Singapore 2

It has been 8 years since I visited Singapore and I spent the time with my Dad's relatives in Buona Vista the last time. I had fond memories of buying heaps of squishy toys from the market square.

Obviously since then so much of Singapore has changed. Here I attempt to shortlist some new experiences, some old, some renewed. Broken into smaller posts since the original got too large.

The public transport

Somewhat worthy of praise is the public transport which stretches through the entire island and makes any place pretty much assessable no matter where you stand. But despite that public transport is still public transport. The MRT (subway) often gets crowded.

What I found as a new addition to the system was several new lines added, such as the Circle line and North East Line, which I swear when I was last there did not exist. Also several train stops have monorail extensions, called the LRT (light rail transport). All in all, most of the time we didn't need major research to get anywhere we wanted to go, since the MRT stations were conveniently placed near the main locations.

The food

Unfortunately no 'famous' shops or places or specialty dishes eg katong laksa/chicken rice, except Newton's Hawker Center, of which there is stingray, and probably a lot of other decent dishes I never got to try. As well as this, I have eaten the traditional kopi and breakfast, oyster omelette, and braised herbal duck, which deserve a mention. Apparently, the roti chanai is better in Singapore than in Malaysia, but I never got to try a good slice.

The other things

Singapore isn't as clean as it was before. But it's still clean by international standards. As well as this, since Singapore is essentially a small island most are squashed up in condos (high-density living) like Japan and Korea. In between however is government land, plain green land given to people for recreation and other things.