Some facts about Turkey for people who has loads of complaints about Singapore.
Parking in Istanbul is expensive. Regardless if it's downtown, the average parking fee for an hour is US$3. One of the carparks we went to (at Taksim Square) charges were:
First hour 5.50YTL
1 - 2hours 6.50YTL
2 - 4hours 8.00YTL
4 - 8hours 9.ooYTL
8 - 12hours 10.00YTL
12 - 24hours 12.00YTL
Petrol is not cheap either. We make noise when our petrol prices went up to S$1.80/litre. Over in Turkey, one litre of petrol costs 2.80YTL (S$3.22). Cars are cheaper though. I was told a BMW 330 sports car costs approx 65k Euro. Then again, the traffic is really bad. In one of our worst evening peak hours jam, I fell asleep and woke up only to find our car moved metres away from where we were. Forgo the car and take the metro (MRT) you say. But their metro network only has about 5-6 stations in the whole city.
We make a big deal of our 2% hike in GST but the VAT Turks pay is 18%. And if you're thinking of visiting a public toilet, be prepared to pay 0.50YTL (S$0.58). The most expensive toilet I've been while in Turkey charged me 1YTL (S$1.15) and there was only one cubicle, no aircon or exhaust fan. As you can imagine, I was losing more water than I should while getting my business done.
Foodcourts are also a rare sight in Turkey and I think we have more varieties and cheaper prices here. Of course, there's also something about Turkey that makes us envy. Housing for one, is cheaper than ours. We pass by this condomunium each time we travel to the city. It's a new development in the prime area and it faces the Mamara Sea. I was told the floor area ranges from 160 - 200 sq feet and costs between USD300k - 400k a unit.
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Oh, it's freehold too. There's no such thing as 99 or 999 year lease over there as land is plenty. Anyone interested?
2 comments:
Ya, no one has ever guessed i am a Singaporean when go holidays abroad, always guess from other countries. Think most people still cannot identify the tiny, little island of Singapore. And it's true we are luckier than most but yet complain the most! Have to go see the world, then people can realise how fortunate we are here. Can't wait to see the rest of your photos and Casper's too...
Yup, most people think we're Japanese, Koreans or Chinese. Hmm...the photos that I posted here were taken with my hp. The rest and majority were taken with digital camera, which I will compile and burn into a CD when I have Casper's in too. Argh...photo sorting always takes a long time. My mom just asked me about it this afternoon too.
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