Ever went to a place before and fell instantly in love with it? Well, that's how I was with Singapore.
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| Singapore evening skyline, taken from the observation deck of Marina Bay Sands Hotel. |
On May 25th til May 29th, I spent my time in the tiny state-city. Tiny is pretty much the way I would describe Singapore on account of how easy it was to get to places and how all the regions of the city (as in north, south, east and west) were all 20 minutes away from each other. At least, that's what the first Singaporean taxi driver I've met during my trip have said.
Almost everything about Singapore fascinated me. From how clean and efficient the city was, how beautiful the city's architectures were as well as how well organized the city was, among other things. And boy, let me tell you, it was organized. Because when they say they'll fine you over something, they'll fine you apparently and it's not a light fine. For example, the fine for breaching the rule of "No eating or drinking" within the MRT line of the city would be 500 SGD (Singaporean Dollars.) And for the sake of comprehension, here are the conversion rates for Singaporean dollars in many different currencies I'm familiar with:
1 SGD = 0.7804 USD (U.S Dollars)
1 SGD = 2.84177 QAR (Qatar Riyals)
1 SGD = 7,346.64 IDR (Indonesian Rupiah) (Holy crap!)
1 SGD = 2.48567 MYR (Malaysian Ringgit)
(conversions are done through XE: Universal Currency Converter)
So as you can see, Singaporean Dollar is a pretty expensive currency. Added to that, there was a pretty killer GST (Good-Service tax) imposed on us. Currently the GST rate fell on 7 percent, according to
this website. I honestly did go broke just by buying food daily in that city.
So yes, the dream city has its let-down: affordable lifestyle is out of the window. I do always have a taste for excessively costly things, and maybe that's why I'm so attracted to Singapore? Hahaha.
Though honestly, I'm willing to overlook this let-down because my mind was pretty much bookmarking Singapore as a potential living destination in the future the whole time I was there. It has everything I wanted from a city and the things that attracted to me most was that it was so organized. Some say the rules imposed on the citizens in the city are too strict but I came from Indonesia where organization is definitely not one of its hot-spots. Qatar, the country I'm living in currently, is pretty strict on some of its rules, but there's so much more room for structure and organization improvement, in my opinion. Singapore showed me that a city can be clean and organized and it showed me something I've been seeking all my life; structure.
A city that has minimum traffic, its own entertainment island (Sentosa), efficient public transport system, interesting architecture and plenty of arts as well as a considerable amount of greeneries. Bring on the dream city!
Here are some more pictures I got of the place. I'd like to note that some of these pictures were taken by me but a lot were also taken by a friend who ought to have a camera on stand-by all the time. If you're reading this (probably not, but hey, who knows!), you know who you are and I sincerely hope that you're getting a camera of your own soon!
Hence, I present you, Singapore!
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| A view of Hong Kong street. |
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| A part of Chinatown. |
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| Marina Bay as the sun started to set. |
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| The Merlion! |
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| A little out of focus, but a view of Clarke Quay at night, basically our backyard because we stayed so close to it during the stay. |
