Singapore for one day (nearly)

After four flights from PNG to get here, I was shattered. But I got up and did a quick tour of the Jo Chiat area (china town) that I was staying in. There are some very pretty buildings here and even an Indian temple. Some of the terraces reminded me of terraces in Melbourne, I wonder which came first? The British were here in the 1800's so maybe that is the link. One interesting thing I found out is that the apartment blocks (with shops, cinemas, parks, religious buildings all included) are subjected to an ethnic integration policy which effectively prevents clusters of racial groups building up and causing tension. The three main races here are Chinese, Malay and Indian but everyone studies English as a first language and their second language depends on their heritage. I stayed at the Betel box hostel where I found out a lot of these things.



Terraces in the Jo Chiat area



A close up

A sweet, one side was coconut, the other a kind of bean

Unusual housing built up to avoid the floods they had back then

A Hindu temple

I liked these unusual trees