The Best Country In the World

Welcome to Singapore

There might be exceptions, maybe one in a million years, maybe more, but as a general rule all politicians are bad. They are corrupt, they think they are smart when they are not, they think they have power when they don't, they think they are doing something important and historical when they just blunder chances and mess up good things. The big name freedom fighters or liberators invariably fail when they get in power. The occasional decent politician makes things even worse because he propagates the illusion that there is "hope". For newly established democracies they sell the political American model,
where corruption is so highly institutionalized that they don't even realize it anymore, they think it's normal. They even give you tax deductions for buying politicians and the politicians choose and divide their electorate as they please. For economic model they sell you the Singapore model. For a whole generation of liberated third world countries in the last decades of 20th century and even today for a myriad of developing countries - the "Singapore model" is what the politicians are selling to the masses. The poor buy it, they suffer for a number of years and then it all fails. To me it makes more sense why there can be no other Singapore. I read countless articles and tried my best to make sense of Singapore. I thought that I would have a better chance to understand it if and when we visit. Yes, I wanted to see the real thing so I could understand it. I failed miserably, I am no smarter now than last week. I enjoyed our 75 hours here tremendously, I even said that "I would never move here, but I could live here forever." Still I am no better at understanding it. But for all I know, that one exception in a million years might be the guy that created and guided Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. He built a nation, a country, a national consciousness out of nothing and he doesn't even have statues at every street corner.

I love my country - Red Swastika School

They don't kill you here if you chew gum, like I heard when I was a child. They do kill people if they traffic drugs, they let you know that when you enter the country. Apparently there are tons of other tough rules, but it was not in our face all the time, like in Hong Kong.

So, here we are: Singapore. Is this the only in place in the world that was forced to become a country after being booted off from another? In 1965, Malaysia's parliament voted in unanimity to kick out Singapore for some various reasons, the best being their "culture of meritocracy". Instead of promoting Malay people, they were trying to build a society of equal rights for everybody (!). People caught in Singapore at that time were given Singaporean citizenship and over the years, some of them started to believe it. They teach children in school that it is a patriotic duty to learn, because their country is small and only with smart people they can survive in this world. Surprisingly our 17 year old friend who showed us around had no idea when their national holiday is. It is a big event, they were raising the platform for the parade two months ahead, the pictures that I saw looked like North Korea, but he didn't know when the national holiday is.

At 5 million people, Singapore holds several records in the world, some of them good, some of them bad. They have the highest percentage of millionaires, one in six; they kill most people per capita, more than the Americans, the Iranians or the Chinese. It is the second best economic environment in the world (after Hong Kong) but it is also a paternalistic society where most people live in government built and sponsored apartments and they force you to buy a new car every ten years. Pointing to high stress levels, Singaporeans hold another world record, the highest per capita number of personal massage chairs. There are scores of little examples of what makes Singapore special. It is by far the nicest place to visit in South East Asia, a garden city with tons of attractions, same perfect weather every day of the year, perfect transit system, potable water, good and cheap food, ideal shopping, all sorts of accommodations. Out of four official languages, English is first, used and understood by almost everybody. It is expensive, but not as much as one would expect and a perfect destination for a few days.

The best airport in the world

Advertisement for Popeyes on the KFC wall

We stayed in Little India, a clean variant of the real thing, maybe a sort of fantastic, idealistic version of what India could be if and when they get out of their confines and poverty to evolve into a modern economy.

Little India

We visited the National Museum and spent several hours inside a splendid building. There are multiple sections. The historical side does a poor job, at least in my opinion. There are two tracks, a personal one, stories of people who got through historical events, and a traditional exhibition, presenting the "facts". Too much information, long texts, long audio tracks, very few historical artifacts and soon one gets exhausted. I think they failed in helping me understand the economical miracle of Singapore and they definitely failed to explain how their country came into existence. There wasn't much to present,... it is barely a couple hundred years of simple history, evolving from malaria-infested swamps to the best country in the world.

