If you were asked to describe a ‘modern city’ then you would not be too far wide of the mark if you said, ‘a bit like Singapore’. Singapore is a very modern city; culturally diverse, futuristic yet historic, green, clean, and with a metronomic and air-conditioned underground system that London Underground commuters can only dream of. We were visiting Singapore on short three-night stay as part of a trip to South East Asia. I’d travelled through Singapore on three previous occasions but for reasons that I cannot really explain had never ventured outside of the airport. We were going to remedy that on this trip. The taxi driver who transferred us from the airport to our downtown hotel told us that Singapore is different to any other place because of two things; it is very clean and very green. There are other clean and green cities in the world of course but I’ve certainly not visited anywhere as clinically spotless. And despite the huge skyscrapers, you don’t have to travel too far to find lush vegetation and tropical flower arrangements even in the heart of the city. Ironically the only disorganised mess that we experienced in all our stay was the small mountain of paper bills that seemed to have been dumped in the front passenger seat of our taxi. Maybe he was taking them to be recycled and saving on plastic bags – Singaporeans are environmentally aware after all.
