It's exactly 1 week before I am scooting off to Korea!
I am experiencing mixed feelings about it! I am feeling super attached to Singapore all of a sudden and I can't seem to bear living this lovely city of mine! Moreover, there seem to be endless cafes for me to cover here, and I can't help feeling afraid that by next Jan when I'm back, it's all gone?! I am also feeling excited because I have made plans to travel Busan and Ulsan for the first 10 days before school starts. Also feeling a little sad because my family, boyfriend and super awesome besties and friends from frisbee are making me feel so much belonging to this place and all of a sudden I will be far away from them!
I have been busy for the past 2 weeks preparing for exchange and i believe the following will be a helpful checklist to future exchange students to complete before leaving Singapore!
1. Buy air tickets
It is actually quite a pain to get air tickets. The wide array of airlines and the large vary in prices, services and t&cs has made it really hard for us to compare the existing offers. If you are the kind to save on transportation so you could have more to spend during your trip, look for Scoot! Their one way tickets will add up to be the same as if you bought two way, so there aren't really much savings to say, if you bought a two-way. So, you have the flexibility to determine your return date, because you can purchase the return ticket later, when you are decided! The most important feature about Scoot is that it lets you add the extra baggage weight you need at an affordable rate, and there are no limits on the pieces of luggage you bring on! I've heard Scoot to be really comfortable as well, but I would try it for myself before endorsing the hearsay! Scoot away!www.skyscanner.com.sg/
2. Get insurance
I don't think you need me to tell you why insurance is important. Just as long as you are prone to Murphy's law, you would definitely need something to cover you up for those unlucky days. I was lucky that my exchange mate did the research (yay save me all those t&cs) and she concluded that NTUC insurance has got the best price for its Deluxe plan under Overseas Student Personal Accident Insurance Policy in comparison with equivalents from other companies. We have got a $200,000 coverage for $229. The application process was a breeze and the customer service at NTUC was really good too. Good fortune if you are a SMU student - just walk over to NTUC office beside SMU Admin building and you would be done in less than an hour. Just some forms to fill and you are done!http://www.income.com.sg/insurance/ospa/index.asp
3. Register with MFA
When you are going to exit this sheltered city, you better make sure you leave a record behind in case anything happen to you! This should be done after you are confirmed when you are leaving and coming back, as you would need to fill this up in the registration. Best, is if you could make a visit to the Singapore embassy in the country you are going are you arrive! A little "kiasi" won't kill you!https://eregister.mfa.gov.sg/eregisterportal/common/preLoginEregisterView.action
4. Health checkup
For most dormitory applications, you are required to prove that you have a healthy body and that you won't contaminate the people living under the roof. Most have it done at private hospitals, but I decided to have mine at SATA because apparently it's cheaper. After doing my calculations, I had about $30 savings, but if I didn't pay for the express results, I would have a $50 savings. A big HOWEVER here is that, the service at SATA is really so shitty that there isn't a word to describe it. Their counter staff are extremely blur and rude, their whole operations system is disorganized and inefficient and the poor nurses have to multitask so badly that you have to wait up to hourssss to get your procedure done. So I say, unless you can bear with all these, head over to other private hospitals and prepare to pay $150 for better experience.www.sata.com.sg/
http://www.rafflesmedicalgroup.com/hospital/health-screening/raffles-essential-packages.aspx
5. Book your lodging
It might be hard to get apartments in the destination country unless you can find reliable agents or friends to help you get the research done. Staying with the school hostel is definitely the safer and lazier option, and you enjoy paying lower rent (and no utilities bill!), greater convenience to get to lessons and saving yourself some housework! But of course, if you want to party in your own house, have late nights and experience the true "living overseas", then maybe you should get an apartment on your own. By the way, the best thing about my hostel in HUFS is - FREE INTERNATIONAL PHONECALLS!!! I can hi bye to my Mummy Papa Granny every day - just for fun :) haha.6. Visa
