Singapore - August

I thought I’d seen some beautiful model cities over these past months - Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Busan, most cities in Japan…but Singapore might be my favorite. So much of it is planned and sensible, as if it was built to actually benefit all of its citizens. It’s simply beautiful. But it is also expensive!

It's funny how some places can merit a thousand pictures and way too many selfies, and this in only a five day span. It was hard culling through pictures of the MBS towers and the Tree Garden - they're such beautiful and unique sites!

More words below, if you're bored!

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If you don’t know much about Singapore (outside of Crazy Rich Asians), it’s primarily known as the city that gave us the Singapore Sling cocktail (haha). This gin drink with a lot of components should tell you a bit about the city - it was created in the early 1900’s by a bartender at the Raffles hotel as a way to mask the alcohol with a fruity and colorful facade to allow women to drink in public. In an era when women drinking in public was shunned, this gave a degree of freedom to those unseemly and wayward women that frequented bars. (I just got verbally slapped from wife for that bit - probably merited a real slap but her shoulder is still tender from Kuala Lumpur). Actually, I think it is a nice metaphor/simile/whatever the word is for Singapore, but I actually thought of this AFTER my 2nd (or 3rd???) Slingapore Sing, so it could be completely wrongheaded. At least from my outside-looking-in view, it’s a place that offers a high degree of inclusivity and equality for all. It seems that races and religions coexist and prosper together, with a high degree of acceptance for neighbors of differing viewpoints and lifestyles. Actually, come to think of it, much of the Asia we've seen seems to offer that same tolerance. Maybe it’s simply more visible to me because Singapore is such a small area and people are forced into acceptance through proximity…or maybe I’m simply projecting the city I want to see. Regardless, and yet again, another very simplistic viewpoint from this traveler. It also helps that there is almost no crime here.

Now the #1 economy in SE Asia, it is an island city/state, meaning it’s a country made up of just the city, like Vatican City or Monaco. It was a loose part of Malaysia after WWII but split from the country in the 60’s, becoming a separate nation. It is separated from Malaysia by only a thin strip of ocean and a few bridges, sitting in a protected and prime shipping location. It doesn’t have any real natural resources due to the size of the land, so nearly everything is imported, and for 6 million people, that amounts to a lot of importing. Interestingly, its land mass has grown nearly 40% since it was founded, due to ongoing land reclamation projects where they ship in sand and materials and build land where water once was. Similar to UAE, they have spent time and money to gain area and valuable real estate…so much so that most of Asia now refuses to sell them any more sand.

The government actually enacts common sense measures to curb problems, and for me, is one of the world leaders in brave and progressive thinking. For instance, 30 years ago they were spending millions of dollars to clean up discarded gum from public surfaces. Their solution was simple - ban chewing gum. So now there are NO instances of stepping on someone’s lazily discarded gum pieces stuck to the sidewalk. This reminds me of the Japanese dog poop cleaning regimen and how considerate people can be of others when their society is built that way. There are also loads of green space everywhere, taking advantage of the tropical climate to produce beautiful tree and flower lined streets and parks.

I was struck with how the government is using the reclaimed land. Rather than simply selling it all to developers, they are actually building community enrichment projects. They have built world class sites, such as Gardens by the Bay, the amazing public park that houses the Supertree Grove that you see in movies, including wife’s fave, Crazy Rich Asians (and lots of our pics above). The airport, always ranked near the best in the world, is basically a modern art museum, one of the few that we’ve been excited AND EARLY to arrive at just to explore. The airport also houses the tallest personmade waterfall in the world…I can’t imagine this type of beautification project in America.

Another of the interesting ways they manage the city and the looming overcrowding and pollution problems is to severely limit the amount of cars licensed to operate on the island. This is a bit astounding and speaks to their vision (and wealth) - the Certificate of Entitlement licenses, a permit to use a car for ten years, are auctioned for around $90,000 to $125,000 USD each! This means that if you have a $50K Honda Accord, your license to keep the car can be over twice the cars worth! In addition, there are toll sensors all over the city, so drivers are taxed on the amount of driving they do. This provides revenue but also pushes residents toward the subway, with the goal to lessen fuel usage and increase sustainability. Granted, there are a LOT fewer moving pieces here than a larger country has to manage, so it’s a bit of an unfair comparison. Still, this is a testament to common sense forward thinking and building a society looking 50-100 years into the future versus only to next quarters P/L statement or polling results. If you could only replicate this discipline and ingenuity on a larger scale…

In our pics above, you’ll also see a LOT of the stunning and iconic MBS Hotel that is basically the face of Singapore. It’s the huge hotel with three large towers that are topped by a monster boat looking structure that houses one of the coolest infinity pools in the world. We didn’t stay at the hotel and didn’t get a chance to try the pool but we did head up to one of the rooftop bars (I know, SHOCKER!) for a drink, some awesome panoramas and a bit of fun people watching.

And you might see a familiar face in the pics - we got lucky enough to travel-match Shawn’s schedule again, so were able to spend a few days exploring the city, drinking Singapore Slings, teaching Chris to play poker (Chris is hideous at cards btw) and swimming, before he headed back to the states for a short trip. We also learned that Shawn is an excellent poker player but can’t handle his Benadryl - haha!

In addition to the world class sites the city offers some of the best food in the world. If you’ve seen the food scenes in Crazy Rich Asians you can sort of get an idea, but it’s so much more expansive than the movie portrays. There are food courts all over the city - called Hawker malls, they are made up of tons of little stalls that sell a myriad of worldly treats. My faves are always the Indian stalls, but there are Singaporean Chili Crab stalls (a MESS to eat, btw), Chinese dumpling stands, chicken and rice shops, noodle and rice cake counters, pizza, banh mi’s….everything BUT Mexican food, we found. Didn’t really need Mexican because the local food was so stellar.

We would have loved more time here, but this is one of the more expensive cities in the world. A city where one of the Holiday Inn rooms costs as much as another city’s Intercontinental…similar to Hong Kong and Tokyo pricing. Fancy drinks can be over $20 each and dinners in restaurants can get expensive. It’s more along NYC pricing, unless you eat at the markets and Hawker malls, which are plentiful, lively and fun! I think if I had to do this one over I’d return to the Hawker malls for every meal - it would take months to try them all and find a favorite and the scene is fun, fun, fun!