The country is preparing for a major population boom - from 4.5 million to 6.5 million people in the next generation - and when you're located on a tiny island, there's nowhere to go but up. Buildings are constantly being torn down to make way for skyscrapers and high-rise condos. The city has as many cranes as it does anything else. Just from looking at things, you'd think Singapore hadn't heard about the global economic downturn hitting the rest of the world. And through it all, you constantly have to remind yourself that you're only 1.5 degrees from the equator on an island that was once 100% tropical rainforest. Some of the rainforest has been preserved but it's really amazing that this ultra-modern country has taken over what was once the exclusive province of trees, bugs, and monkeys.Perhaps the best symbol of Singapore's "essence" is the public transportation system. Government-licensed taxis are abundant and clean and the drivers are honest.
Sidewalks are paved and level (which may not seem like a big deal, but compared to the rest of the region, it is) and roads are perfectly maintained. Buses are omni-present and cheap and make stops in convenient locations. Most of all, there is the subway system, known locally as the MRT. It's the best I've ever travelled on: the chairs and floors are so clean you could eat off of them (which is ironic, since you can't eat in the subway) and directions are clear and easy to use. The subway stations are pristine and well-organized; some of the larger ones look as nice, if not nicer, than the interior of American shopping malls. After just one ride on the subway, I knew exactly how to navigate my way through it. And the best part: the train schedule is exact. If a sign says a train is coming in four minutes, it's coming in four minutes - not five, not three.I could go on and on about how easy and comfortable Singapore is to visit as a tourist (everyone speaks English; no one tries to scam you; merchants understand the value and importance of good service). Of course, you pay for all this comfort: it's an expensive city if you're looking for fine dining and shopping, and the heavy "sin" tax on alcohol makes drinking almost not worth it. Almost. But whatever. Sometimes you need to treat yourself to some sanity, and this is the place to do it. One thing I did notice, however, is that subtlety doesn't seem to be in high demand. I'll admit that I'm nitpicking here, but it's just one of those observations you make when traveling in a foreign land.
The government has signs everywhere (and audio and video displays) trying to regulate people's conduct and make them "nicer." I actually saw a sign that said, "Be nice!!" I think my favorite 'non-subtle' sign was one I came across while exiting the Rainforest Preserve after a four-hour hike (more on this below). As I was leaving, I walked around a giant building surrounded by huge fences topped with barbed wire. The building could have been a water treatment plant or a nuclear missile silo - it was hard to tell. But every five feet on the fence was this sign. Take a look. Is it really necessary to have a picture of the guard shooting the intruder? I don't know - that seems a bit over the top to me. I mean, I get it - I'm not supposed to be here. But including a picture of an intruder about to eat a lead sandwich may not be the way to go. Whatever...My first day was spent walking through the main part of the city where a few
buildings built by the British over 100 years ago still stand, such as the old Courthouse, Parliament building, etc. Pictured here is what used to serve as the main government building, built just after the turn of the last century. (Quick history lesson - a British explorer named Raffles "discovered" Singapore in 1819 while looking for a place to establish a free-trade port in the region. He's the dude I'm standing next to in the picture.) Most of these government buildings no longer serve their original purpose but stand as a testament to the country's history. 
The architecture of the buildings isn't really anything special, either; the real value of seeing these buildings is to consider them in juxtaposition with the modernity that now surrounds them. 
Skyscrapers and condos dwarf these old buildings and make them look and feel as if they come from another planet. One of the newest buildings is the Marina Bay Sands (pictured here), which is a complex of three towers with a casino in the lobby and a pool and bar on the "eel" connecting all three roofs. (As I mention the casino, I'm reminded of another random odd thing about Singapore: it's full of apparent contradictions. For example, gambling and prostitution are legal, but possession, use, and/or sale of narcotics brings with it a mandatory death sentence. Yikes.) 
