Singapore

  Singapore, Singapore
Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Melaka was my last stop in Malaysia as I was to meet some friends in Singapore. Only a five hours bus ride from Melaka, including an hour at customs. When leaving Malaysia, you just get off the bus with your passport, get it stamped and you're out of there, back in the bus. The entry in Singapore is a different story. You have to take all your belongings with you in order to go through customs. For non Singaporean people, customs there are very similar to the US ones. Foreigners have to wait online, fill in an entry form, have their picture taken, answer customs officers' questions and scan their bags through X-rays before they can be free, an hour after to get back in the bus. For Singaporean passport holders, they simply swipe their passport at a till like they would swipe their oyster card to take the tube in London or their Navigo card in Paris.
 
While in Singapore, I stayed at some friends and have been extremely well received. Fantastic place, fantastic location, fantastic people. I have been welcomed like a princess out there. Thanks again guys for having me stay at your place !
 
Singapore is weird, man ! Apart from the fact that it rained the whole time I was there, it is pristine, incredibly clean, well tidied,

Singapore subway

organized in a away that is troublesome. Everything seems to be well in order with no place for any type of disorganisation. It all looks so fake : buildings, streets, gardens, everything has to be efficient and regulated, Singapore is the land of interdictions. Everything is forbidden and the list of red signs indicating what you are not allowed to do is a long one. In the bus, you are not allowed to carry any durians, this very stinky spiky fruit. In the subway, I got told off because I was drinking an orange juice while trying to figure out how to buy my ticket from this high technology vending machine. The whole subway is completely automated, astonishingly clean and scarily neat. It is also very efficient as you never have to wait more than five minutes for a train. Idem for the buses.
 
Crossing the street is not easy,

Crossingthe street in Singapore

not because of the motorbikes like in Ho chi Minh city but because of the regulations. You are not allowed to cross the street anywhere you' d like, (it is true that you should not cross the street anywhere you want in any country eiher) but in Singapore, you find barriers and high fences  to prevent you from crossing the streets. You sometimes have to walk a good 10 minutes one way in order to find a pedestrian crossing, which is most of the time an underground shopping crossing or a bridge shopping crossing. Singapore is all about shopping. Malls are the size of my home town city center in France and are all linked to the next shopping centre. They are all heavy air conditioned

The street air conditioning

and blow up cold air out in the streets to attract customers. They are all packed, extremely well organized, scattered with Starbucks coffee in every corner, at least three per floor. "Just one minute away from your daily cuppa" is their advertising, and it is not fake advertising. Starbucks may compete with McDo to overtake the most shop locations in Singapore, I think Starbucks is still winning, but they are very close. Mc Donald's advertising is all about the language, they invent their own words "Hungry ? let's Mc tonight !" Or "hungry? just Mcdeliver it !" are their mottos.

Mc Donald's advertising

 

There is absolutely no crime in Singapore. When you arrive at the border, you fill in a custom form that stipulates at the bottom that all drug dealers will be prosecuted and sentenced to death. You understand why there is absolutely no thieves, no dealers, no crime at all in Singapore. 

Singapore skyline

Good or bad, that is the question and how do you differentiate what is good and what is bad. Isn't the plethora of regulations a bad thing in the end ? It certainly makes you feel very constrained.