I'm too poor for Singapore!

November 22, 2018

‘Thank you for flying with Air Asia and welcome to Singapore. If you have any drugs in your possession this will be punishable by the death penalty’ announced the intercom comfortingly as I touched down in Singapore last week. The city state which in many ways epitomises modernisation also manages to hold onto some pretty antiquated systems. It may be a capitalist city but the bankers here won’t be partying like they do in the Wolf of Wall Street.

My first greeting into just how multi-cultural and, well, ‘white’ this city is occurred during my first ten minutes of wandering around: oversized rucksack on my back and birkenstocks drenched by the rain, trying to find my friend’s apartment block. A bubbly English woman approached me, clearly having taken pity on the ‘lost backpacker in concrete jungle’ ('has she flown into the wrong destination?' ) and wondered did I need directions --as it transpired the apartment block I was searching for was the one she lived in and I was lead all the way there. Too easy. Singapore is in many ways, ‘easy’ – a ‘soft landing’ into Asia; the national language is English, the transport system is clean and ridiculously efficient, all in all it’s very western. However, for many people living here, life is downright expensive and hard. Singapore is aimed toward two classes of people: the wealthy and the tourists. If you do not fit into either of these two categories then you are pushed under the radar and forgotten about. You will work well past retirement age and live in social housing just to keep your head above water.

Staying firmly in the tourist category however I could certainly enjoy what Singapore had to offer, and it was impressive. The city hosts plenty of green spaces including Gardens by the bay with its spectacular ‘supertrees’ consisting of more than 200 species of plant in one massive (artificial) tree structure; the botanic gardens where we played rounders like we were ten years old again and met an Irish man who worked as a tour guide in Limerick and instructed us to, essentially, ‘keep travelling’ and, finally, the southern ridges where I walked upon a stainless steel path meandering right through the canopy of a small rain forest in the middle of the city, where monkeys still roam, apparently.

I ate at a 'Hawker' which is essentially a number of different food stalls and kitchens all under the one roof. There are many dotted all over the city and the locals eat in these regularly as they are by far the cheapest option for food in the city, as well as the most exciting. Myself and my friend ate carrot cake (Warning: not the sweet cake eaten with tea back home) dumplings and prata.

Last night I was enthralled by the light show which takes place 2- 3 times a night, every night at Gardens by the bay and the Marina Bay sands. We placed my bright yellow mac on the ground and lay beneath the enormous supertrees watching the tiny multicoloured lights whizz up and down the formations (all solar powered I hope) in time to 70's tunes . We could have been on hallucinogenic drugs except of course, they're illegal so this spectacle was all real.

The show by the Marina was also joined by a more natural light show in the sky in the form of forked lightning. Both were equally impressive---nature v Singapore !

Despite being slightly too clean and high rise for my liking, Singapore still provided an exciting and action packed week. A home away from home in the middle of South East Asia, though I imagine it could have felt very different if I wasn't surrounded by Irish friends and a healthy dosage of overly priced Guinness every so often.