Singapore

Much like the first time we visited NYC we got ourselves some hop on hop off tickets for a little orientation of the city and to learn some cool facts.

Cool fact #1 - there is no traffic congestion even in peak time. This is due to the high cost of owning a car, there is a high import duty on cars plus a limited number of car licenses available, the cost of these licenses can be as much as $50,000 and lastly ERP or toll roads everywhere.

Cool fact #2 - the city is one of the cleanest places I have every seen where humans operate. This is due to heavy fines imposed on things like chewing gum and littering.

Cool fact #3 - the city is also referred to as "the fine city" not due to the fact that its fine but because there are so many things you can get fined for.

Cool fact #4 - Singapore has 4 main ethnic groups: Chinese, Indian, Malayan and Eurasians as they are referred to here (European and other asian minority's).

The Island is pretty small so after finishing the first of 7 routes; we pretty much had a good idea whats where in the city.

One of the things that I keep doing is comparing our hop on hop off bus experience here to the one in NYC. The one in NYC was very cool as there is so much history and the place has so much character (this is coming from someone who did not really like NYC), while Singapores history constitutes basically the arrival of Indians, the Chinese and Japanese takeover during the world wars. The city itself does not have much character in my opinion as its so clinical and modern that it all just looks the some. The only two places with some character is little india and chinatown but its not much different from similar areas in other world cities. The cool thing here is that there are trees and greeneries everywhere.

Don't get me wrong this would be an awesome place to live as everything just works like a well oiled machine, to the point where its almost boring.

If you think that 30 years ago this place was very similar to the rest of Asia its really incredible what money and focus in the right place can do to turn things around. This place could not be more different from the rest of Asia that we have seen.

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