Singapore

They say Singapore is a “fine” place – they “fine” you for everything.  I don’t know about for everything but for littering - $300 for first offense. The second offense it is $500 and they put you in an “offender’s jacket”. In your lovely new garb you must pick up litter in the gardens and parks. In case this isn’t embarrassing enough, your friends and family can watch you on TV as they televise the “offenders”  doing trash duty.  Jaywalking has a $500 fine. The city, as you might imagine, is almost pristine especially compared to the countries we have visited in the last few weeks. The trash along those streets and countryside has been unbelievable. You forget the old days where, even in the US, most people just threw their trash out their car windows. Singapore is a city state thus the whole country is Singapore. (I think the Vatican might be the only other one of those left  - maybe).  It has one Main Island with 63 other, mostly uninhabited, little islands. Again, the first impression of Singapore is skyscrapers with a bustling, modern cosmopolitan city. It is one degree north of the equator so you know the weather report – hot and humid.  A piece of trivia, Singapore has more tourists a year than its total population. More than six million tourists visit this island annually. It is one of the few places we have been that takes nothing but their own currency. I have been amazed how many places will take US dollars – at an often a poor exchange rate, but they did accept it.  As we had a rather short day in Singapore, we opted for a city tour in the morning and out on our own in the afternoon. We saw the Istana, the presidential palace and Raffles Hotel. (Home of the Singapore Sling first served in 1915 at the famous Long Bar there). Then on to the Shenton Way, the “Wall Street of Southeast Asia”.  Singapore was nothing like what I was expecting. We could have been in a big city in Florida. Lush green areas everywhere and the city is as modern, or more modern than US cities.  Everyone is required to put 16% of their income in a community retirement fund that they can start taking out at 62. There is no welfare unless the person had been certified as being unable to work. Unemployment is 2%. There is no graffiti.  There is a section of wall that has been designated for “personal art” and any place else - you get fined.  As for drug deals, anyone convicted of selling over 8 grams of hard drugs gets a death sentence.  Most of their police work is under cover, even for littering and jay walking. The police, working in plain clothes, take a picture of the infraction and impose the fine. There is an extremely low crime rate here, as you might imagine.  A $50,000 car, costs $100,000 due to the taxes you are required to pay.  You must pay the first 10 years of car taxes upfront at the time of purchase. Not surprising, traffic isn’t a huge problem here considering the size of the city.  Maybe it is just the locals we have come in contact with and it is not truly representative, but there is a real an emphasis on money and shopping in these Asian counties. That seems to be a major topic of conversation.  This guide was telling us that the  women here look for the  “5 C’s” in a husband  - we guessed compassionate, cute etc. no – condo, credit cards, car, cash and country club membership. The” poorer class” lives in condos that they must buy from the government. The average government condo for the “poor” must be purchased not rented. These are modern, attractive high rises. They go for about $400,000-$450,000  for a 900-1000 sq. ft. condo. Geez, with that guideline a lot of us are living in “poor housing”.  Our first stop on the tour was Mt Faber for a photo op. No smog, we could actually see sky here, a nice change.  Then on to the 129 acre Botanical Gardens and the National Orchid Garden, with the world’s largest collection of orchids with over 20,000 orchids was quite something to see and photograph. I took lots of pictures, I am not sure why, I guess for a scrapbook page. Then to Chinatown, it seems most countries have a China town, including our own. Here, even in China town the streets are wide and the market stalls clean. Most of Singapore is Chinese, but English is spoken almost everywhere. Much of China Town has been renovated and updated so we just passed through though the market on the way to the Temple. Needing our almost daily (lately) Temple fix we visited the 19^th century Sri Mariamman Temple, the oldest Hindu Temple in the city. That was interesting and different from anything we had seen so far, as most of the temples have seen were Buddhist. They were having a ceremony, exotic music and rituals. We hot footed it place to place within the Temple as we had to remove our shoes to enter the temple. It didn’t take us long to check out some of the shrines as the sun on the outdoor tiled floors had them heated to just below frying temperature. After the tour, we decided to just stay in town and poke around a while. We wanted to try the infamous Singapore Sling at the Long Bar at Raffles. The drinks are $37 a piece – I think you are buying the story, not the booze!  It is reportedly the best Singapore Sling in the world but as I had never tasted one before I had nothing to compare it with – lots of booze but just tasted like sweet, alcoholic aftershave to me – but a pretty pink drink complete with pineapple chunks and cherries.  We ate lunch at Raffles along with getting our Sling as it is turn out to be quite a hotel. Since it was over a hundred years old I had pictured a slightly shabby, rundown old hotel.  I thought we would grab a quick Singapore Sling there, just to be able to say we had, and keep on moving. Actually, the hotel was charming. Built in the days with no air conditioning, I suppose it was designed to catch the breezes so it had oodles of lush flowered courtyards and wide columned verandas sprinkled around  everywhere.  After that we caught a cab back to the port. Once I got over the shock of feeling like I was back stateside, I was quite impressed with the city. It is a great place to visit but if you are looking for someplace with the look, feel and smell of the exotic, this isn’t it.