Anyone been to Singapore? Looks like I will be traveling there with my wife in November while she is on a coaching trip. Any information would be helpful. All I know is that English is the national language and they are 12 hours ahead of us Eastern US peeps.
My buddy is heading to China tomorrow. Flying into Singapore. The best piece of anything resembling advice that I got out of him is "be careful what you are eating, because the Chinese will eat anything with 4 legs that isn't a table."
I love Singapore - it's like "Asia-lite". All the culture (lot's of chinese, malaysian and indian influences) with english street signs and clean. It's been ~10yrs since I've been - so I don't recall much on the "to do" list unfortunately. There are lots of good places to eat there - but also lots of western places too - Hard Rock Cafe etc.
I do believe they have KFC's as well as gourmet Pizza Hut's. That was pretty much what I ate while in Shaoxing, China last year.
I hear it is one of the cleanest countries. Were you there on business? I ask because I will be roaming the city/country during the day while my wife is teaching. I will need to find stuff to do for 6 days.
I've been many times, most recent trip was last year. There are a lot of nice places to visit, quite expensive at some. It's very safe, organized and clean for that part of the world. English is the national language but it's commonly called Singlish, it shouldn't be a problem if you don't have a problem with accents. There are tons of laws and they will enforce them. If you have any specific questions feel free to pm me. I have some friends and co-workers over there so if you want to try and plan some sites to see I can get some recommendations from them.
If you spit gum on the street (sidewalk, parking lot, etc.) you deserve to get your ass whipped. Why don't we have that law? You would think in Georgia we could have a law like that.
Don't chew it period. I liked it there. Lot's of friendly ladies in the bars. Make sure you get a real one!
Yeah, I was there on business. The chewing gum thing is funny - they did used to restrict how much you could bring into the country - not sure if they still do. And this is the place they "cane" people - like that american kid who tagged (grafitti) a mercedes in the late 90s. So you can, quite literally, get your ass whipped. Also - there is no comparison to Singapore and China. Singapore is cleaner than the cleanest US/European city - and has strict health standards. I wouldn't worry about eating local cuisine in Singapore. China OTOH, well I've eaten some strange stuff in China, but only fully cooked and I'll admit I was gambling... When I was there and had time to kill (weekends, etc.) I'd just walk around the city and look for off the beaten path stuff (i.e. away from the modern shopping areas which look like any city). There was some cool stuff - and I'm sure it'll be easy to find things to keep busy. EDIT: Trying to remember back for things to do... I remember a "Night Safari" where you cruise around on a tram and check out wildlife @ night(not the good kind of wildlife either - the zoo kind), and (looking @ google maps) I remember the locals I worked with mentioning that Sentosa Island was good... don't remember much else other than finding a "Arab" neighborhood - that had cool street markets with silk vendors and such, in an old section of town... it was near a big mosque (go figure). Oh, and we did some trip to a theme park from the brothers that founded "Tiger Balm"... skip that one, it sucked.
A common misconception among citizens is that personal use of chewing gum is allowed into Singapore. However, according to the set of Regulations, "importing" means to "bring or cause to be brought into Singapore by land, water or air from any place which is outside Singapore ..." any goods, even if they are not for purposes of trade. The set of Regulations also does not make any provisions for personal use of quantities to be brought into Singapore. Therefore, bringing chewing gum into Singapore, even small quantities for whatever purpose, is prohibited.[2]
When F1 first raced there, they actually had to get a variance to throw their tear-offs because it was considered littering.
Singapore is awesome. Probably my favorite city in the world. The food is excellent (if you like seafood) and the nightlife is fun. Just don't get yourself into trouble, because they don't take kindly to shenanigans. My favorite bar is the Loof. Which is a rooftop bar. Kindof hard to find the front door, but awesome place. Young, trendy crowd.
Pretty sure that all teams that wanted to use tearoffs were fined pre-race for the number of tearoffs they wanted to use. I don't think they allowed any law changes, least to my knowledge. Next will be red light cameras trying to get them
Me and chastain went to the track with a dude who was out here in tucson with the singapore airforce. Fucker spoke way better english than the both of us! And thats the only experience I have ever had with singapore.
I went last year as a side trip to a vacation to the Philippines. It's definitely a beautiful city. Like other people have said, it's very clean. Very safe. As for a vacation spot, it really wasn't my cup of tea. It's a very busy city and I prefer my vacations to be relaxing. And for recommendations, I'd say a car/van tour of the city would be your best bet. They'll drive you around the whole city and give you the history of the place and show you some cool spots. Our hotel had a little tourist desk with all sorts of packages. Here are some of the places I went: -Sentosa Island is a scaled down Busch Gardens. There were rides, etc. The only thing that I thought was worth seeing was the view from the top of the Merlion (Merlion = Mermaid and Lion). -Underwater World is a scaled down version of Sea World. -Chinatown was like any other Chinatown. -Little India was basically a whole bunch of Indian restaurants and some gold stores. What I thought was cool about Singapore were the outdoor food courts. When it's dinner time, they roll out tables and open the food stands which sell food and beer. The Chinese food was ok, but Indonesian food HIT THE SPOT!! LAKSA soup and SATAY (basically shish kabobs). One last thing, make sure to take napkins with you. It was rare to find paper towels, napkins or tissue paper. But if you need some, the older almost homeless people walk around selling tissue packs instead of begging for money. When I was there, I never saw a gas station or someone with a pet... Here are some pics:
