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"Visit Singapore"

In exactly 4 weeks (to the very hour infact) I shall be landing in Singapore. My first real holiday in... god 11 years already. I say real because earlier this year and the same time last year I spent a week in Exmouth, pb's home I believe.

My last real holiday was to Hong Kong in 1995, my dad took us with him on a business trip. He was always going out to Hong Kong and it was great to finally go there too. Unfortunately we went during the worst time of the year, weather wise. Have you ever been cooking something in the oven and when you open the door you had your face too close and you get this immense heat on your face. Well that's what it was like in Hong Kong when you step outside your air conditioned hotel.

Sorry, I should be telling you about Singapore not Hong Kong. Well I suppose you could consider Singapore a lot like Hong Kong. It's a small city island, kinda looks like the Isle of Wight. It's right next to Malaysia and Indonesia. It's a former British colony and the official language is English.

Singapore is a multicultural city, a good majority are Mandarin Chinese but there are lots of Indias and Malays too. Although everything is in English, (TV, newspapers, signs etc) everyone seems to speak their own language. It's like, at work they all speak English but when they go home or out with friends they speak Mandarin, or Cantonese or Hokkien. Infact they have their own version of English too, it's called Singlish. Basically it's a mix of several languages like Spanglish, Hinglish etc. I'm still trying to learn it. They seem to use 'lah' 'loh' and 'leh' a lot, but they don't mean anything. "Please lah", "Cannot lah". Here are some more examples of Singlish;

Tomorrow doh need bring camera.
You don't need to bring a camera tomorrow.

He play soccer very good also one leh.
He's very good at playing soccer too.

It's kinda like poor English but there's more to it. The Singapore government wanted to discourage the use of Singlish in the past, I think they felt it made them look silly. Something I've noticed about Singaporeans is that they speak so many languages. I think it's common for most of them to speak atleast 3 languages but I wouldn't be suprised if many could speak 4 or more.

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The public transport is suppost to be very good, the trains are all clean and everything running on time. Nothing like our London Underground my Uncle said having been to Singapore himself. They also have an award winning Airport. I'm not sure how an airport wins awards but it's still impressive :) Perhaps they have really comfy chairs to sit in while you wait for your plane or they give you little cars to drive around all the terminals. I'll have to tell you what it's like when I'm there.

Singapore seems to be a very clean country. You get fined for littering and as you might know already chewing gum is banned too. I know you can get fined for littering here too but over there it must have been drilled into them when they were kids.

It's a safe country, you can walk quite safely at night. Shops are open every day of the week, if you close on a Sunday then you're losing a lot of business. Talking of shops, Singaporeans love shopping, I mean really love it. It's like a national sport over there, even the guys. And when the shops aren't open they'll go window shopping instead. heh.

There's lots to see there, their Zoo is suppose to be one of the best in the world. Even Steven Irwin was a fan and called it a sister Zoo to his own Australia zoo. Not long ago they opened up the worlds first night safari. Not sure how you're suppose to see the animals at night but it's suppose to be really good :D

Here's some photos of Singapore, go check it out. Perhaps I wont be the only one planning a trip there.

CLICK HERE

Love to go to Singapore. In fact, Reuters has an office there and I know several people who work there. I'm hoping that my job might one day necesitate me going out there (but it doesn't look likely at the moment).

For now it's India (they still haven't decided if it will be this year or early next year that I go out), and possibly Poland later on next year if any training needs to be done out there.

I remember looking at py sisters ex's pics when he got back from singapore. I loved them! Made me want to go and the pics of the airport amazed me :)

And eastern Europe.

Dude! I'd buy his camera too (I'm not going to :^P)

Cooky's promised me a trip to Tokyo.

Singapore and HK need to go on the list too.



And Vegas.

My boss went there on holiday and says it's a must.

I'd love to go to the far east, might go on honeymoon next year.

I really can't wait to go back to Hong Kong :) I should brush up on my Cantonese first.

This looks quite impressive :

[URL]http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Singapore/photo459825.htm[/URL]

This is Hong Kong, but it's a picture I love so wanted to post it :

[URL]http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/China/photo152419.htm[/URL]

And another great pic :

[URL]http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/China/photo330275.htm[/URL]

All these taken by my old Kung Fu instructor, he used to use the camera I have now, it's what made me buy it really. Heh, never used it and now I'm selling it. Ah well.

Not sure if it's the same in Singapore but in Hong Kong you're not allowed to clear away your tray at McDonalds :) you're doing someone elses job and that's naughty.

Here we have lazy people who would rather you did their job for them heh.

Anyone worked in a fast food place before?

While browsing that page an advert for a quarter pounder with cheese came up. I'm so hungry now.

This is what I might see when I visit Singapore next week :(

It should only be around for a week, so we're hoping it'll be gone by the time we get there. Nothing serious but if it gets bad then we have to stay indoors. How annoying.