So tomorrow I head off to Bali and leave Singapore. Having been here 2 days longer than originally planned, it’s beginning to feel quite comfortable.Singapore really is the perfect place for first time Asia. I think! Remember, this is my first visit to Asia! I am expecting things to get a little tougher from here though – visas being stricter, transport being less frequent etc…but we shall see.
Yesterday I headed down to East Coast Park. In an attempt to save my MRT money to leave me enough (including the $5 deposit that I can get back and spend on a cheaper ticket) to take me back to the airport, I decided to walk it. It didn’t look too far on the map from my hostel – but that was the country map, not the city map. Either way, I decided it’s not a big country, it’s only 5 MRT stations, and because they’re raised overground and not underground this far out of the city, it would be easy enough to follow the track and then turn right, keep going right and eventually hit the beach. And it worked!
It’s a really cool place. The beach itself isn’t worth writing home about, but what they’ve done with it is respectable. There’s plenty of bike hire, inline skate hire and weird two board scooter hire. There’s a cable water ski, an amazing and very clean “emo”-free skate park and a great hawker centre. It’s not very easy to get to even from the MRT closest it’s a little walk but it’s worth it for a relaxing afternoon.
Here’s my overall opinion of Singapore:
- Clean. If you were getting fined $500, you wouldn’t eat or drink on the MRT either. Although it’s not an overly helpful rule when you’re having a coughing fit on a train.
- Less people speak English then you would think from the signage. And unleash the linguist in me, if language is boring to you, skip to the next bullet point now…..Most signs are at least bilingual, (even quadlingual in some cases!) which is what I was expecting from what I’d studied about Singapore’s linguistic ratio. However, sometimes, they’re not. Sometimes, the signage is just in English, or just Chinese if you’re in a Chinese community area. This would be fine, but then from the locals I’ve needed to speak to, I can’t recall more than 5 who have been completely fluent in English. Proving that Singapore is not as bilingual as I thought. If you don’t speak English, it would be hard living here in my opinion unless you were in a Chinese/Malay/Tamil etc community. If you do speak English, you’ve got a great advantage. Essay over.
- Safe. Even roaming the big sights in the city at night, Singapore feels very safe.
- Just. Plain. Awesome. Singapore is cool. There’s no denying it.
And so, my Singapore fling is over. (Geddit? Singapore Sling/fling?…It was weak, forgive me.) Tomorrow brings Bali and I’m preparing myself for a very different experience…
potentialanything 