Singapore Ashore

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1st thought? SIngapore is awesome. The architecture is mind-blowing, the streets are clean, the landscape incredibly manicured, everything is organized, everything is monitored.........who knew that a dictatorship could be so nice?

Singapore is a funny place. From where I stand right now, I can look one way and be facing a billion dollar mixed-use residential/hotel/marina project, and I can look the other way and see a sea full of gigantic ships, with a massive oil refinery with gigantic smoke stacks with flames coming out of them as their backdrop.

Everything in SIngapore seems to be over the top--every high rise building has an extravagant lobby. Every corner seems to have some sort of sculpture or water feature that would be a big deal in another city. Everything seems to be trying to out-do everything else.

I've heard that if you start a real estate project here, and you don't finish it, you and everyone involved goes to jail for 10 years. You don't see any police anywhere, because of the extensive use of security cameras, but they can be anywhere in the city in 6 minutes. I spit out my gum, without even thinking, and I even contemplated going and picking it up for fear that it was on camera and that I'd go to jail or be fined something ridiculous.

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Photos

Clarke Quay
A huge outdoor complex full of bars, restaurants and shopping.

Three Towers
Not sure the name of this hotel, but there is a pool that runs all the way across the tops of the hotels, connecting all of them together. Apparently, this huge development only took 18 months to build, with over 3000 welders working 24 hours a day.

F1 Track
You can see the well lit track and the grandstands and ferris wheel that it runs by. In two weeks is the Singapore Grand Prix......hopefully will be there for it.

Altitude Bar
There was an open air bar at the top of this building where I shot all of the cityscape photos.

Comments

[Kelly Salmon]

Love it!
Love the blog! Thank you for taking the time to share your adventures with those of us who are land-bound. It's interesting to hear your perspective and see it through your eyes.

[Barbara Salmon]

Great blog!
Beautiful pics - thanks. This will get us New Englanders through the winter. Watch out - I think Singapore is where the American kid was sentenced to a public caning for spitting out his gum!

[a singaporean]

the hotel is the marina bay sands. the american kid got canning for vandalizing...nobody gets caned for spitting out gum in spore. locals do it all the time cause its illegal to sell gum but not illegal to chew gum. gum can\'t be bought in spore so everyone just goes to malaysia for gum