John's Asia trip (part 5): SINGAPORE, neat and tidy

[Monkey]

These photos were taken by the banned London-based former Lithuanian forumer John. He originally posted them in SSP where he is known as Jonas. I was with him on this trip together with Blimey and, as John is banned here (unjustly in my view but that's another story....), then it falls to me to post them here.

Originally Posted by Jonas

After big bad Bangkok we are now in nice and clean Singapore. It takes about 2 hours on a plane from Bangkok. It took probably less than 10 minutes to go through immigration, collect our bags and get a taxi. At the passport control desk you can get sweets and a nice smile from the welcoming officer. This is the very first impression you are about to get...

Before we start I want to say a BIG thanks to our fellow SSP and SSC forumer RafflesCity who heped us to get around and was a wonderful guide to his homecity!

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We are still in the air


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Highway from Changi airport to central part of the city, it takes about 15 minutes to get there


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Hostel we stayed in (it's located in "Little India")


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General street scenes. It's true that Singapore is an extremely clean, tidy and well-ordered place. Streets are well planned, public transport is state-of-the-art, shopping malls are big and sexy and food is excellent (you can try all Asian quisines and many European ones too in nearly every shoping mall not to mention food courts built on purpose just to serve food of different origins). It seems Singapore's got everything done very well and it does work as it's meant to



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One of the dozens of huge malls located in central Singapore. Places like this one are also very good to hide from the heat outside. It's virtually impossible to stay outside all day long because it's very hot and humid


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Quite a typical view of a typical najor street: flowers, trees, little squares with automated watering systems. Many trees are lit up during the night


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On a cable car. Skyline of the CBD in a far distance


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Singapore's got excellent roads and highways which help to leave it uncongested (this probably has more to do with excellent and cheap public transport and some indirect limitations of car ownership)


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Ships coming to and out of the Port of Singapore which according to many measures is world's largest port. Large part (50% of it's annual supply according to Wikipedia) of world's crude oil is transported through this port


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Raffles Hotel, the most famous and one of the poshest hotels in the city


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Skyscrapers of the CBD


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Do miracles really exist? If so Singapore must be one of them. It's a true paradise of urban planning. Imagine SimCity in reality... in Singapore you'll get that feeling


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The CBD


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UOB Plaza, one of the three tallest 280m towers in Singapore (280m is the height limit set by the authorities to ensure safe air traffic)


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Orcahrd Road, the main shopping street full of big and sexy shopping malls


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Dining court in one of the malls


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Singapore's underground. The trains are very smooth, quiet and fast. The public transport works perfectly well... just about as anything else in this city


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Inside the train


There will be one more topic on Singapore including some night shots of the streets and the skyline