We just came back from a weekend in Singapore! Apparently I missed that geography lesson at school when I was a kid, so I have to admit that (embarrassingly) I assumed that Singapore was part of Malasia. Oops! it turns out that Singapore became its own country after their independence from the brits 50 years ago hence why their official language is English (sort of), much to our surprise, given the ethnicity of the inhabitants: Chinese, Malay and Hindi.
Coming from Bali (and Thailand) Singapore was a shock to our system: ultra clean, ultra orderly, ultra regimented, ultra civilized… very surreal. The Switzerland of Asia! We stayed at a wonderful hotel by Marina Bay Sands (thank you for your recommendations, Gigi!) with a fantastic pool and an even better breakfast with LOTS of delicious cheeses… quite scarce in Bali 🙂
It was just a weekend visit but we think we got a good sense of the city. Singaporeans have lots of incentives not to own a car. The government charges outrageous taxes on privately owned vehicles: how does 100% tax on your vehicle sounds? plus how about another S$60.000 extra for a 10 year permit to drive your vehicle? May I also mention that you must obtain the permit through a lottery system because there are only so many permits issued by the government? Interestingly, there are no old cars on the streets but instead mostly high end new vehicles -Singapore is the second biggest exporter of used cars after Japan. But at least Singaporeans do have great, easy and inexpensive public transportation and no traffic jams (since not that many people own cars) making it a great city to get around.
We were amazed at the quantity of shopping malls all over town. Singapore is a haven for shoppers. Mall after mall, any brand you can think of and products all across the board: fashion, electronics, beauty, home furnishings, accessories… lots of anything and everything.
Singapore is also a heaven for foodies with an endless offer of cuisines from all over the world. We had the most amazing dinner in Little India and Clara relished her whole fried fish Japanese style for lunch at a foodcourt on Orchard Road, the main shopping drag in Singapore. We also enjoyed the wonderful Arab neighborhood on Beach Road full of delicious smells of the Middle East.
Singapore has no boundaries when it comes to architecture. Buildings erupt all over in all shapes, textures and heights. Truly a feast for your senses if Architecture is one of your passions.
We accidentally ended up visiting the aquarium which turned out to be terrific, even though we were reprimanded for sitting on the floor because in Singapore it is not acceptable to do that… now we know!
We can’t really figure out what Singapore’s soul is, we were amused by how wary and suspicious Singaporeans are in general and it was surprising to see how new and pristine everything was (to the point that we never had a Singaporean Dollar in our hands that looked like it had been used before!). We didn’t really know where we fit really, but regardless we had a fantastic time.
Now back to Bali… Home sweet home 🙂
theintrepid5: the Kaltreider adventure 