Yesterday Char and I had lunch with one of Char's friends and classmates from India. The friend and her husband have been living in Singapore for a couple of years. We were chatting about how highly regulated life in Singapore is. The husband joked that Singapore is a fine city - a fine for littering, a fine for smoking, a fine for spitting, etc. I later saw a T-shirt to that effect.
Speaking of fines, our hosts were telling us about the mosquito control program. There are hundreds of inspectors. If you get bit by a mosquito you can call and an inspection will be carried out in the area. If larvae are found on your property, you will be fined hundreds of dollars. The program seems to be working as we haven't seen a mosquito yet. Good thing, as dengue fever can be a problem. Singapore has a great public transportation system. That is a good thing as well because owning a vehicle here is a very expensive proposition. In order to limit the number of vehicles on the road you are required to obtain a certificate of entitlement before buying a car. A limited number of COEs are issued each month and you have to be a successful bidder in order to obtain one. The average cost is something like C$50,000. A COE expires after 10 years so you need to purchase another one if you want to maintain ownership. There are very few older cars here and a whole lot of expensive ones. It seems like every third car is a BMW. All that revenue may explain why the government can afford to keep the lines on the roads freshly painted. Finally, I have added some pictures of where we are staying in Sinapore. The first and last pictures show our bedroom - it is two level affair. It is a very nice home in a great area. You can click on these pictures to get a larger version. I pulled the pictures off the BnB website - www.wimdu.com Comments are closed.
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AuthorIn January, 2012, Curt and Char left their jobs in Canada to spend four months travelling around the world. Archives
May 2012
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