First stop in South-East Asia - Singapore.
1) Technology comes from here. Wifi is literally everywhere and it’s free. Electronic gadgets are cheap and best you can find from the market. Everyone you see in the streets have the latest cell phone model or a PSP to play around with.
2) It’s an ultra modern city. They have touch-screen everything. Nice public transport. Very clean streets. Lots of skyscrapers. Not a single car is older than 10 years. Electronic gadgets for everything that makes their lives easier.
3) Although ethnically it’s mainly chinese, a bit of india, malay and bit of everything else, the first language here is english. Which makes things actually complicated. Why? First off, their accent can be terrible to understand (but I guess you can get the same shock when first arriving in Australia also). Secondly, they have developed their own language called senglish which is like a mix of all the languages they speak around here (whichever chinese dialect, malay, english mixed into one pot) and it’s like.. impossible! Luckily they use it accordingly how they speak with
4) Architecture is great. A fascinating mix of modern and asian that combines into something completely different.
5) Every single person I met and talked more than few words was friendly, open-minded and kind. They didn’t have this superficial shade that I encountered in US and Australia. They actually look into your eyes while you talk to them.
6) They value their green culture which can be measured in enormous taxes for cars (can you imagine paying $60k for a new Toyota?) and seemed like they had set up a minimum number of trees or bushes to be planted on every street, cause there were a lot of them, everywhere.
7) Chewing gum is illegal
Shopping-malls. Everywhere. That’s their biggest hobby - shopping.
9) If you spend a bit more time here and observe these different details then you get the feeling that they’re playing safe on everything - lots of rules and regulations for everything. They might check your trunk when entering into parking lot. Or have these safety videos playing in metro that tells them to report ’suspicious people’ to the staff (I mean, this is clearly discrimination - how can you determine if a person classifies as a ’suspicious?). Or have marked lines and arrows in the subway telling people to go straight from left side and come back from right side (to avoid the mess of people struggling against each other).
10) It’s very safe here. Not a worry in a world when walking in streets.
10) I love Singapore!
Streets on daylight.
Shopping street on night time
Clearly I’m too tall for this country
Night Safari.
Underwater world in Sentosa island
Probably the only negative side of it all. 360 degree radius sea full of ships, ships and more ships.
Overlooking the city area. Continuous construction, cranes, something new being built in every corner. I guess I like their views on progress and creating something new all the time. Constant change is what it seemed like.
And person who made my time in Singapore a worthwhile - ms Foo.
2nd stop - Kuala Lumpur.
1) After Singapore, KL didn’t seem that much anymore. It’s like Singapore, but poorer, less maintained and just not that of a city as it wants to be.
2) But nevertheless, it has it’s own character
Totally random place and you get this sculpture. ???
Sitting in this small chinese food court where people had their morning coffee or breakfast.
Monorail! Monorail!
The famous Petronas twin towers.
And view from somewhere in the middle of it.
On the left, mr Escobar from Chili who promised to visit Eesti in winter. Lets hope he makes it.
And airconditioners are the main thing here.
Next stop - Thailand.
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