2025 Donna & Dana's China Trip : Day 24; Guangzhou / Singapore (Mon; 21 Apr)

The tours are over, we'll stop in Singapore for 2 days and 3 nights on our way home. Today, by and large, was a travel day.

Today's plan:

Didi ride to the Guangzhou airport
~ 4 hr flight to Singapore
Taxi to Marina Bay Sands Hotel
Check out "what's the big deal" at the MBS

We were up early for our last buffet breakfast in China. After breakfast we brought our luggage down, checked out and met our Didi driver at 7:30 for the 2+ hour drive to Guangzhou Baiyun airport. Our flight was at 1:25 PM and it was an international flight which meant check-in was 3 hours before which would put us at 10:30-ish. So, about an hour margin for traffic should work... No drama, we made the airport in plenty of time. We even had time for an en-route biology break where our Didi driver provided Donna with all the necessities, which are not commonly found in public bathrooms in China. He also bought us refreshments - I had coffee flavored coconut water. Very nice of the driver, something we had not experienced before (or since...).

It was your basic airline flight to Singapore, well, almost basic. They confiscated my "TSA approved" multi-tool at security. Strange since it had passed through 3 other Chinese security checks but what's one to do? The flight itself was good and a 4 hour flight seemed like a walk in the park compared to getting to China. We arrived in Singapore, got our bags then met our airport-to-hotel transport driver that Donna had scheduled using Viator over a month before.

The ride to the Marina Bay Sands took the better part of an hour and we peppered our driver, who spoke English, with questions about Singapore. Some fun facts (that started with the driver's answers but were later augmented by Wikipedia);

Singapore was under direct British control from the late 1800's until 1959 (except while it was occupied by Japan during WWII);

From 1959 to 1965 it was part of the federation of Malaysia;
It became an independent sovereign country in 1965.

Most of the land in Singapore is owned by the state;

Although some land is privately held as "estates in fee simple", it appears that the government can acquire any land "for public development" and is only required to compensate the owner on the basis of the land's pre-development value - ouch!

It is illegal to chew gum in Singapore ($100K fine or 2 yrs in jail; unless it's for medicinal purposes, like nicotine gum);
It is also illegal to:

Spit ($1000 fine)
Feed pigeons ($500 fine)
Eat on public transportation ($500 fine)
Connect to somebody else's Wifi ($10K fine or 3 yrs in jail)
and many more...

To own a car in Singapore one has to acquire a Certificate of Entitlement. The total number of cars on the road in Singapore is limited ~600,000 (for a population of 5.9 million). COEs are issued as they become available (meaning the 10-year certificate was not renewed) using a bidding process and generally cost more than the car itself. As an example in Jan 2023, for a car with an engine larger than 1600cc or more powerful than 97 kW (130 hp), only 410 COEs were available and the going bid cost was $108,000 - ouch!

So, while Singapore seems to be overly restrictive, the plus side is that there is virtually no homelessness and common crime is near-zero (I specify "common" crime because I don't think/know how Singapore deals with "white collar crime" which, with so much money flowing in, around and through Singapore, has to be present in some form...). Regarding common crime, the driver told us "there are cameras everywhere" (although not to the degree we saw in China) and if you commit a crime - say steal a bicycle - the police show up at your residence a couple of days later and it's off to the hoosegow.

We arrived at the Marina Bay Sands about 8 PM and checked in to the nicest room we've ever been in. Donna made the reservations so I don't know (and don't want to know) how much it cost but I can only imagine that one night was more than a month's wages way back in the days of this city-boy... We quickly took in the view (see below) then, at our son Jared's recommendation who's been there twice, made our way down to the food court in the mall adjacent to the MBS (and accessed via a direct-connect tunnel). I think we thought we were in a hawker centre but we weren't really. Anyway, there were literally over 100 food vendors and we could each choose our dinner separately. Donna decided on soft shell crab over Singapore noodles and I decided on Chinese banquet. And if you believe that I have some beach-front property in Nevada I'd like to sell you... (I had blackened salmon...). We strolled around the mall a bit, we didn't see anything at Gucci et al that tickled our fancy so it was back to the hotel. It had been long day and tomorrow was going to be busy...