The First Day

With two connecting flights and a layover in Seoul, it took around 22 hours to travel from New York to Singapore.  All things considered the trip was a miracle of international travel, replete with every comfort and convenience (including an impressive amount of wine), but not even Korean Air can overcome jet lag.  So when I rubbed the sleep from red-rimmed eyes at 5am local time my first morning in Singapore, I was hardly ready to greet the day.  I fear I didn't make the best first impression on my flatmate Umar, a fellow international teacher from Britain who certainly didn't deserve to deal with my grouchy, jet-lagged self all day.  But he bore the pain with unfailing courtesy, and even took me on a tour of some of Singapore's showier attractions, on the grounds that once school started we wouldn't have time to think, let alone play tourist.  And I discovered, once I stopped focusing on how exhausted and grumpy I was, that the hype is all true: Singapore is one hell of a place.

I saw too much to talk about it all here, but the highlight of the tour was unquestionably the Gardens by the Bay, a collection of three parks built entirely on reclaimed land.  Our goal that first night was to see the Supertrees, a grove of vertical gardens built to resemble giant trees, which use technology to mimic the ecological functions of trees (I thought that the only function of trees was to provide shade, and that they could be easily replaced by a building or an umbrella, but my more scientifically inclined classmates have told me that I'm mistaken... and also that I'm an idiot).  The Supertrees have water catchment technology, air intake and purification, photovoltaic cells, and - I'm sure - a squad of Superhamsters running on wheels to generate electricity.

Every night the grove of Supertrees puts on a light show, and thanks to Umar's master plan, we arrived just in time to see it.  Beautiful, unearthly music filled the air, and the trees lit up with a multitude of colors that flashed and changed with the song.  It was unlike anything I've ever seen - while watching it, you could forget that you were in a bustling metropolis known for its technology and banking, and think that you were in another world.

In fact, my inner geek was having a field day, convinced that I had somehow been transported to the lush jungle world of Pandora.  I had to concentrate to keep from looking around nervously, worried that mercenary gunships were coming to destroy the Hometrees.

All in all it was an amazing night, and I can see already that Singapore is a gift to the imagination.  As I settle in and become less of a tourist, I hope I don't lose the sense of wonder that I've experienced during my first few days here.  After wrangling with the Ministries of Education and Manpower over my Employment Pass and other bureaucratic necessities, it's easy to see how I could begin to take this city for granted, and focus only on the little annoyances.  That would be a shame, because even from the little that I've seen so far, Singapore is a breathtakingly beautiful city, and I am so incredibly lucky to be able to live here for a while.