Opinions on Singapore (hotel, wedding, YMCA)

[aoch92]

Hey there,

Have you been to Singapore, or heard of Singapore?

I'm a high school student from Singapore doing a study on Tourism in the area. I would really like to hear opinions about my country - whether you have been to Singapore or not.





Cheers!
Aaron

[Mach50]

I loved Singapore.

Been there twice, back in 1995. Stayed on Orchard Ave in a tourist (busy) area. Went around to some Temples, bought some CD's, there was a Denny's, McDonalds and a 7-11.

I remember the country having some very strict laws, cars with lights on top to regulate speeding, no drinking or eating on the street.

Beautiful place though, very clean.

[my54ford]

I visited Singapore when I was in the Navy. If I recall correctly we stayed at the Pennisual Hotel. It's very clean city compared to others in Asia I thought. The poeple seemed quit nice at the time....

[hutch5]

My brother in law lives in Singapore and last year we went there for his wedding. We loved it!!! The children wanted to move there straight away. We liked the combination of tropical with the sense of efficiency, clensiness and safety.
We loved the food courts and the diversity of food you can find. We stayed at the YMCA in Orchard road and found it very good and central. There are very interesting tourist attractions and it is well located to visit other Asian countries.
I hope we can go back soon.

[CMDallas]

Yes I've heard of Singapore.

I hear its very clean an Humid, similar to Manila... no? I like your county... haha...

[mead]

Lived there for some time. Very comfortable for ang moh to live there, probably the best in Asia (tied with HK). Lots of expats like to live in Singapore because of the safety, good weather/clean air, and the wide use of English. Most importantly for Singapore one of the main reasons that you guys have such a big expat community is because foreigners feel very comfortable raising children there, which is unusual for Asia. In most places in Asia (PRC, India) people from America would probably never want to have their family live there, but in Singapore and Hong Kong people feel much more comfortable living there.

Most foreigners in Singapore feel conflicted in some sense living there, especially the Europeans. They always complain that the PAP is too repressive and that the government executes too many people (Europeans obviously don't like capital punishment, most Americans are usually pro-capital punishment or ambivalent about the subject). However at the same time most of these expats who complain about Singapore would never even move to Singapore if it were unstable or violent (which would both happen if the PAP were kicked out of power or if capital punishment was abolished). So it is a somewhat hypocritical attitude among the foreigners living in Singapore, but I definitely noticed it.

If you want to do a survey of ang moh's in Singapore why not just go to Holland Village and start bothering people? Thats probably where you will find the greatest congregation. I used to hang out at some of the bars there, and have good memories of the place :-).

[recycled]

I visited Singapore about 11 years ago for a week or so, I'm not an expert but I did make some observations while there. First, I enjoyed my visit. It's true that there are some strict laws, but those laws didn't bother me at all as a visitor. Aa sign as you approach the airport customs inspection area warned of the strict drug smuggling laws, and that Singapore had something like "severe and complete punishment" for drug smuggling. You can fill in what complete punishment means. That sign would probably scare off most drug smugglers, which is fine with me. They also had a list of some other things prohibited in Singapore, punishable by fines of 500 to 1000 Singapore dollars: import or use of chewing gum, spitting, jaywalking, and a few others I don't recall. Ok, no problem. The thing I recall was that a person in Singapore can walk around with virtually no fear for their personal safety, day or night (quick, name some big US cities where that applies). The fear of being mugged or harmed by a stranger while walking around in Singapore did not seem to exist. Unlike the US, where kids under age 15 or so are almost never let to walk around or play along the city streets by themselves, the streets in Singapore are full of kids who can go about enjoying life without fear of getting kidnapped, molested or harmed. I loved walking around alone late in the evening, when it wasn't near so hot as during the daytime.
Singapore has a great variety of people. Lots of people from Chinese, Indian, Malay ancestry. English is the common language to communicate between the different groups, so it's very easy for those of us who don't speak Asian languages to get by. Food is great too, and if you go to the hawker stands (outdoor food stands along the streets) it's very inexpensive. Not knowing a lot about which hawker stand was better than the other, I would simply look for a hawker stand that looked popular with the locals and see what they were cooking up.
Singapore is worth a visit if you happen to be somewhere around Southeast Asia. It's a looong flight to get there, typically around 15+ hours on the non-stop from LA.

[Mach50]

^^^ Yes I remember the Airport sign, I believe it had the outline of a man with a gun, and under it said "severe and complete punishment" for drug smuggling"

kind of like this one in malaysia:

[mead]

That sign isn't from Singapore, I think its from Malaysia. In Singapore they would usually put English on top, not on the bottom. In that picture Bahasa is on the top, so its probably Malaysia, but perhaps also Indonesia.

[mead]

Singapore is considered a "fine" city, so most of the Signs that you will see look like this:



Here is an entire webpage that shows signs from Singapore: http://www.buten.net/max/singapore/s...dex_signs.html

Here is the embarkation card that you have to fill out when you visit Singapore. Look at the bottom left corner with the red writing: