Singapore Galore

We arrived in Singapore after a nice flight with Qantas (darn good airline food and inflight entertainment) to one of the cleanest airports we have ever seen. And mind you, this was only the beginning. We took a clean taxi through clean streets packed with clean but small apartment buildings (now that's were the 4.24 million people are jammed into on this 697.2 square kilometre(!) republic).

When you traverse through the streets, there are no homeless people, hanging around no-good youngsters, or even pets. Now your first guess may be the o-so notoriously strict laws and fines (which are actually becoming looser). Your second guess may explore the possibility that all unwanted people and pets end up in the curries and other concoctions of Little India and Chinatown? Well, if you thought this, then you're DEAD wrong. Here's the real reason why Singapore is so nice: Haw Par Villa. The following is an excerpt from http://www.maddogproductions.com/singapore.htm, because frankly, we could not have described it better ourselves:

"(...) Most people think the strict laws and fines are the reason Singapore is so safe, friendly, and clean. This isn’t true. The real reason is Haw Par Villa, Singapore’s answer to Disneyworld. Imagine a theme park based on Walt’s worst nightmares. Scary, huh?

Haw Par Villa was built by the Aw brothers, who made a fortune selling Tiger Balm. The park is filled with statues of Buddha, dioramas depicting ancient Chinese mythological tales, and graphic images of people being tortured and dismembered in the Ten Courts of Hell. This is supposedly where you go when you die and are judged on your actions. Haw Par Villa is where Singaporean parents take their children to scare the crap out of them. If you think Cruella and the flying monkeys are scary, wait until Mom and Dad show you these full-gore scenes of people having their hearts cut out because they’d been ungrateful or showed disrespect for their elders.

According to Haw Par Villa, drug addicts, tomb robbers, and those who urge people into crime or social unrest are tied to a red hot copper pillar and grilled. Cursing is cause for being thrown on a tree of knives. Misuse of books or wasting food means you’ll be cut in two. And cheating during an exam is cause for having your intestines and organs pulled out. It’s all listed—and graphically shown—there."

And there you have it: childhood-induced "scare-tactics", much like McDonalds tries to do with you when are a kid, except with happy thoughts. Get their attention early and it will stick with them for the rest of their lives (remember those cool McBirthday parties? Exactly).

Moving on, we had booked a room in the YMCA (The Christian Young Men's Association) because although religiuously tinted, these guys have all the facilities you could want at often "sweet prices". For instance we had a nice view of Orchard Road (the main shopping street) from the top of our building.

Now Singapore doesn't have that many attractions which do not involve shopping, eating, and partying. So we checked this out, along with the hordes and hordes of people and tourists on unimaginable 24/7 shopping sprees. And you thought America was the capital of kapitalism! Pfew, these guys (but escpecially gals) LOVE to shop till you drop.

Instead of all the shopping, we explored the city and different neighborhoods (e.g. Chinatown) on bus/foot to get an idea what more there is to Singapore. We were there at the eve of Chinese New Year (this year, it's the year of the pig, so piggy gadgets everywhere) and the whole city was very nicely decorated for the festivities. On the 23/02 and 24/02, Singapore hosts one of the biggest parades to celebrate Chinese New Year (which is BTW popular throughout most of Asia).

Finally, our impressions of the city of Singapore were that it was a very clean (did find some unsightly but clean laundry hanging around) and nice, metropolitan place to spend cash and credit alike. The city is relatively green with for example its nice botanic gardens and the Istana (=presidential palace) gardens. Our verdict: If you have a stopover in Singapore, explore the shopping and eating possibilities for 1-2 days. The more adventureous should better venture further... into Malaysia for example :-)