Another brand-new building is a 70-plus story hotel, the Stamford, right in the middle of the city. The picture at the top of this post comes from the bar on the 71st floor of the Stamford... not a bad place to grab a drink. Other modern buildings just pop up in random spots. After a while, it almost becomes a game to try and find ever more bizarre-looking structures. Even the "middle-class" apartment complexes look like they belong in Beverly Hills. If poverty exists in Singapore, they do a damn fine job of hiding it from the casual observer.Of course,
no visit to a country in Southeast Asia is complete without visiting at least one "must-see" temple in Chinatown. (The Chinatown in Singapore looks and feels like every other Chinatown I've ever seen. But, considering that Singapore is 75% ethnic Chinese, I wondered why it has a Chinatown in the first place; seems a bit redundant, no?) The one I was encouraged to see is the recently-built Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, so named because a relic of Buddha's tooth was claimed to have been found on the land while a previous building was being demolished. The thought of visiting another temple has become borderline-nauseating at this point, but this one was actually worth it. Not so much for the architecture but for a golden sculpture housed on the fourth floor. This sculpture is a (roughly) ten-feet by ten-feet by eight-feet recreation of some object related to Buddhism. (I forget exactly what it is. So sue me.) What's amazing is that it's made of solid gold. Yes, solid gold. It must have weighed several tons. 
And it had this aura around it that was palpable, as if the sculpture knew that it was made of solid gold and was saying to those who viewed it, "That's right, buddy, I'm made of solid f-ing gold." I wanted to take a picture of this beauty but a monk quickly stopped me from doing so; no cameras allowed. I turned to him and said something like, "Don't you know who I am? I'm David Newman. Yeah, THAT David Newman. The guy writing the blog, "Where in the World Is David Newman?" And you know what, I'll tell you where I am. Right here. So maybe you should let me take a picture of this thing and I'll make you famous." Apparently my blog hasn't developed an audience in Singapore. 
The silence this guy gave me was either because a) he only spoke Chinese or b) he spoke perfect English but was just utterly befuddled. It wasn't really a death-stare - maybe because, as a monk, he's not allowed to wish me dead - but it felt pretty close to it. Anyway, my desire to be a respectful visitor beat out my desire to capture this thing on camera, so you'll just have to travel to Singapore if you want to see it. I doubt it's going anywhere any time soon, since it must be a bitch to fit that thing into the back of a U-Haul. But as a sample, I've included above a picture of the main floor of the temple, where the action (that is, praying) takes place. As you can see, it's pretty garish...I also visited Singapore's newest commercial development, Sentosa Island. It's designed for tourists and that fact couldn't be any less obvious.
They basically took a mostly-unused small island just south of 'mainland' Singapore and built two golf courses, a casino, four hotels, and to top it off, a Universal Studios theme park. The casino was nothing fancy - just your standard array of hopeless dreamers thinking they can win it big. And no poker, which is ridiculous. Just blackjack and an array of Asian card games I don't understand. The only part I liked in the entire complex was the candy store - billed as the largest in the region - where I happened to find refuge during a rainstorm of biblical proportions. Oh, buttery milk chocolate, is there any problem you can't solve?After exploring the urban jungle, I decided to get in touch with nature.
Despite its rush to build and build and then build some more, Singapore has preserved a large portion of its original rainforest right in the middle of the island. It's a real point of pride for them that the rainforest wasn't entirely destroyed and, as a way to make people appreciate the natural beauty of the island, there are a few limited trails available for exploration. Calling it a hike is probably an overstatement - it's a well-groomed path and not too steep - so the only real challenge is the heat and the distance. I opted for what I thought was the short hike - four miles - 
but it turned out that it was four miles to the destination point and four miles back. Of course, I didn't realize that until I got to the end of the first four miles and was like, "where the hell is the parking lot?" So that sucked, since I was out of water and mentally prepared for a nap when I realized I was only halfway done. But it was worth it. At the tail end of the trail is a treetop walk over a narrow walking bridge 
that's been suspend above the forest for about 250 meters. The view is nothing less than awesome. Another bonus is that there are a lot of wild animals still roaming the forest - monkeys are commonly seen and heard, like these monkeys. It's funny how distance can affect your feelings towards them. At 30 yards, they're too far for a good picture and you feel like they're being uncooperative. 
At 10 yards they're cute little things and you're making stupid animal noises to get their attention and observing how human-like they are (or how monkey-like we are). As they got to within five yards, I was like, "Whoa, whoa! Hey there! Too close! Stop coming closer, stop it, stop it... Not cool, monkeys, not cool. Turn away..." 