Where do they make these trees? In front of the National Museum

We laughed in disbelief visiting the "Gold of Ukraine" itinerant exhibition, presenting the history of Ukraine in a way that would be hard for a Romanian to believe or accept. We enjoyed an exhibition about cheongsam, an uniquely Chinese type of dress and some more rooms about fashion. Ileana wrote more and put pictures here.

Million dollar traditional houses in the center of the city

Our friend's father gave us a short tour of the center of the city and we visited by foot the Esplanade, the modern seafront development.

An attempt to imitate the Sydney Opera. Becoming a cultural city.

As Maria described here, we entered a huge commercial area with an oversize skating ring. The children wanted to get on, but they made it impossible. I wouldn't have expected so much stupidity here. We just laughed.

Indoor skating rink

We crossed the harbor in an old touristic boat. The tickets were not refundable and only after we bought them we learned that we entered into a contract in which we relinquish any rights to seek compensation if anything bad happens (including death). Interesting logic.

One of the best parts was the visit to the Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately the girls chose not to come, but for the three of us who made it, it was a fun, beauty-filled morning. Check Ileana's post here and here are a couple of other pictures.

We should have made it to the Asian Civilizations Museums, unfortunately we were too late. Next time.

A day of fun and crazy pictures

The best by far was visiting the family of Maria's friend. Again the human connection is the best part of our trip, we learned a lot, had a great evening and a fantastic dinner.

Foreign workers in Singapore: one of the founders of Facebook gave up his American citizenship and emigrated to Singapore. Widely accused of lack of patriotism (he might have saved some dollars in future taxes!) the runaway Brazilian-American simply pointed to the fact that he has being living for some years in Singapore where the business environment is better and the taxes on capital gains are much lower. On the opposite end there are hundreds of thousands of foreign workers doing the menial jobs for little pay. I thought that the best chance in life for women in Philippines, Indonesia or India or for men in Bangladesh or else, was to get a job in Singapore. It's not quite like that. Everybody has live-in maids, it is even advertised not as a luxury, but a necessity. The papers are full of stories of maid abuse, the income is about 250USD per month (lowest in the civilized world), and they usually work the first 11 months of their contract to repay the loan they made to be transported here. There are thousands of runaway maids every year seeking refuge in their countries embassies. Of course these are the exceptions and there is a growing movement of educating the population about human rights and about basic human values (your maid is a human being!). In the house that we visited the two aids were clearly a necessity, they were called aunty or nana, their room was nice and spacious right next to the children's rooms.

I read in my guidebooks that there are plenty of buses to go to Malaysia, so we just went to the long-distance bus station. There were plenty of travel agents, but they were literally shocked that I wanted tickets on the same day, five, nonetheless. There wasn't anything available, people should make reservations ahead of time! We took a taxi with one of the nicer drivers we ever had. He was concerned for us, "people in Malaysia are not like here, you cannot trust anybody!" He dropped us close to the border, a minute later a public bus came by and we crossed the borders in that, descending, entering a big building, checking out of Singapore, getting back in the street again, back on the bus, getting out for the same thing in Malaysia and then again on the bus. There was a long line of cars and buses and apparently 5000 Malaysians students do that every day to get to school in Singapore. The end of the line was at the bus station in Johor Bahru, the border city in Malaysia. In a few minutes we had another bus lined up, we travelled in luxury to Melaka and we saved $50 in the process, the tickets were much cheaper on the other side of the border. For the first time ever, we had five complete meals at McDonalds, a shocking experience for the children...

What would this guy think of his purchase after 200 years? 

Singapore. What started as few fishing villages became a place for commerce with trade routes passing by and merchants focused solely on their own profits. Later, by using smart and clean economic policies and encouraging the creation of wealth, they eliminated abject poverty, avoided the creation of a welfare state, developed the best healthcare and education systems. The system works and people here have achieved an enviable level of politic, economic and social stability. Through rule of law, meritocracy, (some) racial and religious tolerance and with people giving up significant political and individual freedoms - they created the best country in the world. But that is sad news! The best is far from being perfect.

