SINGAPORE - THE LION CITY

As per usual, entering the country was a bit of a trauma thanks to the brand spanking new biometric passport deciding it wasn't going to work (again), thus ensuring I would be taken for questioning in a sealed room whilst appearing very shifty as I was squirming in my chair so much trying not to wee. Thankfully, however, I again managed to convince the immigration officials that if I was a terrorist I would have just bought a new passport on my credit card to spare myself the trouble of being questioned and also I would be carrying a smaller bag with a lesser amount of clean underwear.

To make up for its lack of interesting's lack of interesting features, Singapore does at least boast 4 official languages - English, Malay, Mandarin & Tamil. Admittedly the novelty does wear a bit thin by the time you've gone through 16 MRT stations and heard "The next station is Raffles Place. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform edge" in 4 languages, but at least it provides some much needed character to the polished greyness and over-efficiency of everything.

The thing with Singapore is that it does incredibly well at being everything a modern city should be. It absolutely epitomises what urban planners the world over are trying to turn their cities into. However, and this is a big however, cities do not gain character just because you relentlessly throw up shiny skyscrapers and have an over-inflated landscaping budget. Indeed, Singapore's character comes more as a result of it's past (The British zoning policies which in effect segregated the ethic groups, thus giving rise to 'Little India', 'Chinatown' etc) than the well intentioned urban development policies of today, which primarily seek to allow uninhibited infrastructure development and reduce land wastage through the encouragament of high rise building.

Singapore is essentially the urban form of the paragraph you have just read - and I chose those words carefully - it's efficient, informative & intelligent, but it just simply isn't the slightest bit entertaining. Amsterdam is exciting, Barcelona is really exciting - and beautiful, and even grimy old Manchester has much more than Singapore to say for itself. Singapore's chronic over-regulation and ultra-efficiency may have produced one of the world's safest & cleanest large cities, but it does nothing to cheer the place up.

Having said all that the city is actually very good looking - especially the view of the CBD from across the marina at twilight - and does, in parts at least, resemble certain areas of Central London. Indeed, the public buildings and some of the churches could have been swapped overnight with those from Trafalgar Square and few people would ever even have noticed.

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What Singapore does best, aparently, is food. It's cultural melting pot of a population has resulted in a proliferation of every kind of restaurant you can imagine. This is actually quite traumatising when you're genuinely concerned that you have malnutrition and the budget doesn't even consist of enough money to be called a budget anymore, but there are only so many cups of sugary McDonalds (cheapest) tea you can consume before you give in and have to visit a restaurant. Well, as sod's law would have it, my choice of eatery unfortunately wasn't the best. One would have thought that by venturing into the most authentic looking Indian restaurant in 'Little India' you would be onto a winner, but apparently this is not always the case. In fairness it wasn't too bad and it did look quite pretty as it was served on a banana plant leaf but after 6 weeks of non-stop chilli consumption anything and everything tasted bland, and I think they had seen the little white boy coming and opened a can of the mildest curry they could find. Needless to say, however, I didn't leave so much as a grain of rice as my body seriosly needed the nutrients.

Aside form the myriad restaurants, Singapore's other leisure destination is Sentosa Island. It's a natural island where in the name of commerce they've artificially 'enhanced' the natural features such as beaches and forests and added a few overpriced tourist attractions, such as a luge and a cable car, to boot. There are also a few chain restaurants and bars to add to the experience of being ripped off. Maybe it's just me, but I can't quite work out where the 'fun' element is of travelling all the way to Singapore to pay near twice the market rate for a bottle of Coke from a branch of DeliFrance. In fairness, I just don't think I appreciated it in the way that I wouldn't appreciate Disneyland or any other theme park with the exception of a couple of the big rides. I'd rather just sit and be mentally stimulated by reading the paper than by having to endure someone trying to do it for me whilst wearing a cheesey artificial smile and waving at me as I got off the monorail.

Fortunately, however, there was one little thing about Sentosa Island that did actually excite me (what with being a geeky geographer); I accidently stubled across a sign proclaiming I was standing at the southern most point of continental Asia. Even better about this was that I somehow managed to convince a group of Japanese tourists to do Japanese Tourist Pose (now declared a noun by the way) for me with me in the picture! If when you eventually get to see the picture you think that they look scared - that's most probably because they were!

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And so that was all there was time for in Singapore. Grandad - yes it probably has changed a lot since the war! I'm just sorry I couldn't take more pictures becuase the camera batteries ran out!