Welcome to the future!

Hello Mrs. Simpson's class!

I got to spend last weekend in Singapore! Singapore is a very intriguing city. Being in Singapore feels like time-traveling into the future! There are big shiny buildings everywhere and the city is very multicultural. Do you know what that means? For Singapore it meant that everything in public areas was written in four different languages!

I was very lucky because a good friend of mine, Ashley, from Queen's University, is on exchange in Singapore for the semester. She showed me around the city and her school. It was really wonderful to get to talk about things from back home with someone who understands!

This is a photo of us in front of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. This is a very famous hotel because there is a large pool on the very top! A couple of my friends stayed in this hotel- it's very expensive but they thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Meanwhile, I stayed with Ashley in her dormitory at her university- it was very small, there was no air-conditioning (and it was very hot in Singapore!), and there were geckos crawling on the walls! It was a very different experience, but I loved being with her.

Have you ever eaten crab before? I had it for the first time. We ate a Singaporean dish called chilli crab. Even though it was cooked in a way special to Singapore, the crab was from Canada! It was very spicy but yummy.

On Saturday night Ashley took me to a light show outside the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. There was shooting water, mist, lasers, music, and even bubbles! It was cheesy but very fun.

We also went to the Garden by the Bay. Have you ever seen the movie Avatar? There are these huge lighted trees that look like they belong in that movie. They are designed to mimic how real trees work- they use solar panels to collect energy that power the lights during the night, and they collected rainwater for the nearby fountains. 

Something that Singapore is very well known for is its harsh laws. It is illegal to eat food on the subway, to spit in public, and even to chew gum! You can be fined a lot of money for all these things, and even arrested. If you are caught smuggling drugs, you can be given the death sentence, even if you are not a citizen of Singapore. Although I did not see any police officers, my friend Ashely told me there are cameras everywhere, and most of the police officers are undercover so you don't know if you are being watched. I think this is a little bit scary. What do you think? I think it's I think it is very interesting that somehow that seems very futuristic and perfect can also feel wrong.

That's all for now! It was a very quick stop in Singapore. Next we arriving in a country called Burma (also called Myanmar). What do you know about Burma/Myanmar? The whole world doesn't know a lot about this place because tourists were only allowed to begin visiting it in  2007.

Rebecca