Singapore and Writers

In August 2011, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo. Like November, the goal is to write 50,000 words of novel in a month. The idea had come all of a sudden, and I couldn't wait to write it. About midway through, I found another writer whose story looked interesting. I PMed her to tell her so, and as we were talking, I think I whined a bit about my word count (always an important consideration, though in 8 events I've never lost once).

"Oh, there's a writing group I help run. It's on TinyChat, if you want to join in."

And all of a sudden, I, who'd never had a support group for my writing (parents don't count… they don't understand the race to write lots of words in a month). Since November 2008, (this was the fifth writing event I was participating in), I'd been motivating myself, slowly learning about what worked for me and what didn't. Now, all of a sudden, I had a writing group. The name of it is Write, Write, and Write… and sometimes we do that. Other times we whine about what's going on with our characters, our lives, etc.

As we got to know each other, I met lectin. Lectin (whose real name is Kendrick… but we don't use that), I soon found, was from Singapore. He stayed up late for schoolwork, but would pop in nonetheless to chat.

"Wait, you're from Singapore?"

"Yes."

"I'm getting to Singapore in May."

"Cool! You can come visit."

We became FaceBook friends through the WWaW FB group, kept in touch, and then…

(Please note all conversations are not verbatim and that they've been shortened).

"Mino, when exactly are you reaching Singapore?"

"Well, there are two options at this point. May 23^rd or June 5^th."

"June 5^th I have a school break, but in May I'm still studying."

"Okay, I'll make the rest of the family stay longer in Bali."

"Okay."

…

"What kind of things are you interested in seeing in Singapore? Little India, museums… do you like seafood?"

Somehow we managed to figure out what would work for us (lec was amazing and actually did all the work, and Dad made most of the final decisions, but I was the go-between).

Once we reached Singapore (one of the biggest airports I've ever seen… since it was mostly empty the bigness was annoying. If there were a couple thousand people there, though, it would be more palatable), there was a sort of scrambling to figure out how to get a hold of eachother sans FaceBook. We figured out that iMessage would work, managed to test it with Dad's iPod (me walking back and forth from room to room while Dad was trying to figure something out with the bags and Mom was ready to strangle something because she wanted me to take a shower, lec probably sitting comfortably at his laptop), and made plans to meet at the National Museum. Detailed plans. With metro directions.

The next day, after taking completely different directions and yet still amnaging to end up in the same place, I said, "Oh, no! He forgot to tell us what color shirt he's wearing."

Dad looked around the empty parking lot. "We'll never be able to find him." He said, straight-faced.

But there Kendrick was, waiting for us with a backpack over one shoulder and a bright red shirt.

After shaking hands and introducing him to the entire family, I said, "I just knew you were going to wear red!"

He smiled a bit and we went inside to get tickets. Poor Lec was very nervous. "Maybe I should go help your dad, but I don't want to be annoying."

"He's fine, Lec. He's been doing this for months."

"I've never hosted anyone before."

"I've never been hosted!" I said, trying to get him to relax.

"But I'm socially awkward."

"So am I! You're fine, you're good, we'll get through this. What've you been doing in school?"

And he started telling me about a fascinating-sounding project— making a movie that explores the idea of, "what would people do if they only had one day left?" It's going in my 'writing ideas' bank.

Dad came back with tickets for both the History of Singapore exhibit and the Ukrainian Gold exhibit. 

The History of Singapore is, like any history of a country, long, full of kings and queens and wars and soldiers and Europeans who get into everything. We browsed the entire exhibit, trying to read and listen to everything on the headphones, but it was just too much. And because I'm a visual, not an auditory person, it was hard to listen to every single 'story' on the headphones. I would have liked a 'fast forward' option, as well as less dialogue and more a summary of a specific person's life. I'm a writer. I like to make things up, not hear a conversation between Character A and B. It just feels stilted to me.

