A new day, a new city, another hop-on-hop-off bus

Thursday, November 26, 2009
Singapore, Singapore
My favourite way to orientate myself and work out where I really want to go back to... the hop-on-hop-off bus trip.
Singapore has one running two interconnecting loops - a city one down Orchard Road and through the leafier northern blocks and an historic loop through Little India, Chinatown and the old river area near Raffles . We have also chanced on the Christmas lights season and our bus ticket included a trip down Orchard Road tonight to take them all in.

The weather was hot and humid, but not unbearable in the shade and EVERYWHERE under cover has air-conditioning set to icy.
Although large lengths of historic shop-houses have been preserved, the over-riding impression is ultra-modern, sleek, clean, orderly, young and every square metre meticulously landscaped. There was little of the Asian charm apparent from the upper storey of the tourist double-decker bus as seen in Hong Kong.
 
The spotless public transport, of course, works like a charm. (why can Melbourne STILL not work out it's myki system when Singapore has had one for decades?) The whole island is clad in polished granite or marble and the winter stock is coming into the shops - fur-trimmed parkas anyone? In fact, the whole sleigh rides and snow flakes thing seems even more ludicrous here than Australia with the constant steamy 31°C temperature.

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