A day in Singapore

Singapore is an interesting city.

At the airport last night, I exchanged $100 American for about $133 Singapore dollars. When traveling the city, it feels very comfortable: everybody speaks English, prices of things are posted similarly to the US including the "$" sign, and most people wear western-style clothing. Except for the fact that most everybody looks Asian, it could be any typical large American city.

Singapore is a very modern city even by United States' standards. There is a very good public transportation system of buses and subway. There are many skyscapers and everything you'd expect from a modern US city. There are many late-model cars on the road mostly Toyotas, Hondas, and Kias. I have not seen one pickup. There are a sprinkling of SUVs. The standard here is to drive on the left side of the road. Somebody mentioned that Singapore is the Manhattan of the South East Asia region. I believe it! There are many up-scale shopping locations, and money does not seem to be a problem here. I have not seen any homeless-looking people, no beggars, and no obviosuly destitute people.

The weather today was very warm and humid. It reminded me of San Antonio humidity but San Antonio's heat is worse. That said, it was still very warm to walk and we took every opportunity to get inside air conditioned areas when available.

My co-workers and I split into several groups each doing something different. I went with the group that consisted of a lady and another man. Like me, this is the lady's first trip to Singapore and India. This is the man's fourth trip. The man wanted to visit some places he had not seen before and we newbies decided to tag along thinking we would see something out of the ordinary. Wrong... We did a lot of window shopping which the lady liked but I didn't get excited about. We also visited a few touristy places which I did appreciate.

I felt very safe everywhere we went. The are many people everywhere downtown however I did not notice any menacing-looking people. I have seen only a couple of people wearing dew rags with gimme caps, bling, and low-riding pants. I have seen very few people sporting tattoos and the tats I do see are small anyway. There are many tourists here besides me. Most of the locals seem to be in their late teens or early twenties. Maybe the older people are at work since July 4th is just a normal work day here.

In addition to the shopping, we visited a botanical gardens which I enjoyed because it was not shopping. We also visited a replica of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in France. The church here was built in 1898. It continues to be a working church. We also visited a Muslim mosque. It was built in 1824 and it also continues to be used.

There is a bus subsidized by The Airline (remember Singapore Airlines) that allowed the rider to get on and off where ever you wanted after paying one small price the first time getting on the bus. So for $6 Singapore, we were able to ride the bus and see a lot of downtown, get off the bus and visit what ever location we wanted, and then get back on later, and go somewhere else. This bus does not wait for us. It is a specially designated bus that does a continuous loop; you wait for the bus as you would in the US, and get on and off and your desired points. It is very convenient.

Tomorrow we leave in the late evening for Chennai. I will try to do some more exploring in Singapore before we leave although I may have to do it alone if I can't get my co-workers away from stores. You know, after awhile, all those cameras, watches, sunglasses, cosmetics, computers, foot massage stores, clothes, etc look all the same. I prefer experiencing some of the local historical culture.

Happy July 4th to all you Americans reading this! When I returned to my hotel room, sitting on my coffee table was a small cake decorated with mini American flags. I guess the hotel staff knew I was American and provided a little nicety for me.