After a while of browsing, my head was exploding, my feet were thinking of starting to hurt, and I was bored. Kendrick, who's seen the exhibit multiple times, was looking around rather than examining everything, so I went up to him.

"Are you doing Camp NaNo?"

"No, I didn't have time this month. I'm thinking of doing AugNo, though."

Awkward pause (these took a while to get over).

We talked a bit about my novel, moved into superheroes (I cannot for the life of me remember what started this conversation), picked up Ioan and Ileana along the way, and went out of the exhibit completely to understand exactly what all these superhero movies are about.

We tease Ioan about not having had a proper 'education' regarding the books and movies in our household, but we've all missed out on superheroes. They were just too violent for Mom to allow us to look at. The aftermath is that none of us have the vaguest idea what the superhero movies are about. I can't understand what the interesting part is with superheroes (yes, they have interesting background stories, but don't they just fight a bad guy all the time? And get the girl?). Kendrick tried to educate us.

We went to the Gold exhibition next. It's been borrowed from the Ukraine, if I remember correctly, and had a few discrepancies which Mom took great pleasure in pointing out. Us 'kids' talked the entire time, unfortunately excluding Ileana almost completely.

Next was the cheongsam exhibit. It's a traditional Singaporean dress, and it's form-fitted. I want one.

When we'd gone through a great deal of the exhibit, Kendrick turned to me, "I don't get it. How do you fit in these?"

"Well, they're made one-by-one."

"But no woman can be that thin."

It looked like a typical hourglass shape to me, and I was pretty confident I could fit in it, despite the fact that the hips would probably be too big. "Um, yes, they can." Ileana pops in. 

"That one is made specifically for one woman, and…" we talked on and on, and then I said,

"Wait, but what don't you get?"

"I don't get how anyone can fit in that."

"That's just one woman's shape." I said.

"Oh."

"Which one do you like in here?"

We went around the semi-circular room, pointing out all the colors we liked, and the patterns. The cheongsam on the cover, a black material with red tulips, was stunning. Ileana and Kendrick disagreed.

"It's messy." Kendrick said.

"It is not messy. It's beautiful. Is my skirt messy?"

He changed the subject. I asked Mom about the cheongsam later, "Oh, it was beautiful!" she exclaimed, "And I took a picture."

You can always count on your mother to be right.

While the parents were still looking at the cheongsams, us kids were getting really, really hungry. Kendrick, who'd come from school, (hence the backpack), was starving. We went to the museum café, but the simple cost of a cookie, the cheapest thing on the menu, was 4.

"4 what?" Ileana and Ioan began, and we were treated to "4 children! 4 cents! 4 chairs!" etc.

"Let's find a 7-11." Kendrick said, and we went to tell the parents we were going to find a 7-11.

Despite the fact that Kendrick didn't want to ask for directions (I did instead), and crazy stoplights (he ran over between the red light and the green light for the cars coming straight toward us, but I stopped the kids from moving… we waited 2 minutes with him laughing at us from the other side.)

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING!" I exploded jokingly when I got to the other side, still holding Ileana and Ioan's hands.

"There's always a pause and I took advantage of it."

I just shook my head. I've got a healthy fear of cars coming toward me, even though I'd been through Tibet, Nepal, India, and a few other 'crazy-driver' countries. It's fine when everyone in the country knows that you're more careful when a pedestrian is crossing the street. But in a rule-based society like Singapore, Japan, or the US, no one is quite sure what to do when a pedestrian is crossing the street while cars are moving. So I stayed put.

We got to 7-11 and bought the cheapest possible things (Kendrick got a drink), like red bean buns and possibly pandan (I can't remember). We crossed the street again, got to the museum, and started eating.

