Singapore

Stopped over in Singapore recently while travelling through to Shanghai, 12 hours, sufficient to venture out and mingle and get a brief taste of the city country. We arrived at 5:30am Singapore time, and after trudging bleary eyed out of the plane, headed for City hall. As it was early yet and a Saturday, the streets were largely deserted but for a few industrial workmen finalising the roads for the F1 tournament to be held in Singapore in one week time. The air was hot and dense with moisture, almost as if you could wring water from it, a product of the deliberate forest fires that the government had systematically lit to reclaim land for development. Walking rather blindly, we saw a ferris wheel in the distance, and decided to make that our destination...meandering towards it everything was lush, green, reds, yellows, vibrant colours at every turn. The mamoth ferris wheel is meant to be the largest to date in the world, a contraption of metallic bolts and steel, and glass pods from which to view the city. Even when standing some distance off, I was unable to capture it in entirity with my camera.
We managed to secure a pod for ourselves, and looking down on the sleeping city sprawled beneath our feet.....I was simultaneously impressed and indifferent....by the bay littered with cargo liners docked at port, the mass construction ...the golden domed temples in the distance...the skyscrappers that are endemic in every modern city....somehow it nevertheless felt too clean, too sterile, too planned.