Singapore

Singapore was a nice relief from the third world cities I have been in the past month. It is an ultra clean city with big brother watching your every move. it is basically a city state and resides on an island with Malaysia to the north. However, it has a lot of charm with little india and chinatown, not to mention a ton of shopping (it was overwhelming!) on the main shopping street, orchard rd, there are like 40 malls in less than 1 mile! too much esp since I couldnt buy anything. There are even whole mall devoted to the selling of particular goods, ie: electronic (i found out its one of the cheapest places to buy electronic in the world...the US is another one of the cheap countries too, so i didnt feel too bad not taking advantage of it). All in all Singapore was a nice city but then again it was just another big city very similar to the ones in the states.

for some reason i didnt take any picture of all the modern skyscrapers in Singapore, and believe me there are a ton!?? opps! i think its because they werent that special to me bc they remind me of all the cities back in the states. this is the only picture i have of the skyscrapers, and it isnt even a good one, sorry! i guess youll just have to google Singapore if you want to see more images...ooopppp!

throughout all the huge modern skyscraper are little streets that have a european flair to them...i thought it made the city have a cool/unique charm

more european charm

funny t-shirt....any questions? just ask...the city is so clean bc i think the govt scares the people stiff with big brother watching at all times...i was even paranoid that i might drop something on accident.

chinatown

part of the Hindu Temple....i walked up right at the start of their service/ceremony/ritual??? it sure was a sight...it involved the ringing of a bell for an hour straight, very loud out of rhythm music, lots of lighting and blowing out of candles, giving of gifts to what looked like a woman with an elephant trunk as a nose, and tons of kneeling and standing and bowing...all in front of a very tacky alter of flowers, candles, fruit, different flashing christmas lights, and weird statues.

i thought this was interesting....in the middle of Chinatown sat a Hindu Temple right next to a Muslim Mosque.

a typical store in little india...they hang those flower strands on everything, motor bikes, boats, houses, rearview windows, temples etc...they are everywhere!

the fountain of wealth...something to do with feng shui (sp?) and if you walk around the fountain like 5 times for 10 consecutive days it will bring you luck and wealth? welp, i didnt have 10 days so i just walked around it once (im crossing my fingers!haha)

on just about every corner in Singapore is a shopping mall. even the walkways connecting subway links are air conditioned shopping malls...it was almost too much shopping. the funny thing was that i didnt really see many people shopping. while walking through one of the millions of malls i saw this fish tank with a flat screen tv in it advertising movie trailers....jonathan- dont get any ideas :)

i thought by coloring these buildings it really livened up the bland city landscape

a cool looking Mosque in Singapore

good bye Singapore, hello Maylasia

me in the cramped sleeper car...but i shouldn't complain, it was soooo much nicer to be able to lay down then be stuck on a greyhound seat that doesn't recline-even if the worlds loudest snorer was sleeping right below me :)