Singapore - from a foreigner’s perspective

A friend whom I’d met on JET is in town, and it has been great having a familiar face visit. Since he arrived on Thursday afternoon, he has been telling me time and again how peaceful, civilised and quiet Singapore seems to be.

I’m pretty sure that’s because he has been in China for too long. Prior to this, he’d spent 6 weeks in Shanghai, and had come to Singapore straight from a few days in Hong Kong.

When walking around, he kept noting how Singapore is less dense than Hong Kong and that the buildings are built further apart. He finds Singapore quieter, as people don’t talk at the top of their voices and there’s the absence of horns blaring. He thought that Singapore’s drivers are civilised, as cars don’t cut lanes and scooters don’t try to drive past you on the pavements with just a hair’s breath between. He also feels that Singapore lacks the frenzied, fast-paced, stressful feel of Hong Kong and China, as it gets noticeably quieter at night, there aren’t people rushing around this way and that, and no one tries to cut between the two inches between us as we walk around. Oh – apparently Singapore isn’t as hot as Hong Kong either.

haha.

It’s crazy that he’s saying all these, as I’m sure he’ll be singing the opposite tune if he’d come straight from the US, for example. China and Hong Kong are quite hard to beat in terms of population and land density. I suppose, however, that Singapore does have really nice places like the Singapore River and the Marina Bay waterfront that are rather relaxing with their wide, open spaces.

We went to see the Merlion, and walking there had a glimpse of the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) and the Art Science Museum:

As well as the Esplanade Theatres and the Singapore Flyer:

We then reached the Merlion – the boy had missed out on the Merlion as it coincided with the construction of the Merlion Hotel as part of the Singapore Biennale, so I took some pictures on my phone to send to him too.

I like the small Merlion better than its larger cousin, while my friend felt that the Merlion is a strange creature, although he doesn’t dislike it – I’m not surprised:

I think the Art Science Museum looks very striking next to MBS – I think like it or hate it, there’s no denying that they both rather iconic structures:

We went walking along the Marina Bay waterfront. It was my first time doing so since it was developed, and was surprised to discover that the Fullerton Bay Hotel exists – and is way more posh than the Fullerton Hotel. There were also other nice buildings, and people shooting a commercial for Double A paper:

Customs House, which was indeed as its name suggests:

There’s also the Marina Bay City Gallery – set up to showcase and explain to visitors the new developments in the area. It’s actually very informative and rather slick – my friend found the miniature model of the area’s buildings as well as the displays and videos rather cool.

It was very nice walking beneath the Sail and seeing the buildings at Raffles Place all lit up. I feel like I need to go back, take more photos and enjoy the view – hopefully with a better camera next time:

Along the Singapore River

The Singapore River is the most beautiful place to be at night in Singapore. They’ve made it even prettier of late, with additional lights on the various bridges along the river.

The boy took lots of photos by mounting his dslr on a Gorilla Tripod, which begot great pictures like this one:

Having on such tripod, i placed my camera on the parapet on timer mode and got these:

Litter blocking the view! They turned out rather well though, but I preferred not to have trash in view.

The good thing about having a slim camera like my Fuji Finepix J10 is that it was slim enough to fit on the barriers along the river. So I placed it there – out of the way of litter – and got the following:

The photos are still kinda dark, but i really liked the streaks from the bumboats that went past:

The Fullerton Hotel is simply gorgeous..

Naturally, my low-end camera wasn’t the one that took these pictures:

This was actually an accident, a result of the Gorilla Tripod slipping downwards while trying to take a picture:

I also didn’t manage to get any shots of these Ferraris parked at the Fullerton – all belonging to a racing group, as they had similar ‘badges’ on their bonnets:

I believe these – or at least the last one – were taken on a longer shutter speed. Just look at how much light was captured!