Travel in Singapore

[RickyRetardo]

Anyone have any experience with Singapore? What's it like?

[momopi]

Anyone have any experience with Singapore? What's it like?

I was in SG few months ago to attend a wedding.

What specifically do you need to know?

[publicduende]

I was in Singapore too, for about 4 months in 2008/2009. It's a complex city, probably the only one in Asia (more than Tokyo and better than Hong Kong) that can give you a true first world, Western metropolitan living standard and lifestyle.

Like NYC or London, it's also very demanding in terms of what it "asks back" from you: extreme commitment and hard work due to competition and the Chinese mindset, materialism and high prices, adapting to what is effectively a culturally monochrome society, where anything dissenting with the status quo and non-conforming with the majority of people is frowned upon and dismissed.

I was there as a single man, living in a luxury condo paid for by my company (who had seconded me there from London), on contract money plus even a daily allowance. I was in the best position to have a lot of what passes as "fun" over there - dining in plush restaurants and lounging in classy clubs, chilling at riverside bars in Clarke Quay and Marina Bay (the massive Sentosa casino complex was still under construction), playing squash and hitting the swimming pool and gym, etc. I also dated a few girls, although I wasn't impressed by their open mindedness. The best fling had was with a very, very cute Vietnamese tourism student, who brought a friend at my place one night and gave me my closest shot yet at a threesome (hadn't she fallen asleep LOL).

I would say SG is one of the best platforms in the world, surely the best in Asia, for a single young man, preferably Caucasian and decent looking, (over)confident, with a good corporate job and 100% tuned into the "work hard, play hard" mentality. It becomes a lot less enticing if you don't tick most of those boxes. It is most certainly a huge waste of money as a prolonged holiday or sex tourism destination. Kuala Lumpur, Manila or Bangkok work a lot well in that sense, as well as being cheaper. The SG advantage over the 3 metro cities above is that, at least until a few years ago, it was quite easy to find a corporate job on a salary at levels comparable to NYC or London, and not impossible to be sent over there by a European or American company.

One of my friends is working for Barclays Capital down in Marina Bay. He gets paid slightly less than his usual salary in London (but gets more in his pockets due to low taxation) but lives very, very comfortably. Plus, with the standard 30 days of paid holidays allowance he gets (Barclays is a British bank), he had (and duly jumped on!) the chance of exploring Asia. On his FB pages I have seen pics from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan and I'm sure I missed a couple.

Just one more note on the girl: the best ones de obviously the sleek, classy Chinese or Malaysian girls with jobs/careers and money to spent to keep themselves in pristine shape and dress impeccably. Those are usually only accessible to the aforementioned City boy type, or a wealthy and charming older man maybe. Going down in the pecking order we have the native Malaysians, mainland China and Malaysia expats, native and expat Indians, then further down Bangladeshi/Pakistani and Burmese, Filipinos etc.

The pecking order is actually one of the most odious things I experienced there: cruel, strict and pervasive, from the job market to the social and dating scene. I did find the Chinese and Malaysian white-skinned girl snobbish and entitled, and (bar one instance) awful in bed.