Why I love Singapore

8 Things We Love About Singapore

After three years of living in Singapore, we feel pretty safe in our knowledge of how things work here. A lot has changed since we started calling Singapore "Home", changes in Singapore, and changes in ourselves. Many of our visitors come seeking some insight into what it's like to live in Singapore and why we choose to stay here. Thinking about our experiences here, we came up with 8 things that we love about Singapore. But just as easily, we came up with 8 things we could do without. Hopefully, both these perspectives can help shed some light on Singapore for you.

What We Love (in no particular order)

1. The Food. American cities like San Francisco and New York brag about having a melting pot of different cultures, and thus, a huge variety of restaurants. But Singapore, in our opinion, has them all beat. Because while Southeast Asian cuisines remain rare in the US, Singapore has them all and in their authentic greatness. Not only is there a variety of restaurants, but Singapore restaurants remain truer to the taste of the home country than, say, Tokyo, where the food is altered more toward Japanese tastes. On any given night when we want to eat out, it's a struggle to decide which of our favorite restaurants we want to go to, or if we'll try something completely new. Our sole lament is that there aren't enough good Mexican restaurants in Singapore; hopefully, someone will hear our plea and open one.

2. Changi International Airport. Singapore like to talk about becoming "world-class" this or "best in the world" at that. For the most part, it's all a load of crap. But when it comes to the airport, Singapore doesn't have to strive to become the best; they already are. There is nothing like coming home to Singapore from a business trip, passing through the ultra-efficient immigration, picking up your luggage in mere minutes after your plane arrives, and getting a taxi after waiting in a queue for less than five minutes. Hey, you even have time to stop off in the Duty Free shop and pick up something, and you'll still be through the airport in less than 30 minutes. Add that together with the range of shops and services to be found, the absence of machine gun toting security guards, and the candy dish at every immigration officers booth, and you've got the airport the world has to beat.

3. Safe Streets. Yes, it's practically a cliche to talk about Singapore as "clean and safe". While I don't necessarily believe the "clean" part anymore (we'll discuss that later), it's hard to dispute the "safe" factor. School children can still walk home by themselves without their parents fearing they will be kidnapped. Women can walk around after dark. There are no bands of roaming gypsy children to pick your pockets. As the Singaporean slogan says, "Low crime doesn't mean no crime.", but low crime is still a lot more than what most cities can say for themselves.

4. Public Transportation. There is sort of a love/hate relationship people have with mass transit, but to be fair, I have to include it as something we love. Now living near a train system, we find it almost unnecessary to take a taxi anymore. The buses go almost anywhere. And the whole system is cheap, cheap, cheap. Of course, there are reasons to hate the public transportation system as well, but we'll go into that later.

5. Proximity to Prime Vacation Areas. Despite the hordes of Japanese and European tourists who believe otherwise, Singapore itself is not a prime vacation destination. On the other hand, getting to a prime vacation spot from Singapore is a short, boat, plane, or bus ride away. To name a few, Bali, Phuket, Langkawi, Tioman, Bintan, and Koh Samui are all less than two hours away. And local travel packages are inexpensive enough that it's easy to make a long weekend out of any of these destinations.

6. Shopping. Given the fact that there's not much to see in Singapore, it's no wonder there are so many places to shop. You can buy almost anything in Singapore, from designer clothes to fake rolexes. And the best thing to buy in Singapore, in our opinion? Electronic goods, which usually come ready to use in any country of the world, which means dual voltage and multi-system. You won't find that in most other places in the world.

7. The Singapore Zoo. If there is one thing that is a "must see" for your visit to Singapore, it's the Zoo. There is a whole story about the Zoo here if you are interested. But let me just say, there are tons of monkeys at the Zoo. Need I say more?

8. Prenatal Care and Delivery. Okay, this is a strange one to include, but since we are having our first child here, we should share that experience as a positive one. I'm sure I will write a complete story after our son is born, but for now, let's just say that the experience has been very positive. Singapore is much more thorough than the US in terms of prenatal monitoring of a baby, and we have heard that the actually delivery process is as comfortable and pleasant and baby deliveries can be. The doctors and nurses we have worked with are friendly and professional. Overall, there may not be a better place in the world to welcome a newborn.