Singapore: Botanical Gardens and more

In Singapore everything is always clean, well organized and digitalized. For example, garbage cans are emptied daily and everything is constantly maintained and cleaned. The crime rate is extremely low, but this is mainly due to the fact that cameras are constantly watching you everywhere and the penalties are sometimes draconian. Drug smuggling carries the death penalty and is regularly carried out in some cases 😳

Around 5.8 million people live here, 10% of them are ex-pats, around 20% are blue collars from Bangladesh, Philippines, Malaysia, India etc.

The "Singaporeans" mostly live in the so-called HDBs (housing and development boards), state-owned high-rise buildings with rather small apartments, often without a kitchen. These people eat 8/10 meals in the associated food courts - the special so-called Hawkers culture is part of the intangible world cultural heritage in 2020 (similar to Belgian beer, for example):

Most ex-pats live in so-called condos, more spacious apartments in modern high-rise buildings:

And then there is the social class that can afford incredibly expensive and large houses.

As is often the case, all that glitters is not gold.

There are virtually no traffic jams here because there are 600,000 permits for one car each. These permits cost about $100,000 for 10 years and 100% taxes are charged on the purchase of a car. Taxis are quite cheap and public transport is very good and easy to use. There are prepaid cards that you can top up with credit. You can do everything with it: get drinks from the vending machine, ride the metro or bus, park, etc.

We walked around the botanical gardens for a bit this morning. A spacious facility, quiet and very interesting to look at. We only saw a small part at first, but we'll definitely go again when we come back here from Indonesia.

In the evening we went to the Bay with our friends to say goodbye and admired Singapore at night, including the Marina Bay Sands as the city's landmark.