When flying in to Singapore you notice the high rising buildings along the Northern coast and the newly created boulevards and parks along the Southern coast. After an absence of 30 years Rudy finally made it to Singapore. Of course, a lot has happened since then. New buildings, underground metro and walkways and not to forget numerous shopping malls. Fortunately, there are also quarters from the original populations left amongst the modern high-rise. There is a Chinees, Malay and Indian area as well as large buildings left over from the British colonial time. It is obvious that Singapore lacks space to expand. Apartment buildings are replaced by higher once to accommodate a population of 6 million on only 734 square km (=8170/km^2). There is not a lack of money given the quality of the restorations and modernization which has been carried out. 30 years ago, there was only one metro line. Now there is a whole network and many connecting underground walkways which seam to snake in-between the legs of the tall buildings.

Jamaliah’s sisters, brother and brother-in-law joined us in Singapore. Since we didn’t want to stay in high rises hotel, we booked ourselves in The Sultan Heritage hotel in Arab street just around the corner of the Sultan Mosque. It was rainy season so most of the time we traveled by uber taxi or metro. Jamaliah and her siters went to the shopping malls on Orchard Road and Rudy joined a city tour by bicycle (pretty wet!). It was just a short visit so we did not visit any museums but just went to Raffles for a Singapore Sling, and “Gardens by the Bay” where we went into the Cloud Forest dome.