Weekly photo challenge: (Extra)ordinary
I was just walking through the streets of Singapore, trying to get a feel for the city. There were tall skyscrapers and colorful buildings, a river and restaurants. Then I suddenly see these chairs standing in a row. Upon closing inspection they are chained to the fence. The ordinary became…
Mirroring the gardens
Subway stations are often pretty dull places where people come to get from A to B. Sometimes you have to walk through long, dark tunnels to get from one train to the next. Luckily a lot of cities are changing this by decorating the waiting areas and walkways. This is…
Memories of spring
Ailsa’s weekly travel theme for this week is Blossom. At the moment I’m at the wrong side of the globe to find the blossoming flowers. Here, the air is getting chilly, the days are short, and the flowers have turned into dry, yellow and brown remnants of summer. So here’s…
Man meets nature
Singapore is a crazy city, full of shopping malls and extraordinary places. A place I loved is gardens by the bay. This is not just any garden, but one full of artificial super trees. It is a bizarre sight, the manmade trees surrounded by fields of grass. The trees are…
The yellow brick man
Just under a year ago I visited the Art Science museum in Singapore for an exhibition consisting of Lego bricks. As a kid I loved Lego and I still can’t part with the bricks I collected back then. This exhibition took things to a whole new level though. All these bricks are…
To hell and back
Fairytales teach us about the world. Every story tells about morals and teaches a lesson. We know Hansel and Gretel and Little red riding hood. In Singapore kids learn a very different lesson; don’t go to hell.
The Buddhist values are passed on to the younger generation via stories. To get an idea of these stories you can walk through Haw Par Villa, a park full of statues. Its design comes from the beginning of the 20th century and displays scenes of the Chinese mythology. It is very graphic and doesn’t leave much room for your own interpretation.
Crossing borders
Flying with Airasia is cheap, but as a backpacker I wanted the very cheapest I could find. So I figured out that flying from the Johor Bahru airport in Malaysia is cheaper than flying from Singapore airport. Airasia even provided free bus travel from Singapore. Making my way to Johor…