Singapore: Dec. 5-10, 2015

I had my first visit to Singapore and walked many streets and places in the city-state.

It was 1819 when Sir Thomas Raffles of England landed the island. It was a small village of fishermen. Now, skyscrapers of financial building stand along the Singapore River behind Ruffle’s statue.

Singapore separated from Malaysia and became an independent state in 1965. It celebrates its 50^th anniversary this year. The logo of “SG 50” is displayed everywhere.

The new buildings have the facilities with latest technologies. The buildings at the Marina Financial Center do not have the buttons of floors in the elevators. Instead, the operation is controlled through ID cards and instructions at the elevator halls.

The Merlion has been ill-spoken as one of three big disappointments in the world. It was not so bad for me (partially because the expectation was not so high). Many tourists enjoy taking pictures with it. (see also the top photo)

There stand the buildings of the “Marina Bay Sands” in front of the Merlion. The three hotel buildings have about 2500 rooms. 

The famous ship-shape sky deck is on the buildings. I enjoyed a skywalk at about 200 meter high.

“The Gardens by the Bay”, which lies between the sea and the Marina Bay Sands, has the features of both public park and amusement center. The Super trees were especially impressive for me. There are 18 trees and they are 25-50 meter high. The scene gave me the impression of the future city in the SF movie (See also the photo second from the top).

I found interesting objects and monuments in the garden.

Hundreds of ships were anchored off the shore. It is probably possible because Singapore does not have big typhoons. The city-nation competes with Shanghai and other ports for the largest container port in the world (see also the the third photo from the top).

The country’s size is as large as Tokyo’s 23 wards. It has about five million people. With its success (so far) in financial service and high-tech industries, Singapore enjoys economic prosperity. Its GDP per capita is the highest in major Asian countries.

The Orchard Road, one of the busiest commercial areas, was decorated with Christmas goods. Huge commercial buildings including the Ion and Takashimaya were crowded with shoppers.

The city was clean and artificial as is often reported. Still, there are some messy areas, too. I felt people's energy when I visited the hawkers (open-air stools) at the Bugis Street.

The combination of traditional houses and tall buildings were found in many places.

The ASEAN paragames (ASEAN version of Paralympic) were held when I visited there. The players as well as the officials looked happy when they moved around the city.

I found no ASEAN flags in the city (it is quite different from EU member countries), but I felt the ASEAN integration proceeding (slowly) at the paragames scenes.