Raffles Hotel

Everybody has heard of Raffles Hotel but they may not know the address: 1 Beach Road.  If you should visit it (it's closed till late 2018 so don't go immediately), you may expect a beach - otherwise why that road name? Since Singapore became a republic the island has increased in size by 23%.  The new beach is miles away and the old one submerged  beneath new developments on land reclaimed from the sea.  Singapore is growing.  Its population is more than NZ's.

And much of it is beautiful, modern and exciting with a very young population.  Recently James Dyson bemoaned British students studying 'pointless' subjects like Arts and Humanities.  Next door to our hotel is the vast Lascalles University of the Arts,  walking to a restaurant last night we passed the equally large Singapore Arts University.  I wonder who's right?  Singapore feels as though it already well into the 21C, Britain doesn't.  To illustrate, has your home town got one of these. 

Every modern city needs a ship in the sky or it won't look like an SF movie set.  And Singapore also has megatrees based on 'Avatar' - says so in the brochure (sorry, forgot to take a picture!)


We visited the Garden on the Bay yesterday and could have stayed all day.  It puts most other botanical gardens we've seen in the shade: there are Chinese gardens,  Indian ones based on 'earth art'), and ones featuring plants from Malay myths.  All very multicutural, except the Indian nor Malay sources have nothing to do with gardens.  The Chinese is authentic.  Except many of the (highly symbolic) plants, especially the weeping willow, won't grow in Singapore and others have been substituted.

I'm not complaining but 'authentic' seems a very old fashioned virtue here.  We visited one of the great domes featuring mountain plants.  The dome contains an 8 storey mountain complete with 100ft high water fall. 

Don't ask if it's real, we're in a happily postmodern world and it works.  It's authentically inspiring.  Did you know Lego can grow?  

There is also a Lego Venus Fly Trap - but that is too scary.

And as paradox is a big postmodern thing, how does anyone know the way to a lost world?