Another animal I wasn't expecting to see was this baby komodo dragon. I estimate it was three and a half feet long. I almost stepped on it; at the time I was staring up at the trees and had I taken another two steps, it would have been bad. For both of us. It would have been stomped on and I would have been scared shitless of what would have come next. Let's be honest, if this sucker chased me, I would have run as fast as I could in the opposite direction and screamed like a little girl. The fact that this place has been preserved as it was found when the island's first inhabitants appeared makes for a very cool experience.Even after my hike, I still wanted a bit more nature in my diet. So, I headed out to the Singapore Night Safari, which was probably my favorite thing I did here. Singapore's zoo is awesome - a great collection of animals from across the globe and they're basically free to roam as the please, a la San Diego Wild Animal Park. But, if you've ever been to a zoo (and if you haven't, holy crap!), you know that there's often the dual problem of 1) nocturnal animals not coming out during the day and 2) all other animals just sleeping in the shade when it's hot out.
(Pictured here is a lion that was wide awake and making lots of noise.) It's an easy fix to both problems, and Singapore figured it out: let people explore the zoo at night. So the zoo stays open until midnight, and just about every animal is out and about. It's pitch dark outside but the zoo has a few strategically placed soft lights shining down where the animals usually congregate, so if they happen to pass by the light, they become visible. Since the temperature here drops from 95 to 80 at night, it's a pleasant time for animals (and humans alike). But more than just having the animals up and about is that the zoo - if you can believe - has created open spaces where some of the "more docile" animals can walk around anywhere, including on the pathways. So you turn a corner and whoa! - there's a tapir, or a deer, or ibex standing right in front of you. Now, if you ask me, anything with large antlers or anything that weighs more than me isn't "more docile" just because kids think they're cute. 
But so be it. If you're quiet enough and still enough, they come right up to you. But... you have to be quiet. Which leads me to my first and only rant of this post. Unfortunately, while I was sitting on a tram for part of the ride (which is necessary if you want to see lions and tigers, and who wouldn't?), a five-year-old two sitting rows behind me was screaming and yelling and her parents - sitting next to her - were oblivious. Never mind that the tram operator repeatedly said that no one should talk because it would scare away the animals. This kid is airing out his/her/its lungs like it's the last breath of air like there's no tomorrow. Turning around and giving a dirty look was out of the question - as I said before, it was pitch dark outside. So I took the mantle of being "that guy" and I shush'ed her. Yeah, that's right - I shush'ed someone else's kid. It didn't work, but just before the point where I was about to go postal, that portion of the tram ride ended, mercifully. But seriously, why is there always that one kid who can't shut up? And, more pressingly, why is he/she/it always sitting next to me? I swear, every time the situation calls for silence, some snot-nosed brat is screwing it up for me. Maybe you're thinking, "David, you should go easy on the kid and the parents. You don't have children so you don't know what it's like." No. I reject that. I reject it outright. If we can train seals and dolphins and killer whales to jump and splash on command, we can train our kids to be quiet when we ask them to be.
The rest of my time was spent eating. Sounds pretty mundane, but it's basically the national pastime in Singapore. Food is everywhere at all times, ranging from traditional street food to an odd abundance of American places like Long John Silvers and Kenny Rogers Roasters. And there's a 7-11 on virtually every street corner. Our convenience-driven food system really has taken over the world. 
Fortunately, some friends of a friend who are living in Singapore took me to the best night markets for unrivaled, authentic street fare. Over the course of three nights, we ate fried tiger prawns, chicken satay, chili crab, and a mishmash of things I couldn't even begin to comprehend, like this thing. It's supposedly a delicious desert of shaved ice, jelly, and juice. Supposedly. It sucked. Taste was crap and texture was even worse. Win some, lose some.There's a million other little things I enjoyed in Singapore, but I won't bother you with them. If you're ever in the area, make it a point to be here. Enough said.
* That's a terrible title. I phoned that one in, and I'm just embarrasing myself. I'll try harder next time.
Singa-rich? that's worse than Hel-Lao, and i'll admit i had a small part in that. i'm enlisting Kim to think of acceptable puns for the rest of the countries you're visiting. :) xoxo
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