Singapore 2009

My sister’s stepdaughter, Liz and husband, Paul lived in Singapore in 2009. When my sis and her husband planned on visiting Liz, she invited me to tag along. I had never been overseas before and was delighted with the opportunity. We spent the last week of July and first week of August in Singapore. Probably the hottest and most humid time of the year in Singapore but we had fun. We also did a side trip to Bali which was amazing.

The flight to Singapore is about 18 hours. It’s literally halfway around the world.

In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles founded colonial Singapore as a trading post of the British East India Company. After the company's collapse in 1858, the islands were ceded to the British Raj as a crown colony. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied Japan. It gained independence from the British Empire in 1963 by joining Malaysia along with other former British territories (Sabah and Sarawak), but separated two years later over ideological differences, becoming a sovereign state in 1965. (Wikipedia)

Singapore is a very clean and safe city and that’s probably because many actions such as littering, spitting in public, drinking too late in the night, failure to flush a public toilet after using and vandalism, are illegal and violators are fined heavily ($1,000 for first time offenders plus possible jail time). Chewing gum is outlawed and you won’t find it in Singapore markets. A popular saying in Singapore is "Singapore is a fine city".