"If you give me fifty cents I'll let you have half the red bean bun." I said, certain I wouldn't be able to finish it and that this way he wouldn't feel like it was charity. 

"Okay."

We exchanged money/food, shared some of the red bean bun with Mom and Dad, and then went outside to wait for Kendrick's father. 

You see, his parents had invited us to dinner!

They live in a huge house with high ceilings (always a bonus), We were shown around by his Mom. We kids stopped at Kendrick's bedroom because he has a lot of interesting books. After 'hanging out,' the parents called us to eat.

And it was a feast. I'm not sure if this is an everyday sort of meal, but we had crab, chicken, rice, beef, vegetables, and a huge fish that melted in our mouths. We ate until we couldn't eat any more, and then there was dessert— honeydew melon (the sort without sugar injected into it) and pastries.

We played tic-tac-toe with ceramic pigs until one of the pig's ears broke off, then went upstairs and played Wii action games.

This was interesting. Both Kendrick and Ben were quite good. Ioan managed to hold his own. So did Ileana.

Me

"Mino, you're killing it!" Kendrick groaned.

"Gaming is not my forté." I said, trying to figure out how to jump and move at the same time. "What's this button do?"

He told me. 

"Now, if this was real life," I said, deciding to stay out of everyone else's way and let them kill each other off first, "I would be winning."

Eventually I gave up and Kendrick and I started arm-wrestling. Quite quickly, we were at a stand-off, Kendrick semi-winning but unable to lower my arm the last few inches, me unable to push him over. We were both laughing, Kendrick because he was sweating profusely with the effort, me because this is what happened last time I arm-wrestled with a guy. He almost won, but he couldn't get the last few inches. In the end, of course, both guys won. My arm doesn't hold out that long.

Interpersed with laughing at each other, we were telling the other three to be quieter, since all you could hear was shouting and cursing.

"Let's go do something else." I suggested. 

We went into his room and started drawing, then I said,

"Wait, we need to take a picture for the group."

He gave me a look.

"Lec," I said, "We are at the same computer. We have to take a picture and put it up."

Of course, he'd never used Photo Booth on his Mac before, so we accidentally filmed ourselves and decided to post that up instead. We were laughing uproariously at ourselves by the end of the evening— we looked quite silly and that only made us laugh harder.

Eventually, though, we had to leave, and so we said our goodbyes to his family and made quick plans to meet the next day with Kendrick.

Phew! That's only the first day. Please bear with me for the next day, which I'll make shorter since… well… my brain is dead.

Day 2. We went to the subway, but couldn't find Kendrick. Though we'd figured out which exit to meet at, one of us must've taken the wrong direction somewhere. We tried sending a message, but there was no signal. Dad went off in search of Kendrick, exercised some magical mental GPS, and we all said 'good afternoon!' and started toward the Helix. Kendrick brought his camera, so now there were three people taking pictures/filming all the time.

We talked a bit more, walked around, got an ice cream sandwich (while philosophizing about the cleanest way to eat one), took pictures of ourselves with the sights and a coffee shop— both Kendrick and me pointed up to a Coffee Bean shop sign. One of our group member's screen name is Coffee Beans, (better known as Fee), so, according to me, we had to. (Fee later said, "It's like I'm there with you!")

We also took a boat, while trying to make each other laugh by staring— Kendrick won every single contest… the rest of us couldn't stop ourselves from bursting out into crazed laughter.

After a few more pictures (his camera eventually ran out of batteries because he'd forgotten to charge it), we walked around a bit more, until we realized it was getting later and there was no museum to visit. We said goodbye and each headed our separate ways.

Thanks, Kendrick, for a great stay in Singapore!

(And please forgive the somewhat-lameness of this last part… if I didn't get it all out this way, it would still be unwritten!)

Lion City

Hello Singapore!

Orchids! Real, live, colorful, plentiful, perfect orchids! In the airport! It seems an extravagant gesture, but this is a special country. It is an island, with no water, no resources, and yet, they have more than enough for everybody. 



