Singapore

Singapore - country or city?  Occupying its position a few metres off the south coast of Malaysia and contained on a single island only 45km x 25km in size, you could say its not a big place.  As soon as you cross the causeway you can see that you are in a different land, the people, the architecture, how clean everywhere is.  

Singapore is famous for two things…..its cleanness and its obsession with chewing gum.  As with most countries, on entering Singapore you have to sign a declaration that you are not bringing in more than your allocation of certain substances like alcohol or tobacco.  Singapore, however, take it one step further and make you declare any retail amounts of chewing gum probably in an attempt to prevent its pristine streets being sullied with it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for not treading in the damn stuff especially when it is freshly spat out and at its most viscous, but it did make me laugh as I had visions of seeing men in dark alleyways asking recovering chewing addicts if they want a hit of Wrigglies! 

You can really get the tone of a country by watching its local TV stations and as with most countries down this way they tend to provide an English channel of some variety.  Singapore, was to be the winner of “our favourite thing we have seen on telly so far” award.  It was an infomercial by the Singapore government warning its people of a major punishable offence.  The 3 minute advert starts with the look off a loving mother watching as her son grows into a young man. Next the mother crying with pride at the scene of her son picking up his diploma from college, what a future her son has.  Next we see she is being dragged away in tears by a stern looking official while her son is being sentenced.  What could he possibly have done?  How could it have gone so wrong?  Was it drug dealing?  Was it assault?  The final scene is of the young man in prison scrubs, locked up in a chain gang picking up litter from the ground.  Yes, that’s right, he was caught littering and this was his punishment!  I’d like to be able to say that I am exaggerating.  I’m not.

Along with Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, Singapore is one of the key financial and business centres for the region.  All you have to do is look up and you will see that the sky line is filled with sky scrapers dedicated to the banks and financial institutions both local and international.  It is also clear that from the numbers of cranes that we saw that building is still continuing at a rate of knots….recession, what recession.

With land at a premium here they have even created a new harbour front area on reclaimed land from the sea imaginatively called Marina Bay.  Along with the usual office and residential tower blocks being built here, they have also built an extremely impressive hotel called the Marina Bay Sands hotel. 

The hotel is 56 stories tall and is made up of 3 towers, which are connected at the top by an curved deck that doesn’t look too dissimilar to a ships hull.  This deck houses a restaurant, sun deck and one hell of an infinity pool that apart from a half a meter edge basically drops right down the side of the hotel. At 56 stories this is not a swimming pool for those with vertigo.  Not to miss an opportunity to make money, tourists can go up to the deck and take in the fantastic views and gawk at the people who have paid thousands to sunbathe in such an amazing place and have some solitude.  It was rather like some weird people zoo where the peasants come to view the rich and their luxurious habitat.

In previous blogs we have talked about the shopping opportunities we have been presented with in many of the mega cities we have visited, but Singapore definitely wins the award for the most shopping centres ever.  We even completed our game of crossing a city without stepping outside, which was no mean feat considering the complexity of the route.

A must see for me whilst we were in Singapore was to touch and admire the hallowed tarmac of the Formula One street circuit.  As it’s a street race much of the circuit is returned to normal city roads after race day with the only sign that its something different given by the overhead gantries that hold the thousands of lights to make the only F1 night race possible.  The only permanent race structure is a 500m section of track which include the pit lane, start/finish line and the first corner.  As the place is not cordoned off in any way and all of the other people are in the malls, we were able to walk around this section of the track in solitude and see just how narrow the track is, and imagine what it would be like to come out of the pit lane and rejoin the race at speed.  When I see the race on the telly in September I will be able to say “I stood on that line”  every time they go round and bore the hell out of Emma.

With Singapore being an old British colony, you can still see the influences everywhere from very traditional English street names to certain areas having a very London feel about them.  The time in Singapore was a good wind down from (at times) quite a “in your face” experience in the rest of Asia preparing us well for the ultra laid back approach in Oz. 

Next:  Darwin and the Land Down Under.