Singapore

The tour name for today was "The Round Island Tour". Our guide’s name was Ignacio, or Iggy

Our first stop was the Tiong Bahru Market, a traditional wet market (because most of the floors are wet; no dry goods or textiles) offering a staggering variety of fresh foods and fish and meat. The meat is refrigerated, and they have regular inspections to make sure they’re meeting the requirements and if not, they’ll be shut down. Many of the vendors said good morning or hello and were very welcoming. There was no problem taking pictures and some of the vendors even posed for us. On the way out, we noticed a sign that said “No Touting Allowed” that means that they’re not allowed to follow you around or lure you back to their stall.

Our next stop was The Kranji War Memorial. Here there are graves of 4,461 Commonwealth forces casualties of the Second World War, who were killed by the Japanese during their attack on Singapore on Feb 9th, 1942, in a battle known as the Battle of Singapore. The superior numbers and strength of the Japanese troops and air support, overwhelmed the Commonwealth fighters and they were forced to withdraw. Of the 4,461 toombstones, 850 mark the remains of unidentified soldiers. There are also 64 graves from the First World war.
At the top of the hill side cemetery is the Singapore Memorial which bears the names of over 24,000 casualties of the Commonwealth land and air forces who have no known grave. It was a very sobering visit, seeing the vast number of graves of those mostly young men who died at the same time and for the same cause. Our guide told, in considerable detail, the stories of three separate names inscribed on the memorial whose bodies were never found. It was quite shattering! For one of the stories about two men, he said that there was a poem written, The Corporal and the Private. I was able to find it and it is a heart breaking poem about two men about to be assinated. The one tried to give himself up to save his comrade but they were both shot.
The grounds of the cemetery were well cared for, despite problems from wild boars continually digging up the grass. The tombstones and the inscriptions were very clean because, as we saw during our visit, they regularly clean them with pressure washers.

Our next stop was at the Bright Hill Temple, Singapore’s largest Buddhist temple. Also known as The Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery was built in the early 20th century to promote Buddhism and to provide lodging for monks. A notable feature of the monastery is a Bodhi Tree which was brought as a sapling from the sacred Bodhi tree at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, which was itself brought as a sapling from the sacred Bodhi Tree of Bodh Gaya, India where Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment.
The large bronze Buddha statue located in the temple's Hall of No Form is one of Asia's largest Buddha statues, with a height of 13.8 metres and weighing 55 tons.

For our last stop, we had a walking tour around an amazing shopping and recreational complex called Tampines New Town. It is an enormous complex, providing the 250,000 residents of the 70,000 condominiums in the area with a single source for any goods, service or activity they could possibly need or want. There were indoor and outdoor pools both for recreational and competitive swimming, soccer fields, indoor running track, education facilities, a children’s playground, libraries, dancing classes, etc, etc. They even have a service area where you can do your passports, and pay for parking fines. They also have enormous TV screens, as well as performance stages in the middle of the mall. It only costs two or three dollars to come and spend a whole day in this complex with access to everything.
The Tampines New Town residential district has received the United Nations world habitat award for being an outstanding human settlements area.

Interesting facts about Singapore

-Conscription starts at 18 for two years and you have to come back every year after that for a maximum of 40 days fitness and military training.
-If you do not pass the fitness test you are required to come back for training two times a week and once on the weekend which makes it difficult for people and therefore encourages them to be in shape in the first place.
-Singapore is very green as it gets 90 inches of rain per year
-It also has one of the highest lightning strikes per year. At the swimming pools as soon as they think there will be lightning, everything is shut down and everybody has to seek cover.
-Drug laws. Apart from Singapore’s notorious ban on chewing gum, foreigners also associate Singapore with draconian drug laws, known to be one of the strictest around the world. If you are convicted of trafficking controlled drugs containing more than 250 grams of “ice”, ( crystal meth) you will face a mandatory death penalty!
- The penalty for possessing drugs is a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment, or a fine of $20,000 or both. And as of 1 June 2023, the maximum penalties for the possession of the following controlled drugs, above certain weight thresholds, increased to 30 years imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane: Morphine, Diamorphine, Opium, Cocaine, Cannabis and Methamphetamine.
-Buddhas that are all covered up are female, and those who show more skin are male. They all look a bit like females because they are supposed to represent patience, love and more of the female characters of life.
-The real Buddha has his hair, sticking straight up, tied in a top knot. He has long earlobes, because he had much wealth and so wore lots of earrings, which stretched his ear lobes. When he received enlightenment, he removed all his jewelry but by then, they were already stretched. He is usually sitting with one hand touching the earth, saying that the earth is my witness, that I am not being tempted by worldly goods.
-Singapore imports 95% of its food but by 2030 they want to have 30% of their food requirements produced locally
-The government is currently reclaiming land west of the existing port to create a more updated port system that will be able to handle up to 65 million containers a year.
-The tower by the science centre that looks like a lotus flower, is supposed to represent the welcoming hand to Singapore. It primarily houses communication equipment.
-Four languages, English, Chinese, or Mandarin, Indian, Tamil, and Malay are the official languages, as well as the official language of your ancestors.
-Singapore wants to be known as the Garden City of Asia and so they have planted many trees, flowering shrubs, and tropical plants throughout the city.
-Massive land reclamation over the past centuries has merged many of Singapore's former islands and islets and has created a few larger ones. At present, Singapore has about 64 islands, with 3 being inhabited, including the main constituent Singapore Island.Läs mer