Singapore - is the future already here?
Is it a state? Is it a city? Is it an island?
It's all three and much more!
Arriving by boat in Singapore, we got slightly disappointed, there is no stamp in the passport 🙁 here everything is digital and even Tatjana's enquiry with the border officials whether one could get a stamp 😉 only resulted in an amused look and the statement "No, everything is digital here. There are no stamps."
So we went to the hotel without a stamp. The future already starts at the border. Sustainability 2.0
When we arrived at our hotel in Little India, there was no one at reception. Just an iPad and a note saying "Hi" and you will be connected. Very futuristic. Anyway, it worked. And after helping ourselves to the access card pile and taking down 2 cards and putting them on the card reader one by one, we were able to get to our room. Here, the reception was completely remote and washed up via WhatsApp.
The countdown is on: we have 46 hours in Singapore!
First thing, have something to eat. We only had a snack for breakfast. In Singapore, people eat in so-called "hawker centres". In our district "Little India" there is even a rather famous one -> the Tekka Hawker Center. A hawker centre half open roofed buildings, with permanently integrated food stalls, which offer many different meals at good conditions. It was originally introduced as an alternative to street kitchens for hygiene reasons. In Singapore, therefore, there are no more street kitchens as we have seen in Indonesia and Malaysia. Now the agony of choice - first an ABC smoothie. We put straws into virtually every drink. We can't say "no straw please" that quickly, they're already in there ☹.
Next stop on our city tour, a "street tailor" who clearly enjoys his job 😊 Actually, we wanted to leave the skirt there and pick it up the next day, but the process was actually completed in 5 minutes and the skirt was sewn tighter with a new cuff.
As a key item on our sustainability agenda, we were keen to see Singapore's rooftop gardens. It is very special and, in our view, the future of big cities to integrate urban gardens into high-rise buildings. Singapore has a lot of them, from green facades to entire floors in the middle of the skyscraper to several floors on the roof. Some are kitchen gardens and some are ornamental gardens, or a mix of both. It was really cool and impressive to see. They are real little oases that invite you to relax in the urban desert. Because the temperature is so pleasant due to the greenery and the atmosphere there, we even took a midday break in one of these urban gardens 😉 This was also much needed, as we really did a lot of walking...
The high-rise buildings in Singapore are huge and all individual, each one looks different. The majority of Singaporeans live in so-called Housing Development Blocks, which are condominiums in high-rise buildings that are built on government land. These blocks are subsidised, built and managed by the Singapore government. About 80% of Singaporeans live in Housing Development Blocks. We visited one of them as part of our urban garden tour.
A hot sightseeing tip from a former Siemensian work colleague of Tatjana (Robert Klausmeyer), Park View Square. The skyscraper looks like a building in Gotham City and we could imagine Batman there perfectly. There is a mega impressive bar on the ground floor!
Another highlight was the Gardens by the Bay, where we had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was fascinating to see what is technically possible, e.g. to recreate an entire ecosystem in a greenhouse. On the other hand, a frightening idea that in the future there might only be steel trees. Also, the insane resources that will be used for this are unimaginable (electricity, water, building materials, etc). Singapore is a highly developed and strongly future-oriented country of superlatives. Having previously travelled in an emerging country with Indonesia, this contrast felt quite disturbing, crass and "unfair" to us at times. On the other hand, there are many good sustainability concepts and ideas (such as the urban gardens), the maximally efficient public transport (even though we preferred to walk about 30 km in addition to a few rides)
Of course, we didn't miss the other tourist highlights: Marina Bay, Orchard Road (the "Kö" of Singapore) and Chinatown). In front of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel there was a light water feature. We also admired the Merlion, Singapore's landmark, from close up. It is a mythical creature with a lion's head, which stands for strength and fearlessness, and a fish's body, which stands for origin and connection with the sea.
.... Just let the impressions work their magic on you 🙂
Oh yes, and please also note the many ships waiting to be unloaded and transhipped in the port of Singapore!
Singapore is the smallest state in Southeast Asia, for comparison: Saarland is 2.5 times the size of Singapore but Singapore has 5 times more inhabitants. Singapore became independent from the United Kingdom in 1963. Within a few decades, Singapore has transformed itself from a newly industrialised country into an industrialised state. This was mainly due to the very favourable water traffic situation between China and Europe. Singapore is a free trade zone and is considered a so-called tax haven and one of the most visited cities in the world.
Funfact:
Singapore enjoys the fastest internet connection speeds in the world.
Wir waren auch in Singapur und fast alles wie euch erlebt bis auf das Check-in ohne Personal.Dort arbeitete auch einer von meinen Mentee und erzählte, dass sie in drei Jahren nicht einmal ein Auto gebraucht hätte.Schöne weitere Reise!
Das öffentliche Verkehrsnetz ist super, ob Bus ob Bahn, alles pünktlich und sauber😊. Danke!
Singapur ist wirklich beeindruckend und eure Fotos auch. Mir kam es immer vor, wie Disneyland – es ist halt nichts wirklich echt. Überall nur Expats, Gastarbeiter, architektonische Kunstwerke, sogar die Vergrößerung des Stadtstaates (als eigenes Land) durch Aufschüttung ist künstlich und wird ständig erweitert. Konntet ihr schon herausfinden, wo sich die “echten” Einwohner dieser Stadt verstecken?
Wir dachten, wir hätten sie entdeckt aber wir sind sehr auf die Lösung gespannt… 😊