Singapore- A Utopian Island

Singapore is weirdly perfect. Ketaki and I agreed, that it’s hard to decide how you feel about it, because it is beautiful, clean, calm, quiet, and perfect, but- it’s all man-made and heavily government regulated. It feels like a District from The Hunger Games.

The airport is essentially a giant resort/arcade/mall/theme park. There’s a movie theater, LAN gaming, art stations, indoor gardens, roof sunflower and butterfly gardens, pools, spas… etc. If you ever fly into or out of the Singapore Changi Airport, leave yourself time to play!

We got in at 4am, wandered the airport a bit, and then made our way through immigration. A taxi driver took us to Yishun, the district where Ketaki’s aunt, Dipika, and her family live. We arrived just as the two girls were heading off to school.
Dipika took us out to the oldest market in Singapore, the Chong Pang Market. You can buy almost anything you could imagine here,  and most of the islands elders do all of their shopping here, and come daily. We bought fresh squeezed sugar cane juice, which we watched the man make. Most of the items being sold here come from another country, as Singapore is very small and lacks space. Much of the fruit & vegetables come over the bridge from Malaysia.
Post market adventure we were exhausted, having a come in on a red eye flight and barely slept. Naptime ensued.

As mentioned, Singapore is small. The island is what some might call a “concrete jungle,” with tall apartment buildings filling the landscape. The apartments are all owned by the government. Almost everyone uses public ttansportation, which runs smoothly and is much faster and more affordable than driving. The lack of space means there aren’t many highways. Cars are very expensive, as is registering them. There are people who register their cars for “weekend driving only” – and their license plates are red to be sure they follow this rule. Chewing gum is illegal. Being loud is against the rules. It’s a strange Utopia, but everyone who lives here seems to enjoy it.

After the girls came back from school we went on a tour of the downtown area of the city. We took the train in, which was clean, quiet, and very easy to do. We started in the Financial district, where beautifully crafted tall buildings reached skyward over us. There were statues and pieces of public art scattered here and there as we walked to the river and then out to Marina Bay.

Marina Bay is the main harbor area, where all the signature funky shaped buildings of Singapore line the waters edge. The Marina Bay hotel, the Merlion (a Lion with a Fish Body), the art museum, the amphitheater, the eye (ferris wheel) and more. The standard tourist photos were taken, of course.

A short bus ride took us out around the harbor and to Gardens By The Bay, probably Singapore’s most famous attraction. It consists of a large park, filled with various plants and trees, including man-made super-trees- that light up at night, and two large domes, one filled with flowers and trees from all over the world; The Flower Dome, and one called The Cloud Forest which houses a large spiraling vertical garden complete with a waterfall. We watched the sun set over the Singapore skyline from inside the glass domes while we walked around exotic plants and minerals. Once it was dark, a light & music show played at the Supertree Grove, a perfect end to a Singapore day.

Apparently many local Singapore folk eat out, food court style. Their apartments are small, which means small kitchens, and they also are total work-a-holics, so food courts provide a quick and conbenient way to get food. Consequently, there are food courts all over the city. We grabbed dinner at the fancy food court inside the Marina Bay Casino. This was also a really fun way to see the vast array of foods available here, in a country where the majority of the population is made up of “foreigners.”

Indonesia is accessible by a short ferry boat ride, so we packed our bags before bed and hopped a ferry the next day!