Sunday 3 July 2011

We came, we saw, we opened a bank



When refugees approached New York City in the late 19th century to begin their new lives, they were greeted by the proud, welcoming sight of the Statue of Liberty. When rich American businessmen arrived in Singapore in the 1970s, they were greeted by a lion-headed mermaid thing vomiting water.

Singapore is a nice but strange city/country. It's as if some mad, rich sultan gave a tropical island paradise to his nephew - a nephew who wasn't interested in preserving wildlife or even looking after his island's own heritage, and just built loads of skyscrapers instead. If you're interested in seeing the sights of colonial-era Singapore, going to Georgetown in Malaysia is probably your best bet.

I actually really like clean, efficient, silent Singapore, and there are still a few nice relics lying around. There's apparently loads of green here too, which is a relief, because I thought I'd once again exhausted all the main tourist sights within 24 hours of arriving.


Singapore Civic District



Raffles is cool, but rude
(Michelangelo is the party dude)



Central Business District (CBD) + totem pole (Asian Civilisations Museum).
Am I making some sort of clever point? Or did I just like the symmetry?



Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall (1905)



Cavenagh Bridge (1870)



Weird Sci-Fi Esplanade (2285)



I was too late to save them.
I barely had enough time to get out my camera to enjoy their certain deaths



That shrub is so screwed (Fort Canning Park)



Nature fights back (Singapore School of the Arts)



A particularly nice-fonted gravestone, I thought



Cathedral of the Good Shepherd (1847).
Particularly nice and crumbly, I thought



Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminati. I mean, the Illuminator (1836).
Weird... I'm sure that angel wasn't there when I took the photo



The Christ cloning experiment gets out of hand



Freemasons' Hall
(a.k.a. New World Order Shape-Shifting Reptilian Annunaki Illuminati HQ: Singapore branch)



Mysterious obelisk that somehow factors into the crackpot conspiracy theory too



Singapore Art Museum, because it's slightly strange



Central Fire Station (1908), because I liked it



G-Max Reverse Bungee (2003), because I don't know the meaning of the word fear (literally).
Don't know what happened to the guy in the middle



Dave launched