I had longed to visit Singapore after seeing it in many movies and read about it over the years, I knew it was expensive and probably more so than Hong Kong, so I was not too surprised with the cost of things. Our tiny room on the 26^th floor of a high rise at $50 per night was cheap as it goes and we only had two planned nights for Singapore. Entering from Malaysia across the border was a reasonably seamless affair as this one-horse country / city is only an hour away from Johor in Malaysia.

What became obvious with Singapore was the stunning skyline, probably the best city skyline I have seen, the lights from the buildings across the Marina Bay quite breathtaking. Wherever, you stand around this area you are surrounded by hug skyscrapers each designed to dwarf the one next to it, well it’s a macho thing with these bankers. We just cannot figure how they are surviving so long with these international offices of such size employing so many people yet the gini coefficient for Singapore is huge and distorted, the local inhabitants are Chinese, Malay, Indians and expats from around the world and this mix is what makes up being Singaporean. Well the people who are doing the real work towards their GDP are definitely not receiving good wages, so it must be the billionaires and huge multinationals that bring so much revenue into the country that skews the pricing of goods. Yep everything is expensive, so eating wisely and skipping the $10 beers is pretty easy, we have been doing it for so long.

The innovative walks, shops, high rise platforms, MRT system are fabulous, the artificial gardens of huge magnitude with these super trees is just a fantastic sight to behold, their efforts to look after the climate with an active approach by government to increase vegetation and reduce water usage is quite admirable.

I am so glad we visited Singapore, and so soon after visiting Hong Kong, it is definitely an elite, cool place to visit, but those astronomical prices can just take a hike!