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Singapore is OK. Thats what many souvenir tshirts say.
Well i say Singapore is pretty good. The city is very clean. Nice places to hang out. Great places to shop. Tourists are treated very well. Hardly any crime. Not to forget... very green. Also, Indian food is very easily available making it a very fav place of mine.
Another great thing about sgp is that people follow rules. You go anywhere you will see people not breaking queues, not spoiling public property, not jumping traffic lights and giving way to pedestrians and the vehicles on their right. One might think that it is a very boring and unadventurous way to live. What is the fun in not running over a clueless person on road every morning while rushing to work. What is the fun in not honking the horn every two seconds when most of the times you are just trying to be musical in the stressful traffic. But, if one thinks again, following rules has made singapore what it is today. It is OK.
I guess the reason we Indians don't follow rules is because we dont want to be JUST ok.
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We went to a very popular tourist attraction in SGP known as the Night Safari. They take you on a tour around the zoo in the night time so you can see what the animals do at night in their natural surroundings. Although it seems like encroaching privacy of wild animals, it is actually not. They are kept in enclosures which are well lit and all the natural surroundings are artificial. So they are not doing anything which requires any privacy, ergo we are not encroaching privacy of wild animals.
The best thing about this night safari is that you can choose how you want to see it. You can either take a tram (more popular because a guide accompanies you) or you can just walk on some trails which take you around some specific area of the park. Its a good and new experience. I dont think they have night safari anywhere in India.
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Everything in Singapore is artificial. If there is a jungle its artificial. Even some parts of the island are artificial. The island is very small so they are creating more space by reclaiming the land from sea.
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Useless point above hunh...
Useless point this hunh :P
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An Interesting incident (Total facts. Jokes happen in real life)
When we were coming back from the night safari, We had to share taxi with another family. The couple was kinda young and had two little boys. I was sitting with the Mrs who had one of the boys in her lap. She was explaining to him that how her father in law was his grandfather and his fathers father and why he had two sets of grandparents and only one set of parents. I had nothing else to do so i was listening the rebuttal from the child to his the mom's each argument.
Everything was going well untill, out of the blues, this happened.
Kid: Mom, what is a Bikini?
Mom: What?
Kid: What is a Bikini?
Mom: Where did you learn this word from?
Kid: Dad was saying something to bhaiya?
Mom(to Dad): rajiv, ye dekho kya bol raha hai. Now tell him what a bikini is.
Dad: what?
Mom: haan haan rajiv batao.
( At this point i was so tempted to chip in with... haan haan rajiv batao but i was biting my own tongue to stop myself from laughing)
Dad: Ummm...
Mom: Tumhien kitni bar kaha hai bacho se aisi baat mat kiya karo. Ab bata to do bechare ko kya hoti hai Bikini.
Dad: Driver please take us to some McDonalds near the hotel.
This continued for two more minutes after which our stop came. But it was a hell of a ride back to the hotel.
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The first things...
The first few things that i saw/noticed/felt when i reached India
We had a transit at Trivandrum. The first thing i saw here was the board which proudly declared the airport to be an ISO certified. I wanted to congratulate the airport management for clearing the exam. But i tell you, they had cheated.
When we landed at IGI airport delhi an announcement from the cockpit said, "we are sorry for the inconvenience. Our spot has been taken by some other plane. We will have to wait for the other plane to vacate the terminal." Could this be anymore Indian. I was reminded of so many times that i had reserved my seat in a bus by throwing a handkerhief through the window and so many other times when i had lost a seat to a handkerchief already lying there. Probably the pilot from the other plane had also done the same. Dropped his handkerchief from the sky and booked his spot.
When we finally reached inside the airport there was only one counter(immigration) where people had queued up. The officer at the adjacent counter was sitting very vehla. This was another example of our innate Indianness. No one was willing to even ask the officer at the other counter if his counter was open. Finally when he himself saw his hapless colleague at the other counter he called some of the passengers to his side. All hell broke loose and he ended up with a queue of his own. There were only four people left at the other counter. :)
During all this queuing and dequeueing a young girl started to talk to my mom about all this commotion and chaos. She was also wondering why I was smiling as much as I was. When she ended her speech about all the Khappkhaana and gand that was going on there, i just asked her,"aapko maza nai aa raha?". She smiled back, when she finally figured out why i was smiling.
The First thing i felt when i reached India was Pride.
I am a proud Indian.
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There are no power cuts in SGP.
There were four while i was writing this post.
Still proud.
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