My initial impressions of Singapore were very good. They have a ton of electronic shops, selling everything from giant capacitors all the way to DVD players. However, there is something very odd about Singapore, and I don’t mean the complete absence of litter, but it’s all the health and safety they have here. I really dislike anything telling me, in an impersonal way, what to do. Singapore is literally awash with it. The SMRT tube to start with, has escalators with signs all about saying to not stand near the edges, stand in the yellow box, don’t stand sideways, hold on to handrails, don’t sit on escalator and stand to the left.
They had chains across un-used platforms and not only are they red and in the way, the put signs on them saying don’t cross and don’t sit on chain. Before each station, there’s an announcement in 5 languages to ‘mind the gap’ between the station car and the edge of the platform. I’m familiar with this announcement coming from the United Kingdom and all, but here, I doubt I could even run a credit card through the gap. Plus 5 more signs concerning this so-called gap.
On the street, the signs read ‘Pedestrians! Use the crossing,’ the crossing has a 6 step cartoon about how to cross the street! I was so annoyed at what simpletons Singapore thinks travellers are. I think the focus of this entire island seems to be financial, here’s an example, there were some ads on the T.V. I was watching in my room at one of the best Singapore hotels ever, the ad looked like the usual plea for funding a charity. I was expecting something like the tsunami victims, or the disabled, but it was for the victims of the recession! I haven’t seen a single homeless person in Singapore, which is surprising for a city this size, I couldn’t imagine that someone was that bad off, in Singapore!
Well, so much for my initial impressions. It’s only been day one, I wonder what day two will bring?
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