This city - this country - has embraced such impressive design feats that it's not surprising so many people want to come here to work, live and explore.
Today we strolled from our hostel along the river towards the Bay Gardens. Along the way I continued to be impressed at the way this place has woven together such industrious history with today's modern financial and globalized needs and wants. We walked by a statue honouring Sir Thomas Raffles, the British man who is credited for "founding Singapore in 1819" and his "genius and perception changed the destiny of Singapore from an obscure fishing village to a great seaport and modern metropolis." Obviously, this Brit led the way in developing something that has certainly not given up it's desire to be great. I'm also impressed that there doesn't seem to be a stench of resentment towards the colonizers here (or maybe there is and I don't see it).
Anyway, once we were done being impressed by this, we walked to the other side of it and visited Singapore's top rated attraction, Gardens by the Bay.
I have never been more moved by a park. The contemporary geniuses of Singapore have found a way to beautifully blend human creation with Godly creation. Plants, water, stone, steel, lights, plastic, and throngs of visitors mesh together into something really graceful. It's like the Haliburton Sculpture Forest on steroids. Super steroids!
The light today was incredibly flat, so the pictures lack a lot of colour. The scale is also a challenge to capture, but here are few images anyway.
This evening I saw some more beautiful sculptures in the city when I had a private walk.
We'll be back.