singapore

singapore has got to be the cleanest, most orderly big city. EVER. We arrived late in the evening, but were able to catch the last train into town. In finding a hostel, we again got lucky, and got the last two beds at the first place we tried...which is awesome, because wandering around the city with all our stuff in the middle of the night would not have been fun, no matter how safe the city is supposed to be...
singapore is a city state, measuring about 40km one way, and 25km the other way...it's only been completely independent since the mid 60s...before that it was part of malaysia for a few years, and before that it was a british colony...it's just barely north of the equator, so the temperature stays pretty steady all year...and it's humid...it's connected to malaysia by two causeways, over the johor straits...on the other side of the city are the singapore straights...
it's independent, but it's not a free society...the laws are pretty strict...no jaywalking...no littering...no eating/drinking on public transit...for each of those three, the fine is S$500...if you're caught with drugs, you're going to be in jail for a LONG time...if you're caught trafficking drugs, it's a mandatory death sentence...and they DO carry it out...anywho, because the laws are so strict, everything is very orderly and clean...there are trash cans on the streets, so you don't even have to carry anything for very long...
the standard of living is quite high in singapore...the average income is about the same as in the states...and i don't think there is much homelessness or poverty at all...in a lot of ways, singapore reminds me of seoul...but cleaner, and people aren't nearly as rude...since singapore doesn't really have it's own culture, there are lots of foreigners...LOTS...it's the only place in this entire trip that i wasn't stared at just for being a foreign female...i was ignored, which is great!! fabulous, relatively cheap public transport, HUGE apartment buildings, glitzy stores...and there are coffee beans everywhere...there is a lot more english spoken here (locals call it singlish) and people are really helpful in general...
because public transport is so good, people don't walk very much...of course, that doesn't stop either one of us...the sidewalks are great, they're everywhere...little india was probably my favourite section of the city, just because i enjoyed the real india so much...little india actually has a fairly significant indian population, so there are tons of restaurants, stores selling everything you don't need, stores selling indian sweets, a few temples, etc...even a grocery store where i was able to get more chai masala...YUM...i surprised a guy in one restaurant by knowing the hindi name for a couple curries, hee hee...i love indian food, and i've missed it...i haven't been eating it in other places we've been, because it doesn't seem authentic...the other places we've seen it have all been restaurants, geared toward tourists...this is the first place we've been where we've been around a lot of indians, (who are mostly here on 2 yr contracts, or came on those contracts and stayed) so the food is geared toward them more than anything...i found places to eat where there weren't any tourists, but the places were packed with indians...that tells me it's good...it's fun to eat with my hands, it always surprises people...why use a spoon and fork if the locals don't use them?
my biggest day of walking included seeing temples, mosques, cathedrals, a couple parks, and more...each day was a long walking day though, since it's so easy to walk everywhere...the sidewalks i mentioned earlier are actually walkable...you don't have to walk around stores spilling onto the sidewalk, or around motorbikes or cars parked on the sidewalk, as in other countries...
i also got to see a WWII allied war cemetary (over 24,000 memorialized there, none of them american,) a huge monastery, the philatelic museum, chinatown, and the esplanade, in view of a giant ferris wheel...(i think the ride to go around it once is 30mins+?)...i believe the ferris wheel is supposed to be the biggest in the world? on the esplanade is the merlion, which is supposed to be the sign of singapore...i have no idea how they came up with this...the merlion is a combination of a lion and a fish...???????, right???...one day i saw the largest fountain in the world...it's close to suntec city, one of the malls/big buildings/offices in the city...legend has it that if you walk around the fountain clockwise three times with your hand in the water, you are guaranteed good luck...i did the walk, so we'll see about my luck, eh?
one day i went out to sentosa island, off the southern tip of "mainland" singapore...it was originally used to defend singapore, but now there is only one historical anything left on the island, a fort used for defence of the colony...the reason i went to see sentosa was to see the fort that was last used in the defense of the island during WWII...(a lousy defense, the guns were pointed the wrong way)...they've turned the fort into a pretty good interpretive center...you can see a couple of the large guns used, and they've got sound bites of what actually happened when the japanese invaded...good explanations of pictures, etc...i ended up getting distracted, and didn't see as much as i planned, but i had a great time anywho...its easy to get to the island, you can go by public transport, and it's cheap...of course, while it's cheap to get to the island, being on the island isn't cheap...the rest of the island is a resort...there are lots of things to do, most with high prices...riding one of those wheelie things where you are standing up and you just push the handle forward, going up a tower, watching the dolphin show, etc...there are several beaches, none of which are all that...i walked on one of them, and was stunned by the awful quality of the sand...if you're going to build a beach, why not build a good one, eh?
singapore is by far the most expensive place we've traveled, but we both liked it...it does howeva seem quite sterile...b/c of all the laws about littering, and whatnot, there isn't anything that makes the area feel lived in...no street stalls of yummy food...no street instrumentalists...no graffiti (sp?)...it was convenient, and super easy though...