Singapore at Dawn

Thought you might enjoy this picture. If one lives in JB and has the advantage of living at the seaside, such as some friends of mine do, you can see Singapore from your high-rise living room window.  Once you cross the bridge that takes less than five minutes to arrive in Singapore there is a world of difference of what you will see and experience. Apparently not too many years ago, Malaysia was ahead of Singapore regarding technology, infrastructure, and all else. Something drastically changed that and Singapore now has left Malaysia in a cloud of dust in that regard.
My friends live in a condo that sits only a block or so from the shoreline, so the view is spectacular.  This is what you see if you arise before dawn.

It is an incredible place. Over 5 million people call Singapore home on a landmass of only 247 square miles. I don't know how to visualize this, but have been told that it would be a slightly smaller area than the city of New York. To give a comparison I can relate to, Vancouver Island has a land mass of 12,500 square miles and about half a million people living there.  There are several smaller island included in this population, but the bulk of the population lives in Singapore, the main island. There are green spaces that give you the feeling of openness, but the housing is definitely crammed in with matchstick high-rises that you see everywhere. The cultural diversity makes it a great place to visit. With Chinese making up over 75% of the population, followed by a very distant second and third of Malay and Indian, in that order, you can get right into any of those cultures just by choosing a neighbourhood to immerse yourself into.  I did attend the Depavali celebrations there last year. The entire area of Little India was alight and alive with celebrations of their cultural heritage. I declined the Chinese New Year celebrations this year, but probably should experience that before I leave.    

There is your geography lesson for today.