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Welcome to Singapore, a very impressive and friendly city state. We arrived at the airport and missed out on the usual uncertainty that travellers so commonly feel when they first arrive in a new place. It was all so well organised, there were multi lingual assistants at the ticket offices to help new arrivals use the underground system, and people even made friendly eye contact while using the tube! From first impressions, to now, I really like Singapore.
We had a new feeling of excitment and anticipation as we set out to experience Singapore. It even smelt differently to any place I'd visited before! (and for Jim, the spice in the air brought back great memories of 2 previous visits to Thailand.) The air too feels different. Of course this is mostly due to the heat. For us, we went from a temperature around 18 degrees in Australia, to over 35 degrees, and incredible humidity. The first day we relyed on using the large air conditionned shopping malls for relief, and well known American restaurant chains for ice drinks to keep us going. One afternoon the heat was so bad that we were forced into an air conditionned cinema - Jim had been looking forward to the release of Transformers for weeks!Gradually we were able to spend longer outside at once, (doesn't that sound strange, in the northern part of the northern hemisphere!) and on leaving Singapore, we anticipate we'll soon have to sleep in non air conditionned rooms, some how.
We seem to have spend a good couple of days just wondering around, admiring the architecture of this city. So many of the buildings are at the fore front of contempory design, and seem to be celebrating what is possible, perhaps like certain structures in the UK during its heyday! In one of the modern commercial malls, Suntec City, we found the Fountain of Wealth. People were just sitting cross legged on the floor in a large circle around the fountain, water coming out in a triangular effect. To music, graphics were being projected onto the water, as if it were a screen, in 3d. Very impressive.
There was also an interesting mix of old and new. A couple of the old Kampongs still exist - always with skyscrapers in the background. I mention this because of the strategic planning of the city. The URE is responsible for change, development and vision of Singapore. They also have the power to relocate people if they want to build new infra structure or tower blocks. In this way, much of old Singapore has been replaced - not to everybody's liking! But the benefit is that many now live in modern convenient houseing, there is more housing - so less over crowding, and facilities and amenities are planned, so that everyone has access to these things without having to travel. - Cutting down commuter times, congestion and pollution.
We also really enjoyed the night safari at the Singapore Zoo on our last night here. It was like a mini safari park, (rather than the tiny zoo cages, an attempts had been made to give the animals authentic conditions). We waited until the crowds had gone home...the animals were reluctant to come out as people were bashing on the 1 way glass. However, after 10pm, all was quiet. We came face to face with an Asian Tiger - thank goodness for the glass, and spent ages in the bat enclosure admiring the fruit bats. They are huge!
Now we are getting the train north across the border. Next stop, Kuala Lumpur.
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