while not null: A trip to spend a bit of time with mama

Singapore is a fascinating place. A multicultural country by design with four official languages: English (note: not everyone speaks English), Malay, Mandarin (chosen for strategic reasons: because this is the official language of the People's Republic of China, not the mother tongue of the most of the native Chinese Singaporeans at the time as I understood it), and Tamil.

A country where everyone is an immigrant. A country whose modern history starts with a British colony planned and designed by Sir Stamford Raffles to compete with the Dutch. A country whose founding prime minister's (Lee Kuan Yew) goal was to merge with Malaysia, only to be brought to tears two years after it happened, when he realised that Singapore had to go its separate way. A country that experienced terrorism from Indonesia. A country that experienced Japanese occupation. A country that honours its start as a British colony and where an Australian can feel at home because of history, language, driving on the left, streets named after British kings and queens, even the currency - Singaporean dollar, printed in Australia, and a bit stronger in value than Australian dollar. Raffles Place could be in Brisbane:

But Singapore is also unique. There are many landmarks that are immediately recognisable, and some that made an impression on me:

Singapore is almost on the equator, it is was hot and humid when I visited, around 33 degrees Celsius. An umbrella is your friend. It protects you either from the sun or from the rain.

The sim card situation is a bit of an extortion for a short stay of a day or two as the minimum package offered at the airport costs S$30. I did without it. Wifi at the hotel, and then exploring the city the old fashioned way. I got lost a few times. Who came up with the idea of printing maps at metro stations with North in random directions? Once North is to the right, once it is to the left and down. It messes with my sense of direction. An interesting way to explore the island is to take any double-decker bus with free front row, upper level seat and ride it till the terminus, which will probably have a metro station. Paying for public transport is convenient for tourists, because you can use a bank card to touch on and off.

Singapore is a country that started building huge social housing blocks of flats in response to a disastrous fire. Not just blocks of flats though, whole neighbourhoods with their own sport fields, even golf fields, schools, shops, parks, metro stations, and elevated transport pods, not really rail (they run on rubber wheels) even though it is called light rail, not buses, as they are powered by a 3rd rail, like a metro, they look like driverless Sci-Fi pods, but I guess they are best described as very short (one or two carriages), rubber wheel, driverless, elevated metro system running in a figure 8 loop with the high capacity metro station in the center. A similar system is used at the Singapore Changi airport to transport people between terminals 1, 2, and 3.

Singapore is a country that is trying and succeeding in greening the city. The results are sometimes spectacular, like the Jewel garden at Changi airport:

Singapore is a country that is trying and failing in making it a cycling city. Why? Because car is the king. There are multiple motorways criss-crossing the island, there are multi-lane roads, even in the historical centre of the city - in the old town, there are pedestrian overpasses to not slow down the cars. Some of the overpasses have escalators and lifts. There are parking lots and multi-story garages everywhere, often cleverly hidden. The city is designed for cars and metro. Despite the highest in the world cost of car ownership, the car is a very convenient transport mode in Singapore. That Jewel garden? It sits on top of a giant multi-story parking garage built in place of a surface parking lot.

As a pedestrian, you press the beg button and wait, like in Australian cities, or you walk up the stairs, cross the road, walk down the stairs. The footpaths are often very narrow and walking is an obstacle course around rubbish bins, tables, chairs, columns, curbs and stairs. There are very few places to ride a bike, at least in the city centre. In some places there are signs not to ride a bike. I did not try it. Maybe some day the city government will implement a road diet and reduce the number of car lanes to accommodate wider footpaths and separated bike paths.

Car parking lots available throughout the city:

Singapore is entrenched in a fossil fuel business. It has three oil refineries and tens of oil tankers waiting to be processed every day:

One interesting thing regarding food. If you are a vegetarian, it is hard to find vegetarian meals in regular shops and food courts. Maybe I was unlucky, but all I could find was spaghetti with tomato sauce. Whereas in Japan it was easy, in Singapore the same Japanese shops or food types will not have any vegetarian options. I'm talking about places the regular people go to where meals cost less than S$10. Luckily, Burger King has a plant-based Whopper meal.