Our Punngol Topaz Flat

I just realised I hadn’t written about Lix and I getting our flat — @ Punggol Topaz! I’m absolutely excited at the prospect of oving in — even though it’s still about four years away from being built and the keys being handed over to us o_O.

The flat selection process itself was a thrilling affair. Our first choice block being more or less taken up (at least our choice floors were), we had to settle for an alternative. We listed a few flats we’d be more than happy to have (almost like our first choice, only slightly less so), and prayed/hoped/wished like anything that they wouldn’t be taken up.

As the queue numbers edged up towards our own (when we arrived the queue was at number 48, while we were at 62), it seemed that even our slightly-less than first-choice flats were going to be taken up too. But against all odds, when our queue number was called, we still had one of our slightly-less than first-choice flats left. We practically ran in.

With a few clicks, Petrine (our malay-speaking, Chinese-name-and-looking HDB rep) told us happily that our flat was still available! Just as she was about to click on the button to reserve our flat, she realised that there was still someone ahead of us in the queue, and that they hadn’t reserved their flat yet. With bated breath we waited, as Petrine helped us determine the availability of our chosen flat, conversing with her counterpart across the room in malay.

I recall a moment of silence as her counterpart checked with her own HDB-hopefuls, finally announcing a block number I cannot remember but which was certainly not what Lix and I were looking at. We got our flat!

So here I am, an ecstatic bookie (not quite an owner yet) of a Punggol Topaz flat.  Many thanks for Lix for her dilligent, careful and neat execution  of this exercise (you should see her carefully lining up the ruler, with intense concentration mind you, crossing out the units that had been taken)!