I want to get out of Japan and work abroad! When I visited Vietnam in 2014 for holiday, such a thought suddenly came up in my mind. Not in specific country but anywhere was okay for me. What I wanted at that time was just somewhere else.
After coming back to Japan, I sometimes searched for the way to work abroad, asked manager if I can get a position in overseas branch, registered job search sites for oversea jobs. 9 months later, I could get a position in Singapore and started working in the company 3 months later.
It was all thanks to the agent who contacted me via a job search website. One day, an agent in Singapore sent me an email to refer to a position in Singapore. Fortunately it was an attractive company which I wanted to work for and I applied for the job and took an interview then it turned good side and I could get the position. Two times of interviews were done via skype only without visiting Singapore.
I had 3 months free time before enrolling in the company as it took long time to get a working visa. Passing the job interview and passing the working visa screening process isn’t equal. When HR submitted the first application for my working visa, it was declined somehow by immigration office but fortunately, it was approved in the second attempt.
I lived in Tokyo when I got the job offer. As I thought I could fly to Singapore immediately after getting the job offer, I terminated the room contract for my apartment shortly and sold most of my clothes, CDs and books. It was heartbreaking for me to release such things I collected but nothing to do with at all. As for the books, I packed most of them in boxes and sent them to a servicer who could convert them to PDF files. I had to minimise all my belongings.
Any way I had time before flying to Singapore, I decided to moved to Osaka to enjoy the rest of the time in Japan. Renting a cheap small temporary room, I stayed in Osaka almost two months. The space was about 3 sqm. It was not a bit small but absolutely small but it worked good for me to live at minimum cost. I waited for my working visa application to be approved every day in the small room.
Since I thought it would take just a few days, I checked my mailbox repeatedly day and night. 10 days passed, 20 days passed, and 30 days passed… but there was no progress. I wanted travel before enrolling the new company but as the enrol schedule was never fixed, I couldn’t buy air tickets to fly to anywhere. To avoid ending up with no travel before enrolling, I got approval from HR and shared my travel schedule, enjoyed 19 days trip in Alaska.
After coming back from Alaska, I still needed to wait for the approval process. It took far longer than I expected. But one day I got an email from the agent to notify that my visa request was finally approved. It was nearly 3 months later I got the job offer. Hearing the news, I immediately booked a one way air ticket and flied to Singapore.
For the first 3 days, I booked a cheap dormitory bed of a backpacker’s hostel in China town. On the second day, I went out for viewing of a room. I only booked one viewing and I liked the room very much so I applied for it. It was an old condominium with a large swimming pool.
Third day, I came to the room with the agent to move in but a problem occurred. I already signed up all the contract but the subletter of the room in Hong kong rejected my move-in as I couldn’t made the payment immediately. I informed him that international bank transfer would take one day so that he would receive all the money tomorrow but he didn’t allow my move-in before he actually receives the money. It’s quite natural for him at all but it was really stressful for me to go back to the backpacker’s hostel cause I had to move back with my heavy suit case, backpack and Boston bag, moreover, it was so hard for me to sleep among snoring guys at devil’s tone but there was no way to go back to there. Anyway I could move in the next day and finally could have peaceful sleep.
This is the first room I rented in Singapore. I could swim in this large swimming pool through the year and lay on a deck chair underneath the palm trees. Not in day time but I always swam at night or evening. It was really nice to float on the water and just seeing the open sky. My room had unblocked swimming pool view so that was a huge plus.
