My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 5

Myth: Singapore is a tropical island, therefore it must have nice beaches.

Truth: The sun is mostly shining in Singapore and the country is very clean and tidy, it is a tropical island, the water is very warm, nevertheless, the sad fact remains that Singapore neither has beautiful beaches nor clear blue waters. One look around the coast line (or even better, down from the viewing platform at the Marina Bay Sands) will show you why that is so: hundreds and hundreds of ships always anchor a short distance off the coast waiting to be (un)loaded at the port. According to this site, "Singapore is the world's busiest port in terms of total shipping tonnage and tranships a fifth of the world's shipping containers and half of the world's annual supply of crude oil." You can imagine what this kind of shipping traffic does to the water quality (if you can't imagine, just think of how nice it would be to have a picnic right next to one of Germany's busiest Autobahns to enjoy the quiet and fresh air).

Unfortunately the same holds true for the surrounding islands of Sentosa, Pulau Ubin, St. John's etc., where the water and beach quality is sometimes even worse than in Singapore itself. Also, don't trust the nice advertisements about a beautiful weekend getaway to Batam, a small Indonesian city across from Singapore. The water and beaches there are in even worse condition and the whole place in general is rather unclean and rundown outside of the malls and hotels they put up, definitely not worth the trip.

If you want nice beaches and clear blue water, you will have to leave the immediate vicinity of Singapore and go to Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand, just to name the closest. Thanks to the well connected Changi Airport, a quick beach-weekend in the region for a reasonably cheap price is always doable.

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Singapore Public Transport and Taxis

Getting around in Singapore in general is relatively easy and straightforward. However, there are certain things you have to beware of when you don't use your own method of transport.

Buses and the MRT are usually pretty packed around rush hour (as is the case in any larger city), so best don't count on the fact that you will be able to get on the next bus or train during such peak times. If you want to know when the next bus is arriving, there are various smartphone apps that are very helpful. There are no timetables posted at the bus stops themselves, only the routes the buses take. You might have to wait around for a while for your bus to show up, and often it's one bus following another with the same number.  For buses you need either an EZ-link card (you can buy it at any MRT station) or coins. For the MRT, you need to buy an EZ-link card. During raining season (November-February) the ground around some bus shelters (or sidewalks in general for that matter) can get flooded you might get your feet wet waiting for your bus to arrive.

Taxis: Cabs are another comparatively cheap and convenient way to get around in Singapore. However, there are again some things you need to watch out for. During peak hours, it might be hard for you to flag down a cab at the roadside, so you might be better off booking one for a fee of c. SGD 3.50, either through an app, by calling, or by sending a text message. Every building in Singapore has it's own postal code, so to order a taxi from "Comfort", the biggest taxi company here, all you need to do is send a text message to 71222 saying "Book XXXXX", where the XXXXX is the ZIP code of the building you are at. As soon as a taxi driver accepts your booking, you will receive a text message with the license plate and the estimated time of arrival, which tends to be on the higher side. If you want to cancel your booking, all you have to do is send "Cancel" to the same number. All very straightforward and convenient and no need for you to stay on the phone waiting to be connected to an operator.

Singapore has a lot of taxis, and if you ask 10 different taxi drivers how many taxis there are, you will get 12 different answers. My own personal survey has led me to believe it's around 25,000. Either way, there are always cabbies who haven't been driving for very long, and even though Singapore is a not a huge Metropolis, a surprising amount of taxi drivers simply don't know the place you want to go. This occasionally holds true even for bigger, more touristy places, but particularly so for residential addresses or restaurants. Again, there are smartphone apps you can use to direct your driver if you don't know the way, or simply use a printout so show him the location. If you don't know the way, and he doesn't know the way to your destination, getting out of the cab and picking the next one might save you quite a bit of hassle, time and money.

The large majority of cab drivers speaks good English and are friendly and straight with you. If you feel unsure, just ask them for a receipt when you get in the cab. Overtouting is illegal in Singapore, and they will usually only take you the long route if they don't know another. Sometimes, they ask you "by which way you wanna go" inquiring about your preferences as to the route they are supposed to take.

The cost for all taxis, including the white Mercedes, is roughly the same, except for one big exception: black Chrysler taxis. These are 'luxury cabs" and will charge you roughly twice the regular price, which can get particularly expensive on a long ride, say from the airport.

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My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 4

Myth: An Australian high-tech company has invented a spanking machine for the Singaporean government.
I've been told this myth by an expat who had been living in Singapore for quite a while. Sounds incredulous, I know, but if you've been here for a while it doesn't sound so very unbelievable anymore.

Truth:  Just because there is no spanking machine, doesn't mean there is no corporal punishment. Caning forms part of the local culture and starts, naturally with different degrees of severity, for kids at home (not in every family), continues at school, and if you're unlucky/dumb enough to spray graffiti on a local train and get caught, you get caned as an adult (amongst other things). There is a wide range of offenses that are punishable by caning, so better tread carefully and don't go around and give the local coppers wedgies. Lastly, at least some Singaporean kids seem to be disappointed and wish to remedy the fact that no caning/spanking machine is used here.

