It was with a sense of relief rather than rather than
\nelation or sadness, that I escaped London. First stop was Singapore.
\nThe weather here in Singapore has been horrendous – extremely hot,
\naround 34 degrees centigrade each day with 100% humidity, but grey and
\novercast skies. The newspapers say the overcast weather is as a result
\nof air pollution from forest fires in Indonesia. I’m not so
\nsure, maybe it is that but also the amount of exhaust fumes in
\nSingapore too. It’s not like you can sit by the pool and enjoy the sun.
\nI was extremely jet lagged and pretty much non functioning for the
\nfirst three days – never had jet lag this bad before and could only
\nmanage to grab around four hours sleep each day starting at 6am
\nSingapore time which was not good at all! <\/p>\n
I’ve been here many times before and enjoy
\nits company. It’s spotlessly clean, technologically advanced
\nin a way Europe is not – for example, wi-fi hot spots all
\nover the city, there’s very little crime, you don’t
\nsee gangs of hooded youths hanging around the place, its transport
\nsystem is by far and away the best I’ve ever encountered and
\nthere seems to be plenty to do. If you are a shopper, the place is an
\nabsolute delight – shops routinely open until 9pm and
\nsometimes later. It’s not all built up commercialism, there
\nare rawer, grittier edges such as Little India, and there are a
\nsurprising number of green places, you just have to seek them out.
\nThere are plenty of coffee shops, and my favourite place to hang out
\nwas the Coffee Bean next to the IT Funan mall, a place to cater for any
\ntype of electronic goods, especially computers. Food is great, with a
\nwide choice from food courts usually to be found on the top floor of
\nthe shopping malls, or supermarkets, usually in the basements of
\nshopping malls, street food, food cooked in the open air at hawker
\ncentres, or a wide range of restaurants from the quick and cheap to
\nreal top notch stuff. <\/p>\n
Singapore is a tiny place with a lot of people
\n– around 4.2 million people and 800,000 non residents i.e.
\nforeigners in 647.5 sq km making it a pretty densely populated country.
\nThe population make up is around 76% Chinese, 15% Malay, 6% Indian.
\nLanguages spoken include English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. <\/p>\n
Would it be a good place to settle and live and work? I
\ndon’t know. I’ve spoken to many people who have
\nworked in Singapore; great standard of living – over 92% of
\nSingaporeans own their own home, and over 91% have a mobile phone,
\nwhich incidentally work on the MRT, deep in underground tunnels,
\nthere’s good housing and an excellent (private i.e. paid for)
\nhealth care system. It’s very easy to get about, which is
\njust as well, as owning a car is horrendously expensive and a very
\ncomplicated procedure. <\/p>\n
Downside, it can get very claustrophobic –
\nit’s small and samey – and many people say that they leave
\nthe islands at least once a month, just to get away – but at
\nleast it is well placed to hop over to other places. Close by is
\nMalaysia, just a short drive across the bridge to Johor Bahru.
\nThere’s also Indonesia, many of whose islands can be reached
\nby ferry from Singapore. Places like mainland Indonesia, Thailand, Hong
\nKong, Borneo, Bali are just short plane trips away, which have got to
\nbe a good thing in my book. <\/p>\n
Then there’s the single female syndrome. Many
\nof my friends who know Singapore well have warned me that it is very
\nhard for expat women to find a partner. The expat men, it seems, are
\npursued by local women at every turn (so I’m told) and also
\nthat expat women generally don’t fancy or hook up with local
\nmen. Who knows! <\/p>\n
I have to say, the idea of living and working in
\nSingapore does appeal, perhaps on a short term basis, maybe a couple of
\nyears, but the culture is decidedly different from Europe,
\nit’s so technologically advanced, safe, clean and ordered.
\nMaybe too ordered. One of the things I liked about London was its
\ncultural diversity, not just ethnic diversity, but the different ways
\npeople dressed, the different languages, different ways of living.
\nI’m not sure I would find that here. <\/p>\n
And of course, there’s the issue of finding
\nwork here. It proved quite hard. If you are a foreigner, you need to
\nhave an employment pass EP to be eligible to work. But, you need an
\noffer of work to get an EP. Hhhmmm. Chicken and egg. Large companies
\nwill sponsor you and I understand that the process of getting an EP
\nthrough this route has been much simplified, but even so, you have to
\nfind a willing employer who would see you in the first instance,
\nwithout an EP and then be such an outstanding candidate, that they will
\nemploy you. And don’t get me wrong, the standard of education
\nin Singapore is excellent, and there is a pool of good and well
\nqualified people in Singapore. So it’s a tricky one, but an
\nappealing idea to pursue. <\/p>\n
~~~~~~~~~~~~ <\/p>\n
Many people have lived through life defining events.
\nSome remember where they were and what they were doing when John F
\nKennedy died. I’m not old enough for that, but mine first
\nhappened when I was a student preparing breakfast in my bedsit when I
\nheard on the radio that John Lennon had been shot in December 1980. <\/p>\n
But these events get uglier and uglier – the On Thursday 7th<\/sup> July, I was in It was with a sense of relief rather than rather than elation or sadness, that I escaped London. First stop was Singapore. The weather here in Singapore has been horrendous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","css_class_manager_body_classes":"","css_class_manager_use_in_post_loop":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-article"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nnext event in my psyche being 9\/11. My friend Sally in Portugal texted
\nme to tell me to turn on the TV immediately when I saw the ghastly
\nreplay over and over that has never left me of the planes’
\nlast flights. Then on December 26th<\/sup> the tsunami
\nhit in SE Asia. I was diving in Sulawesi, Indonesia when the tsunami
\nhit. I was numb, along with hundreds of thousands of people in
\nIndonesia and around the world. <\/p>\n
\nmy room, on line and I received a travel newsflash e-mail that started
\nto unfold the events of today 7th July 2005: central London has been
\nrocked by a coordinated and calculated series of terrorist attacks. It
\nfeels surreal. I’m thousands of miles away, a seven hours
\ntime difference, but this, London, is my home, where I live(d). I even
\nshed a few tears as I watched the BBC World news broadcasts during the
\nday. Yes, I know I said that I had fallen out of love with London, but
\nnow it seems that this has shown to me that my loyalties still very
\nmuch lie in London, with my friends, the place, physically, the streets
\nI know so well, the buses I complained about, (the number 30 I used to
\ntake, one of which was bombed,) the tubes I griped about. I’m
\nsure all of our thoughts go out to the people of London and those
\ninjured and killed by the blasts. <\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"