Hi Everyone,

We arrived in Singapore at 5:45am this morning, at which point I tearfully said goodbye to Richard, Lisa, Antony and Lucy. My bag came quickly and I jumped in a taxi to meet my friend, Mike Li, at the hotel (he had been in Singapore for a day before). It was sad to show up at the airport and not have Sonu and the Tourist waiting for me.

The first thing I noticed in my taxi ride was that Singapore and India could not be more different. It was weird that the taxi ride was smooth, there was no honking, and all the cars stayed in there own lanes. I did not see one animal on the road!

I asked the driver about Singapore, which gradually turned into a list of things you cannot do. No guns, no bullets, no daggers, no kidnapping - all punishable by death.

I went to sleep for about an hour and woke up at 8:30 ready to get started. We started by taking a taxi to Chinatown. It was particularily interesting because Chinese New Year is in about 10 days, so all the decorations and preparations were well under way. The first thing we happened to see (just by chance) was a temple! As if I had not seen enough of them in India. It was the Sri Marriaman Buddhist Temple. Very colourful with tons of cool sculptures and designs.

We then wandered through Chinatown and another temple (Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum). As we walked through the markets it was amazing to me how clean, neat and organized the shops all were! Compared to the chaos of India everything seemed to be to neat and perfect. The storeowners asked politely if we were interested in looking and if we said no, they said nothing further. They didn't even follow us down the street and automatically begin lowering the price!

We had lunch next to the Singapore River (finally had some fresh vegetables) and then took a ferry to Merlion Park at Marina Bay. From the river and the Bay you have an amazing view of the huge downtown highrises, the Singapore Flyer (the largest ferris wheel in the world), a soccer field that was built on the bay and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. The Hotel is a three tower monster with a boat looking thing connecting them at the top and has a 150m pool at the top. It is incredible and way over the top.

Apparently at this time of year it rains every afternoon for about an hour. We went to Sentosa Island to go to Underwater world. We started with a dolphin show and then went underground into this amazing tunnel where all the fish, stingrays and sharks swam around you.

By far the most interesting part of the city is the shipping port. It is the largest in the world, and lives up to every description I ever had of it in business school. The amount of massive ships and cranes is incredible. There must be about 50,000 containers perfectly organized along the shore. I asked if there was a tour, and the quizzical look I received in return, likely means that not everyone finds it as fascinating as me.

After almost a fully day, I am still shocked by the cleanliness and orderliness of the city… Especially considering I just came from India. I very much got the impression that Singapore was completely pre-planned and thought out. It almost seems a little too well planned and that they were trying a bit too hard to impress people to come.

I am sincerely disappointed at the lack of photo requests with me today. Apparently I am not nearly the attraction I was in India.