First Glimpses of Singapore

First glimpses of Singapore showed us that Singapore is what it has claimed to be, attributed to be and more.

Weather 

With latitude of 1.3521 degree North, Singapore is almost right on equator. It has typical tropical weather, with little variation in temperature. It rains year round,  and Singapore's rainfall is largely influenced by the northeast (winter) and southwest (summer) monsoon. While winter monsoon (December to March) causes the highest rainfall of the year, southwest monsoon (June to September) has also an important role.

July 11 to July 18 weather forecast

So Singapore is "hot" and humid but average high 90 deg F is not that hot for us Texans.

Tropical Flowers and Birds

Tropical weather leads to tropical plants and flowers. During a 4 km morning run at Fort Canning Park we saw many trees, plants and flowers we haven't seen before.

Heliconia chartacea

Crepe ginger

Crinum Asiaticum (Spider Lily)

Cannonball tree

Red Button Ginger

We read about many colorful birds in Singapore, but have seen few. I saw a bright yellow bird flying in front of me a couple times but have not been able to catch it on camera. I saw a few roosters calling at Fort Canning. I also saw a white breasted waterhen this morning at Istana Park (a garden opposite to Istana - Singapore president's residency), a few Javan Mynah, a crow like bird, with yellow beak, yellow eye and white tip at its tail. Another interesting observation at Istana Park was a hairless squirrel - slender squirrel, which is in contrast to what I saw at north Texas.

white breasted waterhen

Javan Mynah

A red jungle fowl (rooster) at Fort Canning

slender squirrel

Streets in Singapore

The streets in Singapore are clean, typically with well maintained leafy trees. The high rises and buildings are crowded in downtown core and surrounding areas. Even in these places, it has plenty of trees and green spaces. 

high rises near downtown

Apartment buildings and Office buildings

Residencies building at Sentosa

Singapore River at Dusk

The small restaurants along the river walk 

Night at Marina Bay

Miscellaneous 

The variety of restaurants here is amazing, Chinese, Indian, Malay, Thai, Western, you name it, from street vendors, to food courts in malls, to high end restaurants, from not expensive to very expensive. Since most food (vegetables, fruit, meat, fish …..) are imported, the food, raw or cooked, are generally more expensive than what we have in Texas, sometimes multiple times more expensive!

To move around in Singapore, one must have TraceTogether, a government app, installed on their phone for tracking. One must have a Singpass to do anything in Singapore. I guess Singpass is equivalent to driver license in US since most people in Singapore don't have cars. 

Singaporeans follow the laws and rules very well. The mass has no issue with government imposing harsh punishments for the few who violate the rules, e.g. S$300 fine for not wearing facemask in public place, S$3000 for fishing at Riverwalk at downtown core. I saw a news story about a girl violating parking rule and was fined S$320 which was more than her one day earning as a food delivery person! 

One can find bad apples in any society including the world model Singapore. Yesterday we were surprised to see a man using self check out  at Cold Storage, the big supermarket in Singapore, without paying. When we told the clerk on duty, she calmly cancelled the items on the screen, and made no comments!

As we live here longer, we will observe more blemishes, and will discover more amazing things. 

All in all our first glimpses into Singapore made us feel very good about the place.