Singapore, Day 1

I got into Singapore two nights ago and I'm super glad this hostel has computers. Yay...Singapore's buildings are kinda old yet new at the same time, in that the buildings not in the center of the city have this...I want to say wild wild west kind of style and the city center has typical tall buildings like any other big city, and they're also into columns, you can see it everywhere. The city seemed fairly western after being in Asia for so long. People actually drove properly, pedestrians have the right of way, and the streets were very wide. One more thing I noticed about Singapore from the airport, is that there are a lot of trees planted on the streets, like one every 5 meters on the freeway. It was quite nice to see grass, I don't even remember the last time I saw it :P

There was absolutely no trash on the streets, but the strangest thing was that there also wasn't a trash bin in site until I walked for like half an hour. It wasn't even in the subway station. How do these people keep it so clean?!

The weather is just like Hong Kong: hot. The only difference is that you can actually see clear blue skies! I guess there is less pollution here. The heat was a bit strong for me though, so I felt very very sleepy once I stepped outside. I felt guilty that I felt this way, but the sun was sucking all the energy out of me...so sleepy, I could just lay down on the floor and fall asleep.

I haven't really had any Singaporean food, but I had some Laksa, which was a noodle soup that was slightly spicy with some seafood. It was quite good. The majority of the time here, I've had food at food courts, but these aren't normal mall food courts, these are like food areas on the street that just has like 50 restaurants in it. You can find it in multiple places here, it was quite weird how these food courts aren't in a mall and they actually have a term for these places, but I don't remember.

One more thing I want to mention is that they have so many languages here! People are speaking Mandarin (I think that should be your default), English (second default), and there were some that spoke Malay. I saw tourists from Japan and India yesterday as well, they were a huge bunch of people and they took pictures with my Caucasian friends. So awkward.

Lastly (for reals now), I don't think I can buy souveniers from here since the dollar is 1:1.1 and the numbers prices are around the same. Too expensive! A can of soda is already 1.20! Sorry guys.

I miss you guys (this city is too western compared to Hong Kong so I can't help making the comparisons and thinking of home in the States).

(I still have to update on what I did in Taipei, Taiwan...lol)