Life On A Tiny Red Dot - Common Sights And Sounds Of Singapore - Countries of the World

Countries of the World
Life On A Tiny Red Dot - Common Sights And Sounds Of Singapore

Housing In Singapore

As we all know, Singapore is very scarce in land and land here is always expensive compared to other countries. Thus, less people own terraces or bungalows. Still, most Singaporeans including me, prefer to live in flats. They are houses ranging from one-storey one-room flats to two-storey mansionettes(the ones I live in). They are built into buildings so that on the same piece of land, more people can live in a 14 storey building compared to having only one terrace and only a few people living in it. This provides more houses for all of us.

However, there are pros and cons to living in such flats. The pros are that you will be able to have neighbours. This gives you a lot of friends and when you are bored, you can always hop over to your neighbours house to play with the other children. You can also learn more about their religion if theirs is different from yours and even learn how to cook different kinds of food from them. Still, this is where the trouble comes. Some people are very insensitive to their surroundings and do very inconsiderate things like throwing litter over their 14th storey apartment or say hurtful things to their neighbours. This causes a lot of misunderstandings and sometimes, these fights turn violent. If people are more willing to accept each other's diffrences, these would not happen. Luckily, we are very kind and loving people and not these cases don't happen often. If not, the police will be terribly busy!

If you ask me, these flats are really cool because if you live in landed property, you will have limited friends unlike living in flats where you can have loads of friends up, down and around you. I have many classmates living around me too so if I ever need help in homework, I can always go to my friends' houses. This also allows us to hang easily as many flats have playgrounds and we can always go out to play there.
This is a picture of a block of HDB flats:

Picture: wikipedia.org

Picture: Wikipedia

This is a flat's typical corridor where we interact with our neighbours. We can even plant our plants there as long it does not obstruct others...

My School

In Singapore, all children are required by the government to go to school. School. A prison you might think. However, it is a lot of fun because we get to learn a lot of new stuff as well as get to know more friends. Here, most of us love this one lesson and that is P.E. which stands for physical education. It is synonymous to the word fun. We get to learn how to play basketball, soccer, Frisbee, badminton and more. We have lots of fun playing all these interesting games. Still, when there is fun, there is always suffering and that is the N.A.P.H.A test. Basically, it is an examination to make sure that your body in is tip-top shape. However, if your body is not in its best condition, get ready to suffer. You will have to pull-ups, sit-ups, shuttle run a hundred metres, jump a certain distance and run a gruelling mile. Those who do not meet the standards of these examinations will have to go for remedial classes to do some funny obstacle course and than fo for a retest. It was a nightmare as these remedials and retests would be conducted during recess and this was when we ate our breakfasts and played a round of football or basketball. Thus, we were all very scared of it.

The worst thing of all is that there are technical errors along the way and I was wronged of failing my one mile run and was forced to take remedial and a retest. I would never forget those "dark times".

Anyway, there is still something even nicer for us and that will be the computer lab lessons where we get to learn more on how to use certain software on a computer in the school. It was a lot of fun because once, we were asked to make an E-book on crocodiles. We had to do research and type them onto the E-book. How fun is that! We even got to make web pages of World War 2. These lessons were definitely very enriching.

Still, without teachers, there would be no school. Thus, teachers play a very important role in our education. We have many dedicated teachers teaching and guiding us along the way. They make lessons fun and interesting by using technology to engage us in the activities.

Picture: http://www.phpps.moe.edu.sg/

A Green Singapore

A garden city. This is a comment remark from tourists who come to Singapore. The first thing that greets them are the roads and they would've realised that the road dividers of expressways have bougainvillea or some other kind of plant planted on them and that there are always trees along the road sides. Then, you must be wondering how these trees grow so well. Well, there is a special organisation that takes care of all these plants and it is called the National Parks or Nparks. It is actually a government agency and it ensures that those plants and many others in parks are well maintained.

Wait a minute, parks? Yep, you did not see wrong. Parks. They manage parks to and it is no small task considering how many parks and expressways there are in Singapore. Still, they do a good job at it and this keeps people going to the parks to exercise and to picnic there. We can even watch concerts at the parks too. An example will be the Botanical Garden. Sounds scientific? Well, there is absolutely no science to it. Anyway, there is slope called the "Heliconia Valley" and at the bottom of it, a huge man-made pond surrounding a stadium only accessible using a bridge. People who have picnics there in the evening at certain dates will be in for a treat as there might be an orchestra playing there for free and you will be able to watch it while munching on sandwich, something you can't do in a theatre. Then, there might be a question and answer time when the orchestra prepare for their next performance. That means winning something nice for answering the question right. I have gone up that stage before in front everyone to answer the question. It was quite nice to do so on the big stage in front of so many people unless of course you have stage fright.

In singapore, we have nature reserves too like the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve which surrounds the Bukit Timah Hill. It is the tallest hill and the highest natural point in Singapore at an altitude of 163.63 metres (537 ft.). It is just a stones throw away from my house so I can walk to it and climb up the hill whenever I like but usually, I climb it on Sundays. There is also the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve where we can see mudskippers and birds that are not native to this country. This is because this mangrove swamp is a stopover for migratory birds leaving for some other country. there are two peak seasons in the year when they come to rest. However, I went there once during an excursion with the school but it was not the peak season and all that was there were pieces of bare land with only an occasional bird or two to spot. Anyway, this is a "rare glimpse" of a komodo dragon that I took a picture of when it was basking in the Sun:

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Life On A Tiny Red Dot - Common Sights And Sounds Of Singapore (Countries of the World) - Author : JY - Singapore

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last update : 2011-07-13

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