Justin's Singapore Experience
I'm going to supplement Amber's thoughts and experiences with a bit of my own perspective. I'll try to avoid duplicating her content as much as possible, but great minds think alike. I did have a day where she worked and I explored, so read on for more.
In general, Singapore is pretty awesome. Clean, advanced, diverse. I don't think I've ever seen a place so organized and spotless. It's almost as if they built the entire city in the last 10 years, but without all the lame "capitalism drives every single decision so this is all as cheaply made as possible in order to drive up profit margins" perspective that's rampant in boom cities in the West. As a runner, I was salivating over the giant sidewalks. As an architecture and design fan, the variety of buildings and their layout is superb. As a food fan, there's a bit of everything and, aside from a pushy Turkish restaurant on our first night, they were all delicious. As someone who hates traffic, the train system is chef's kiss.
What's a bummer there? Well, it's expensive AF. Like gyoza costs $15 expensive. You couldn't get out of a restaurant without spending at least $35 USD per person even if you're just ordering a shawarma wrap. Purportedly rent is also sky high. Also, the Parks and Rec meme "you go to jail" is real life in Singapore. And often that's best case scenario, along with a 4 figure fine. Middle ground is you're getting CANED. At worst, you're getting hanged. They even announced it on the plane before we landed. As an exploratory individual, maybe you visited Thailand, bought a bag of "medicinal" gummies and forgot them in your backpack. Well, when you land in SG you're dunzo. Jail, fine, cane, death. Mindblowing. Do these heavy penalties keep it clean and orderly? Could be.
Back to more pleasant notes. I'm always looking for street art on vacation, it's my primary objective. Singapore, with it's gnarly policing policies on things like graffiti, seemed like a dud for the first few days. Thankfully, with a little sleuthing we found small caches of compelling pieces. Many were realism, which isn't my bag, but we discovered a few bangers in Kampang Glam, as seen below. Oddly, they were often in the alleyway of a building instead of out front. Why you would hide these beauties is beyond me. Probably a law about no street art on the front of an establishment or you go to jail.
On Monday I ventured to the outskirts of the city to check out the UNESCO heritage site Botanic Gardens and perhaps pop in to the Orchid Garden. I love visiting UNESCO heritage sites. It's like a cultural Michelin star. Well, sometimes Michelin stars miss and it turns out UNESCO sites do too. The botanic gardens were kind of a letdown. But for everything the botanic gardens weren't, the orchid gardens definitely were. Cool statues, crazy hybrid orchids grown on-site like they were crossing weed strains, and multiple biomes with unique conditions and fauna (or is it flora? or both?) My favorite was the "cool house", with over 1000 orchid species native to higher elevations. It also didn't hurt that it was massively air conditioned. Below is a gallery of some of my favorite images from my plant excursion on Monday.
To close things out, here's a few random images to leave you with as you consider Singapore for your next vacation. First, come visit us in Bangkok. Then we'll go to Singapore together :)
