Singapore

This destination is linked to a "business" trip that in recent years has led me to get to know city-states like Singapore itself and other Eastern places particularly interesting from a commercial point of view, like Shanghai in China, Taipei in Taiwan and Daegu in South Korea. Singapore (together with Shanghai), of all these, is probably the destination that struck and impressed me the most. Landing in mid-November at its hyper-futuristic airport, I was welcomed by a real botanical garden of orchids that invaded the corridors; a man almost lying on the ground, working hard, was removing every stain from the carpet we were walking on (imagine the coming and going of an airport and the carpet as flooring!!!). Out in the open air.....but what air!!!!! In mid-November the humidity level was sky-high and the barometer read 92%: crazy.

The following days were spent visiting a trade fair but, as soon as we got out at 3/4 in the afternoon, I devoted myself to visiting the city. Backpack on my shoulders through the streets, I came across a series of truly out-of-this-world circumstances. Let me say first that Singapore is, or rather was, the world capital of finance with a truly very high per-capita income. The services for the demanding population are truly high-level, but some of them.... border on the maniacal. One of these (how funny, I'd taken a while to understand what that gentleman was doing) is a "municipal worker" who, armed with an insecticide spray, went plant by plant removing all the ants!! The skyline rising over the bay is as modern as you could imagine and, as for historical and public monuments, almost everything is dedicated to Sir Stamford Raffles, considered the true author of this city's fortunes.

The heat and humidity were truly oppressive but, given the population of 7 million inhabitants, I would have expected more people around. The answer was "they're all underground"; in fact, to escape the heat, an underground pedestrian network has been created, connected to the metro, that reaches the main places of the city. For me Singapore meant living for a few days in the city of the future and it allowed me to have my first contacts with different cultures in the same city; for the first time in fact I had to deal with the scents of the Chinese market in Chinatown and I entered a Hindu temple in Little India. NOT TO BE MISSED: the spectacular Underwater World on Sentosa island, probably the largest "aquarium" in the world, and the orchid garden.