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My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 3

Myth: Singaporeans love garlic.

Well I don't know if this holds true for every single inhabitant of Singapore, but the

Truth: is that I've never, ever seen so many garlic-themed restaurants and eating places as in Singapore. At least these eateries advertise with their main ingredient. Unfortunately, many, many other restaurants (mainly those with a "Western" theme, such as pasta places) unexpectedly just put unbelievable quantities of the white gold into your food. It is not unusual to find whole cloves of garlic in your pasta or goulash soup, and they aren't even particularly secretive about it, not dicing the garlic into small pieces but cutting the cloves into slices as big as my fingernail. The upside is that you can pick them out, the downside is that by the time you're done, your pasta will be cold. Even if you like garlic, it might be a good idea to think of your fellow man (or woman) when deciding to eat heaps of garlic in a climate as hot and humid as Singapore. My colleagues and I have just gone over to order our pasta with "no garlic" at the restaurants we know use this ingredient excessively.

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My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore 2

Truth: You can't buy chewing-gum in stores.
In general, stores in Singapore do not sell bubblegum. They do, however, offer a range of alternatives like Fisherman'sFriend, breath mints and other mouth-refreshing candy. Pharmacies are also allowed to sell "medical chewing gum" for "therapeutic" reasons, I never actually inquired about that, but if you can't live without chewing-gum then this might be worth a shot for you. However, be aware that you must produce some form ID for that and the pharmacy is obliged to forward your credentials to the government.

The original reason given for the ban of chewing gum that was enacted in 1992 and revised in 2004 were a) public hygiene and b) some people used to stick chewed gum into the door sensors of the public Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) trains to prevent them from closing, causing significant delays and cleaning costs. personally, I like chewing gum, but it is nice not to have to gum stick to your shoes or find it on the underside of table or chair that you touch.

Myth: People in Singapore don't chew gum.
Just because you can't buy it here (except for the medical kind) or import it (even for personal reasons/in small quantities), doesn't mean people strictly obey this law. Apparently, local law enforcement is turning a blind eye to this, as I regularly see people chew gum in public and hearsay propagates that bringing 1-2 packs of gum here will not get you in trouble.

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My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore

For starters, I'd like to clarify some right/wrong preconceptions I had before actually setting foot in Singapore. Maybe I'm the only one who had those, I picked them up from friends, family and the internet. However, I believe we all have our preconceptions about places we have yet to visit and some of the below might come in handy when you're thinking of moving to the other side of the world. A lot of the below is local hearsay and anecdotal evidence, if anyone has made different experiences, please comment.

My Personal Top Truths/Myths about Singapore

Truth: Singapore is a fine city.
As you've probably read in other places, there are heavy fines for most things illegal in this country. This starts as "low" as a few hundred bucks for eating/drinking in the local buses/trains/stations to the death penalty for drug trafficking. Just recently, a local art student was arrested for vandalism because she did some street art on lamp posts and roads and she is facing a 2K fine up to 3 years in prison + caning. Singapore laws are strict and you better not mess with the local authorities. 

Myth: The strict laws in Singapore impact your quality of life.
Notwithstanding draconian fines/sentences for what might appear small offenses, your quality of life most likely will not be affected by this (well if you are indeed a drug lord and your wife urges you to move to Singapore, you might disagree). If you don't want to meddle with local customs/politics and if your rep sheet is blank so far, there is nothing you have to fear. In contrary, some things I read before coming here are simply not true. For example, tons of people cross the roads in all parts of town, without using a pedestrian crossing or traffic light. This holds true for small side streets as much as for 6 lanes streets with heavy traffic and I've never heard or read of anyone being fined for this.

The upside of this system of heavy fines and draconian sentences is that Singapore is one of the safest city's in the world. You never have to worry about which part of town you're in at night, whether it is safe or not not as a woman to walk home alone or whether as guy you might run into trouble visiting the local clubs and watering holes. Of course, as the local slogan goes, "low crime doesn't mean no crime", but if you display some common sense you'll be perfectly fine here. Another positive (at least most times) is that the city is squeaky clean in it's most touristy parts. There is no bubble gum on the sidewalk, no trash in the streets and no graffiti, which does improve quality of life imho. And if you want to see a less sterile and more vibrant side of Singapore, all you need to do is go to neighborhoods like Geylang or Katong.   

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There are times in our lives when we are granted the possibility to choose from different paths for our future and to take destiny into our own hand. A call from your boss or a conversation with your life-partner asking you to leave everything behind to move to Singapore to work or study most certainly is one such opportunity.

Now, you might have heard about Singapore before, you might even know where exactly is located, its role in the world economy and general life in this city. However, if you are like me, mostly likely you had to google to find out about either of  these things and I reckon this is how you stumbled onto my blog. I had a rough idea about where Singapore is, and what its economy is about, but no clue about life there or in the region. You can get the hard facts from Wikipedia and other such sites, and I found some info from expat forums, however, I'd like to give people living in Singapore, or who wish to live or travel here, my personal impressions of this city and its inhabitants.

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