Singapore

On October 1 Dan and I left Indonesia to head back to the Western Hemisphere. We decided to take our time going back and visit a few places on our Bucket List. Stop #1 was Singapore.

Singapore is the most cosmopolitan city I've ever seen, bar none. It's got glass-and-steel highrises and a state-of-the-art infrastructure and, although Malay is its official language, English is spoken everywhere. Despite colonial British influence it has Indian, Malaysian, and Chinese neighborhoods and everywhere we went I saw people of all colors, cultures and dress.

We really only had a day and a half to see the city. The first evening we took a taxi to Little India to meet friends for dinner. Louise and her husband were Australians we'd met in Bali who lived part-time in Singapore; they took us to a streetside cafe and we sat for a while chatting like old friends over bottles of Tiger Beer. (Tiger is Singapore's national beer.) Afterward they took us to their favorite Indian restaurant and ordered an amazing variety of delicious food. Not until afterward did I remind Dan it had all been vegetarian.

Though Singapore's subway, bus and taxi systems are top-notch we opted instead to use our only full-day taking a tour, which included a river cruise and a hop on-hop off bus tour. It took us to all three neighborhoods and we got a good overview of the city. We also got some nice photos.

The one thing that impressed me the most about Singapore was how clean it is. Singapore is known for its strict laws against of littering of any kind. Chewing gum isn't even sold in the country because they don't want people spitting it out on the street. I've read that littering carries a $1000 fine and repeat offenders have to wear bright jackets and clean up a public place. They sometimes even invite the media to cover the story. Having come from Indonesia, the largest trash dump I've ever seen, the contrast was striking.

Dan wanted to look for a new camera and we went into one of the many electronics malls to look. How like Singapore to have malls just dedicated to electronics. We saw things that aren't even available in the U.S. yet, and at very reasonable prices.

The end of the day found us on the Singapore Flyer watching the sun set over the city. The Singapore Flyer is like the London Eye, but larger. From there I could see that I had been wrong about the city. It's not just a small island with a lot of highrises. It's hilly islands with lots of greenery and nice older neighborhoods too.

I've decided that if I ever have to live in Asia, I could definitely live in Singapore. Even if it meant I'd have to do without chewing gum.