CITY GUIDE >Sightseeing
Singapore in a fine state, no joke
(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-07 14:42

When I was walking along spotless streets where automobiles rarely honked their horns and obedient pedestrians stood back waiting for green lights, I felt safe.

Singapore is so small (probably about the size of Shanghai's Huangpu District) that it only takes an hour to drive around the whole country. Although small, its perfect urban planning and detailed laws and road regulations didn't make me feel constrained or cramped.

A foreign tourist once described Singapore as "a big desk, full of drawers and pigeonholes, where everything has its place and can always be found."

But I prefer to think of Singapore as a big, well-run, multi-national company.

Just look at the city's shiny office buildings, air-conditioned shopping malls, apartment blocks and neat suburban houses linked by new highways and public transport.

It was quite fun to idle on the street and take in all of the accents flying about - Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Indian, Malaysian and other accents and dialects I couldn't figure out.

It was Sir Stamford Raffles' dream to transform this once swamp-covered, pirate-infested island into a "new Alexandria of the Far East." His hopes for his new settlement were not misplaced: It has grown into a regional center for modern manufacturing industry, financial services and, most recently, for the new economy based on advances in computing, science, telecommunications and the Internet.

But Singapore's prosperity was first founded on sea-born commerce and while strolling Singapore streets is one thing, venturing to its waterfront is something else that a visitor should not miss.

Singapore's harbors were once the island nation's maritime trading lifeline. But now they have been turned into marinas, emerging iconic places for waterfront lifestyles.