My curiosity is aroused: will it correspond to my image, formed through years of homeschooling books? Through them I learned about their love for gardens and flowers, about the economy of water (which they import from Malaysia, not to waste it and recycle it), about their serious fire drills. 

Our hotel is in Little India, a colorful neighborhood. The townhouses are painted in contrasting colors, the shops sell in close vicinity food, spare-parts, fabrics for saree, herbal remedies. In the middle of the street, behind a truck, a man seated on the tarmac is eating his lunch with his right hand, from a take away. It looks like India, but it is not. There are no cows and no garbage. It brings back memories, the nice ones at least. The people here still talk while moving their heads and I am happy to polish mine.

Our visit here would be a personalized one. Maria befriended her NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) fellow, Kendrick who lives in Singapore. Learning that we are to visit his country he offered to show us around. He helped us find a budget hotel, emailed suggestions for a program, invited us to his parents’ house for dinner.

We met him at the National Museum. “I knew you were going to wear red!” says Maria. Though they’ve never met, they talk like long time friends. We move as a group into the mixed style building 1800 colonial English mansion with 2000 glass and metal. 

So modern, still cleaned by hand.

The exhibit started with a vertical tunnel of TV screens on which we could see a day in the life of Singapore: children going to school, people entering the subway, military doing exercises, people driving, shopping, eating, sport events and so on. After that it looked like a normal museum with no written explanations, only you could choose your experience: official events or personal. Going with the later one, we could listen to our audio-guides giving different accounts about a particular exhibit, but it was cumbersome to navigate between them and it was seldom that we had the chance of reading what they were talking about. I can understand why they had the audio-guides: this is a country where the first official language is English, then Chinese, then Malay, then Tamil (a language from Southern India). If they would have to write down, they wouldn’t have enough space for the exhibit itself. 

History is a very interesting thing, but more interesting is the way we view it and interpret it. Once I took my time and looked through an atlas “Times: The Complete History of the World” and I was appalled as my country, or parts of it, never appeared on its own, always as part of an empire. Romanian is a latin language surrounded by slavic ones, and we kept our identity and our customs. Why didn’t they say anything about us? We lived there for more than 2000 years, since the Romans conquered Dacia. It was like we didn’t exist, and suddenly, when the Ottoman Empire started loosing its grip  , we claimed that territory and called it Romania. The atlas’ subject was too vast and the view was very large, more to understand the major going. And here I am, into a museum that is presenting me the history of the island, and through it, how a nation was formed. 

It starts with an Indian prince that had to throw his crown into the furious waves to calm them, then the Malay people, the Portuguese, the British, bringing in cheap labor from China and India for the rubber plantations or for the tin mines. The opium trade, so convenient for those who were selling it and were controlling its trade, so devastating for the ones and their families who resorted to it. To feel no hunger, no thirst, just the need for the next pipe, and the fantasy world that comes with it. 

Chinese hearse.

The amahs, women who vowed for a life of celibacy and help the family that hired them. They wore the recognizable garment of white blouse-black pants, combed, oiled and plaited their long hair in one long tail, slept on a ceramic pillow (it looked like a glazed brick). 

Men had to pay a tax to come to work in Singapore, but women didn’t, so they poured in earning money for their poor families back on the mainland as seamstresses, cooks, and any job that would have them (for less payment). And because of them, fashion soared, bringing cheongsam and kebaya. 

Cheongsam is the dress that evolved from qipao, the Chinese women garment. In 1920 women adopted it as a sign of modernity. Initially, found only in the privileged classes, by 1950 it is the choice dress for working class. What would today’s computer do in seconds, it required hours of sewing and fittings after fittings, until the dress was perfect on the wearer’s body. 

Kebaya is a blouse made from Swiss veil (a thin fabric) which is machine embroidered with a mix of floral, figural and geometrical motifs according to the customer’s wishes. While the cheongsam is today more of a political statement (the first ladies are wearing it), the kebaya is still worn by the Malay women.

