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After two years of living down under, Edwin Goh and Rachel Wan have finally moved home.
Earlier this month (Apr 4), the couple, who went IG official in 2023 after playing love interests in Mediacorp drama Strike Gold, announced that they’re now engaged.
Edwin and Rachel, 28, who have been living in Sydney on the Work and Holiday visa for the past two years, also shared they will be returning home soon.
When 8days.sg reached out to the 30-year-old actor, he shares that they are actually already back in Singapore and are unable to get on a call as they were busy unpacking.
Edwin, however, tells us that he decided to propose to Rachel before concluding their chapter in Sydney “because it felt right”.
They have yet to decide on a wedding date but are “aiming for sometime next year”.
Admitting that it was a “risky move”, Edwin also reveals that he didn’t actually ask for permission from Rachel’s mum, who’s in Singapore, before the proposal, but is glad to have gotten her blessings after.
According to Edwin, the decision to move home was made before the engagement, and they were already in the midst of packing and arranging prior to that.
“We decided to move back as we want to spend more time with our families. My dad’s passing at the start of 2024 has shifted my priorities,” he tells us.
Rachel’s father, on the other hand, passed from esophageal cancer in early 2022.
Now that they’re engaged, are Edwin and Rachel going to move in together in Singapore?
The actor shares that they are indeed living together now though they’re still looking for a more permanent place to settle down.
“There’s quite a lot of factors to consider before doing that eg. our business, careers, family, and dreams,” he avers.
While in Aussie, Edwin revealed that he had found a new job in retail but declined to divulge more when we reached out.
He now tells us that he was initially working for American fashion brand Tom Ford, before moving to work at a yarn/craft store. He later joined the store’s marketing team to work on their socials.
So is he going to find another retail job or will he be going back to acting full-time now that he’s back?
Edwin replies that he and Rachel will continue to work on their business, Unravel& — the crochet line they founded in 2023 — as well as their content creation as that is “something more tangible”.
“As for acting, I’ll only take on gigs if the story or character resonates with me, and the wonderful team at FLY Entertainment has been supportive of that,” asserts the star, whose last drama was 2023’s Strike Gold.
Dropping everything to move to Sydney was definitely a bold move for an actor like Edwin, who faded out of local TV almost entirely after that.
Does he think being away for two years crippled his career in any way, and does he have regrets?
“Honestly, these last two years have changed me in ways I never expected. Moving to Sydney gave me room to breathe, think, and just grow, not only as an actor but as a person,” he explains.
Edwin has worked through things he didn’t realise he needed healing from, and also gained some new perspectives.
Moving to Australia surprisingly also had an “amazing” impact on his career.
“My social media following has more than doubled, and I’m actually reaching a more diverse audience online globally. A seed cannot thrive in soil that doesn’t nourish it. Changing my environment was one of the best things I did for myself.”
In their IG reel, Edwin and Rachel also shared that it made more sense for them to be based in Singapore as they now wish to travel the world.
When asked if that’s the reason why they need to come home to make more money to fund their trips, Edwin then laughs: “That’s because Australia is really far from everywhere else compared to Singapore”.