MilesAstray | Singapore
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essays | places


Singapore

feeling out the urban future

 

Chinatown / Singapore · 2016   next door temple

 

 

 

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   Clean and secure to the point of sterility and police state, Singapore was an easy place to be as much as it was an easy place to leave. A city that made too much sense. Not much friction. It hung from the Malay peninsula like a raindrop, its own world in a bubble, dripping towards sci-fi futures, but not completely detached from the past it grew up in. Tall had replaced small in most parts, but there were soft pockets filled with little old things.

 

 

 

 

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a glimpse

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passages
   CONCRETE JUNGLE | Once, there was jungle that gave life. We replaced it with a concrete jungle that dispenses convenience. But the more humanity urbanizes, the more we paint grey over green, the more we need to foster a healthy relationship between towers and trees, before the slabs suffocate us. When we’re allowing vegetation to move back into our manmade sprawl, we’re not doing nature a favor. Our green friends don’t need us – never have, never will, always better off without us. We are the ones who cannot live without them. Greenery is nature’s most generous one-way street and Singaporeans are avant-gardists, going down that road with big steps and breaths. They must.



 

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The past was watching while they hoisted up the future.
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Downtown / Singapore · 2016   time's intersection

They were in the fast lane but driving at a moderate speed.
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Downtown / Singapore · 2016   from one time to another

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Sentosa / Singapore · 2016   universal



 

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Sentosa / Singapore · 2016   all eyes on him



 

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places / stories

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Singapore / A New Breath

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Downtown / Singapore · 2016   open walls



 


Gardens by the Bay / Singapore · 2016   banana



 


Gardens by the Bay / Singapore · 2016   tree-tech



 


It was good to see that tomorrow’s city welcomed green in an almost desperate way, begging it to crawl up and down facades, and sprawling all over roofs and balconies to keep everyone breathing a little longer.




 

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Japanese Garden / Singapore · 2016   houseboat or boathouse



 


Botanic Gardens / Singapore · 2016   in nature’s pavilion



 

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Marina Centre / Singapore · 2016   architectural twists


Chinatown / Singapore · 2016   heritage homage






With a first-class appetite, the city nation ate up the few bills in my jeans pocket, and I was as grateful as I was happy when one night after dinner I found that my Singaporean friends had slipped some money into my backpack after I had footed a tall dinner bill when it was my turn.



 

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Padang / Singapore · 2016   halogen eyes




 


Gardens by the Bay / Singapore · 2016   future's residents




 

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elsewhere

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