After the ups and downs of the twentieth century, the peril of Communism after WWII, gaining independence from the British Empire in 1963, join and secession from Malaysia, from 1965 there is a country named Singapore. People who live here are of Malay, Chinese, Indian or of other descend. They continue to speak their languages in their homes, using the other ones as the situation requires it. The older generation feels like belonging to the mainland, the new one is Singaporean and is ready to make history.

Jewelry.

Ceremonial quiver.

While in the museum we visited the itinerant exhibition of Gold Rush - Treasures of Ukraine in which history was presented incomplete in some cases (no years), persuasive (presenting a hypothesis as a fact) or with mistakes (corn is not a fresh vegetable and didn’t exist in Europe until 1483). Yes, history could be a passionate subject, depends on which side you are on...

After this we were picked up by Kendrick’s father and we drove around the old neighborhoods. The once decrepit stores, with British wall tiles, Indian doors and French or Chinese floor tiles, were now completely refurbished in pastel colors and valuing seven figures. Businessmen use them as their town home or as a work place.

The "bone" shaped windows are the image of strings with money (Chinese money used to have a hole in the middle and were carried on a string).

In the window you can see the reflection of a construction site as they modernize the city.

We arrived at their house, where we had a wonderful dinner and we tried the traditional sweets. We were complimented on our willingness to eat new things. 

We talked about the different manners at the table: as westerners we use fork and knife; the Asians slurp their soup, and burp loudly at the end of the meal in sign of appreciation of the food, and how these small things can cut short a relation. I was curious about school, as my children are using the mathematics that are taught in this country. I’ve learned that they have long hours, with loads of homework, and very little vacation. His mother was asked once, by a westerner, if her children enjoy school. She was puzzled, because school is not a place to be enjoyed. There you are categorized and have to work hard, do your best, take tests, improve, strive to be first. They have many tests and the results are public. You can see how important is education for them:

I had some funny moments realizing that summer vacation has no meaning in a country where is always hot, or Christmas celebration in a country with multiple religions. Unfortunately, time passed too quickly and we said good-bye.

The next morning Ioan and his parents headed for the Botanical Garden, which would be a separate blog entry. 

In the afternoon we met again with Kendrick. We have to give credit to Mihai, who has unknown detective abilities and found Kendrick, in a very branched subway station, without the aid of modern technology (email and phone, who were temporarily unavailable). 

Together we walked toward Esplanade, a place with modern architecture and the ultimate shopping experience. We saw, as our friends described it on Facebook, a spaceship with people, trees and a swimming pool on top of three buildings,

 the helix bridge that leads to them,

 then we took a boat to cross the bay in the vicinity of Merlion.

The Merlion

 We moved around, toward the colonial part, with it’s shipping quay and houses (now successful restaurants), 

had fun in the sandals of Chinese merchant,

 or on the bridge, 

or in general. 

After thanking Kendrick once again for making our stay in his country such a wonderful one, we said good bye, and headed “home” by bus.

The transport system is a well oiled machine, with buses that come every other minute, that link with the subway stations, and they all use the same card. When you touch it to the machine it extracts a different amount of money, depending where you got in or if you are a student, an adult or a senior, paying less if you have a transfer. This is good, because cars are very expensive to buy ($110,000 including the permit to own a car), to have (an annual tax of $2000) and to sell (after 10 years either you sell it and get back around $25,000, or you have to buy a new permit for it, $70,000). In some stores you can use the cards to pay for your groceries, or for the taxi. Those cards were good even for the bus that leaves the country: got on it, click, drove, arrived at the Singaporean customs, click, got out, stamp in the passport, got in and repeat for the Malay customs. The rain that poured the day we left answered my unspoken question, why there aren’t more motorcycles or bicycles.

I liked being in this country, named with a Malay word after a mythical lion.

 Good bye Singapore!