The plan was to be in Poland for my birthday, which was July 1st. To non-Canadians, Canada’s national holiday is on the same day, so I’m a TRUE Canadian 🙂 Fun fact: when I was younger, my mom convinced me the city’s celebratory fireworks were for me, lol.

Anyway, Poland is really far from Australia, so I wanted a stop-over somewhere in-between the two countries. A lovely couple I met in South Africa in January previously invited me to visit Singapore, which made a perfect long weekend layover.

Singapore reminded me of Hong Kong, only more spread out, with more cars and trees and more suburbs. The humidity was overpowering, and you needed to shower multiple times a day, or spent lots of time in a pool. It was also super clean, known as a “fine” city. Why? Because there are fines for everything:

  • Sales of cigarettes to minors: $100 fine
  • Jaywalking: $100 fine
  • Littering: $1000 fine
  • Spitting: $100 fine
  • Smoking: $1000 fine
  • Importing of chewing gum: $1000 fine
  • Urinating in lifts: $1000 fine
  • Vandalism: Jail
  • Drug trafficking: Penalty of death

Yikes!

Yes, this did give the city a Big Brother feel, but apparently the country was in bad shape before the extreme govnerment came into power. It has been steadily prospering ever since, so they obviously did something right.

My hosts gave me a detailed tour of the city and it’s multi-faceted culture, sampling the local cuisine along the way. One famous sweet is the durian, a delicious but putrid fruit that’s banned in many regions because of it’s overwhelming smell. It was actually pleasant to eat, but was not so interesting burping for the next few hours. Yeah, I know, gross.

The city is divided into districts: Chinatown, India town and a Muslim areas are the most popular, each peacefully co-existing in close proximity to each other. Open markets were abound, and I walked through several observing how virtually anything and everything could be purchased.

Another interesting area was the waterfront, where the Merlion and Marina Bay Sands hotel are located. The former is a mythical creature with a lion’s head and a fish’s body, and is widely used as a mascot and national personification of Singapore. The latter boasts the world’s largest rooftop infinity pool, located on the 57th floor. The pool area is for guests only and my attempt to bribe the guard failed spectacularly. Oh well, at least I tried 😕

The Garden by the Bay is a centrally-located nature park spanning 250 acres (100 hectares) of reclaimed land, and the Super Trees – steel structures covered in unique and exotic ferns, vines and orchids – were a pleasure to view up close.

I had never been to an aquarium before, and the one in Singapore is home to 800 species of marine animals, from 49 habitats and features the largest oceanarium in the world. This single tank contains 18,000,000 litres of water and 50,000 fish, and I sat for a long time gazing at it’s elegance in peaceful reverence.

On my last full day, I met a super cool girl from the Canary Islands, who was also visiting the city for an extended weekend. She’s exuded a tranquil energy, and spoke English with the accent of a Venezuelan. Aside from groovy conversations, we tossed ideas to improve my around-the-world video.

For those that are unaware, my answer to, “which super-power would you like to have?” is teleportation. How cool would it be to grab a buddy and teleport to Japan for sushi, or Argentina for steak, or Australia for sailing?! Well, I’ve been slowly teleporting to each of these countries, capturing a few seconds of footage in each location. Once the trip is complete, I’ll merge the videos to appear I’m bouncing around the world in a short amount of time. The idea works, but was lacking some extra juice to make it sensational. So Laura came up with a few clever concepts which I’m now implementing. Thanks again, Laura.

Singapore done! Next stop, Poland!