Singapore. No sling.

As I have already arrived in the second half of my adventure, I need to start following up on a promise I made before I started – write  a bit of a blog.

Anyone who knows me is aware that, in social media terms, I am nothing more than a bloated corpse, floating on the waters of Twitter, Facebook and the likes. Occasionally however, I jerk awake for a short while, and I guess this is one of those times.

So far, my trip has involved a fews days in Singapore, with some very positive meetings, great food, fabulous weather and the realization that this tiny state is fantastic for those with money (of which there are plenty) and hard to survive for the others. The government has almost unlimited resources, but is worried that spending some of it on welfare might just send the wrong message and aggravate the voters…

I have been to high schools in Singapore where the security was tighter than at an embassy, and where the facilities would have made it easy to host (small) Olympic Games. The tuition fees are more than what I earn, and tiny Singapore has several of these schools!

The reason for all this wealth is the fact that Singapore is considered a popular hub for expats doing business in South East Asia. (Nearly) Everyone speaks English, the infrastructure is fabulous, it is safe and thanks to the diversity of its inhabitants, you can buy practically anything.

At the same time, even Singaporeans find their country too small, the vast majority of high school kids go study abroad (which leads to fabulous quotas regarding international students at the unis in Singapore - 75% in the one I had a meeting with). 

I had just a few days but I did have the feeling that I had spent enough time to get a feeling of the city and certainly its foods.