This is extremely important for most countries, because you won't be able to stay past x days (dependent on the country) without a Visa! Unless you rather fly out and come back in before the x days is up. Comparing the costs of flying out and back vs Visa, i think Visa is more worth it. For Korea, you just have to make sure you have all the documents ready (as stated in your exchange package issued by the office) before going down to the Korea Embassy located at Newton station. The most important mention would go to the "3 months bank records". You need to make sure you have a full transaction record for the past 3 months before the embassy will accept your application. I got my ibank transactions printed out and got it verified and stamped at the bank, but the bank also issued me an original copy of my transaction records out of courtesy. Don't bother requesting the records via ibank because you need to pay $30 for it! The most irritating part of Visa application is that the Korea Embassy only opens from 9am to 1130am so you have to head down really early. Waiting time is bearable and it takes about 4 working days before you can collect your Visa. I paid $66 nett for my D2 student visa to Korea.http://ipa.gist.ac.kr/html/page04_01.html
7. Get some common medicine
If you tend to fall sick easily (or not), it's better you go to your family doctor, or the school clinic to get some travel medicine. I got some for cough, flu, diarrhoea, sore throat and gastrics and that cost me about $34. By the way, the clinic @ campus don't offer travel medicine for free, but i guess $34 isn't that expensive after all.8. Call up your mobile phone provider!
If you want to save on your bills for 4 - 6 months, you can call up Singtel (or ...) and tell them that you would like to temporarily suspend your line for your travel period. You would need to pay $5 per month to retain your phone number (for Singtel) and you can activate it again for a small fee when you are back. The tricky thing is that you might need to pay another small fee if you want to re-activate your Caller ID because they also suspend it when you suspend your line (IKR!). I figured I can't be bothered paying all these fees so I will just retain my line, in case my parents want to call me in case of emergency!BUT! Remember to deactivate your Data Roaming! This will allow your calling services to be available, but disallow your data to run when you are overseas.
I intend to bring an extra (smart)phone there too so I could purchase a local prepaid card and get all the free data in the world while on exchange. No I don't mean unlimited, just cheaper than if I were to roam on data!
9. Activate your bank cards magnetic strip!
Recently a new policy has been passed down by all the banks and all our magnetic strips on the ATM cards would be deactivated! Apparently the magnetic strips are less secured and the chip would be the main payment method in Singapore from now on. However, if you are travelling to other countries which are still heavily reliant on the magnetic strip technology, you would have to ensure that your card is usable in that country! Just do so via internet banking, or go down to a bank and ask them to do it for you!10. Currency Exchange
The last important thing to do would be to exchange money! You could exchange up to 1 month of living expenses before flying, so in case you can't access the ATMs or credit cards for whatever reason, you still have some money to spend till you get the problems solved! So far, I've heard the currency exchanges at Raffles Arcade (inside the building), Mustafa and Chinatown (the super long q one beside the Durian pancake shop) to offer the best rates. I haven't done any comparison but being the lazy me, I will just do it at the nearest one. Lastly, remember to split your cash and hide it at different compartments of your luggage and bags, just in case one got stolen, you still got some cash to fall back on!Bonus. Set up a Citibank account
Why Citibank? Apparently, they are the only bank that offers "free" withdrawals internationally, so you wouldn't get charged a process fee every time you withdraw money from a Citibank overseas. Of course, it is subjected to the exchange rate, but I doubt it's much different from the other banks. Their service is really good as well, I got mine done at Ang Mo Kio Hub. They close really early at 3.30pm every day, so get your timing right before going down! One more thing - you would be told to keep a balance of $5000 every month starting from the 6th month onwards of opening your account, otherwise there will be a monthly fee of $20. The positive side of it is that - your exchange most likely isn't going to last more than 6 months, so you could come back and close the account for free. What a great channel for us exchange students!SO............. I AM FLYING NEXT WEDNESDAY! Wish me luck and if you are a friend, I would probably miss you! Keep connected on Facebook and ask me if you need any Korean products. I would be happy to help you - I will steal all the freebies though. HAHA.
