I only have two short days in Singapore on this trip. It breaks up the journey and gives me a bit of respite as I cannot do the 20 odd hours flight time to Europe in one go anymore.
It’s Friday and I am off to have lunch with a friend at the Raffles Town Club which sounds very nice. My friend is a lady who knew one of my uncles and his second family after he divorced my aunt many years ago. I had spent quite a long time looking for his second wife and eventually found her via a little bit of genealogical serendipity. The lady in question had since passed away, but I am now in contact with one of her daughters.
The Raffles Town Club is a very pleasant place, and we had a most enjoyable lunch and chatted for several hours talking about family history and many other things.
It is late afternoon when I get back to the hotel and I need to have a walk and get some exercise. The streets and shops are crowded as usual as people shop on their way home from work, or are heading out for the evening to meet friends and family.
Did I tell you how much I love Singapore, yes, I’m sure I did. The streets are clean, almost everything works exactly as it says on the tin, and it’s a fun, ever changing, and vibrant multicutural melting pot. But on the flipside there is the heat and humidity, not easy to deal with, and despite it costing more to get a licence to own a car than to buy the actual car, traffic can be horrendous in this tiny city state. There is a lot of wealth here.
But not everything is good. Apart from most Singaporeans wandering around like Brown’s cows with their faces buried in their mobile phones, there’s a yet another menace on the streets – electric scooters. Please God, can we never have these in Melbourne. So picture this, crazies zooming around on electric scooters and pedestrians wandering around with their faces glued to mobile screens. Disaster waiting to happen. And being electric you can’t hear them coming.
I’ve been coming to Singapore now for about 35 years. Over that time, I have noticed significant change. This city never stops building and modernising. But one thing I have noticed, Singaporeans seem to have become a little less caring than they once were. I feel sad about that.