is PSH, when i got there though the one branch that I liked had space for Nate but not Ike, also its on orchard road and am not sure I want to head there every single morning. I got a very slick marketing person but I didn't like the way she was treating a little girl who had some separation anxiety issues. I felt alot of noise and congestion.
On the other hand... I was not convinced on the CIS and found their admin staff, quite bad frontline person for the school. The teachers were alot better but very new, many times i heard them say they want to implement this or that and as the school is young, many things are work in progress. I did like the class rooms but found the teacher to child ratio quite small, for ike's class it is 2:7 and nate its 2:12. So for a social butterfly like nate will this environment be too small? For ike, based on his report card I think this would be an ideal environment. I saw his energetic chinese teacher (to be?) sing songs and play so nicely with them in a small class.
Got feedback from their teachers and Nate seems to need alot of stimulation. I think CIS may be the way to go... one of the con's I initially thought was that they did not run the school for a full year, ie long summer break but then thinking about it more, I think I may take the kids, with porpor and bubbi, maybe even Han and Wei to a city in China for a stretch of time, so they can practice chinese in a real environment. Porpor and I can do research on my granddad's stuff leaving the kids to Aunty Shook Fun and Bubs (hey bubs, mandarin lessons for you too)!
As for houses... here is a pic of a black and white we saw, magnificent big house, had a similar feel to my granddad's house in many ways, has a stable (turned into garage) and 4 smaller outpost houses. Its also facing the highway on one side and graveyard on the other... the other black and white we saw was located very well, big land but probably was built for the lowest ranking officer on that hill. It was also under our budget so we will pass.
It looked like we could get homes 30% below the owners asking prices and as that segment is highly elastic, I think waiting will yield us a nice house in Feb. So... no we don't have a house yet.
Pics... a black and white and the CIS.
No comments:
Post a Comment