For once I had a flight at a comfortable time and didn't need to get up in the middle of the night to catch it. The flight was on one of the bare bones budget airlines, but it was only for a couple hours, so it didn't really matter.
After getting through customs and getting my bags I took Singapore's thorough metro system across the city (/country) to near my hostel. Since it was already dark out by this point I got a taxi for the last 500m since I didn't feel like struggling around trying to find the place in the dark. There was nobody at the hostel to check me in, but they'd left things set up for me and after calling the manager I got everything worked out. I spent the evening deep in discussion with a couple of the other hostel guests and did a little research on what to do in the city.
Singapore is a really fascinating place. It's one of the few true city-states left in the world, and for such a tiny place generates a lot of wealth. Their aggressive immigration policies make it incredibly diverse, with 4 official languages and a real mix of culture and religion. The combination of growing population, limited space and lots of money also lead to some pretty awesome public works projects. The architecture is wild, and the the geography is.. flexible. Need more land? Build some new islands! Need more fresh water? Build a new lake! Need a mountain for a high elevation garden? Build something crazy! Since I haven't actually been to these places yet I'll stay away from too much detail at this point, but all shall be answered as I explore the city over the next week.
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