So on our way home now but in an effort to delay the inevitable return to a British winter for as long as possible we have chosen to spend four nights in Singapore to explore this city/country (as a city-state Singapore is both a city and a country). Although I have been to Singapore before it was for either work or to watch the Grand Prix and therefore I have never had the opportunity to truly explore it and on doing so what has struck me most are the contrasts: you have incredible natural spaces some of which are curated such as the botanic gardens and others natural such as the MacRitchie Nature Trail & Reservoir Park.
Then you have the incredible Supertree Grove in Marina Bay, twelve architectural ‘supertrees’ that rise up to 50-metres above the ground that as well as being amazing architectural structures in their own right are also living vertical gardens designed to showcase a vast range of tropical plants. Furthermore being Singapore it isn’t enough simply to design and erect twelve 50-metre tall architectural living trees, they also need to add some ‘bling’ by incorporating a light show with music.
You then have the obscene levels of conspicuous consumption; whether it be the countless number of shopping malls each with numerous high end designer outlets from the likes of Prada, Louis Vuitton and Chanel or the attendant food halls full of a multitude of food outlets churning out mountains of food 18-hours a day. Singapore is a fantastic city but it lays bare all that is both right and wrong in our society today; amazing human endeavor, creation and care of the natural world alongside extravagant profligacy rubbing shoulders with poverty and desperation.
So that’s it, the end of a fantastic trip and one I feel very privileged to have been able to undertake. Time to return to the UK and plan the next one.