Shopping in Singapore

Everything you do in Singapore is nice and easy...shopping as well.
Inside the malls, if there are not real flowers or plants, there are murals that give the illusion of being outdoors, in a park. 

Streets and a temple surronded by trees

You leave the hotel and dive into wide streets like Italian highways but with wide sidewalks that seems to have just been swept.
The order and the cleaness of the streets make you think of a unreal and uninhabitated place, but this is not the case: during the rush hours everything comes alive and many people move (neatly, of course) on the sidewalks.

Skyscrapers anb old buildings with flower beds

Each road is accompanied by green and constantly cured flower beds: very easy to see workers dressed us miners, complete with boots against injuries...that mow the lawn! This is in stark contrast to the Nepalese workers who dig the streets using the pick, with the helmet on their heads and flip flops on their feet!

Big lady's head

Big lady's feet

Everything is big and airy, the monument to the lady who does the shopping is four stories high!

Big lady

Mural with bike

The park-mural that simulates the day outdoor keeps a real bicycle!
To reach two different malls looking for kids' clothes, we had to take the metro.

Shoes dep

Who gave us the directions explained that it would be only one stop: very simple (for them, of course). Actually, once we understood that to be sure of the indications we had to write them, (they speak English very well, but with a strong Asian accent), it was really easy to reach our destination.

Fake food

From there, to choose among the many shops, which were the right ones for us, it was another matter.
Restaurants in the mall are super: you can find all sort of food. Sometimes can be difficult to understand what to eat according with the menu...No problem: you can see all the dishes on a shelf!

Escape from Kathmandu again

April again, time to get away from the dust and chaos, time to buy clothes for the child who grows ... direction Singapore! 
Going to the airport I could not resist to take a picture at the sidewalk markets, just before leaving. 

Kathmandu outside the airport

I knew that Singapore would be different, it is known as the Swiss of Asia, and there is definetly a reason for this. Everything is clean and tidy, traffic is regular and pubblic buses seems to be more than private cars.
Apart from the amount of people with Asian features around the city; and the wet heat that surrounds everything, you could be anywhere in the Western World: in a big city in northern Europe, in the States or in Canada.  
                             

Casual view of Singapore

                           It's a modern city with a strong government determinates to advance progress at all costs. A lot of  behaviors are forbidden: the funniest one is to chew.

You can not buy a single chewing gum in Singapore, and if you have your own one, you can not chew it. That is why the streets are so clean.

Mirrors and flowers in the metro

The metro's floor is as clear as a dancing ball, and the corridors have even flourished. 

 Useless to mention that the trains are perfectly on time and that there are instructions written everywhere... "Offer your sit", "keep your bag with you", "do not eat", "do not drink", "do not slounch", no, the last one was not written but it could be. Al least, even tired, you would not assume a relaxed attitude in such a perfect living room..oops metro!

Skyscrapers grow in the park

When you get a cab you know in advance how much the fare is, who is your driver and when you will reach your destination. Sitting comfortably on a leather seat, you listen contemporary music to a definetly acceptable volume, if the driver eats or drinks you do not hear any noise and the air inside the taxi has the smell of chemical deodorant. Every street, every neighborhood has a number of trees that makes you think you're in a park, even if you walk along the sidewalk or if you drive a four lane road.

And there are a lot of malls, there is a whole district for shopping!

Kathmandu

If you look up in Kathmandu, you see... the mountains?
Yes, if you are on a rooftop, in a rare day when the sky is crystal clear and the pollution is not so bad. 
No, if you look up in Kathmandu you will see electric cables. Many, whole skeins. Sometimes they are so heavy that they fall down and walking on the sidewalk becames dangerous. 

Operai al lavoro

  The wires are only one of the many dangers encountered by the brave pedestrians, along with stubborn cows, crazy bikers, cars everywhere.


The other day I was happy because I saw so many workers on the road, they had ladders and cars, they were well equipped and people stopped to watch that they finally removed a bit of useless wires.
But...
Look at the same street the day after.

Marciapiede dopo i lavori

No more workers, no more ladders, no more cars and a lot of cables! This time not only in the sky but everywhere.

Trappole per pedoni

Strada dopo lavori

   These strands are black and rigid ropes, they are difficult to climb over and they tend to roll up to the legs because thy are cut into long pieces. Yesterday,  little wise cow got stuck!

Anything can happen along the streets of Kathmandu!

Here In the pictures there is the calm giant, strolling around. I took these pictures this morning (Monday). He is a natural truck, slow and strong, careless of traffic and noise.
In addition to the usual chaos of the horns, this morning there was also the incessant noise of a siren that caught my attention, for I stopped and I could see Ganesh in flesh and blood moving slowly. 
As I was taking pictures, I realized that 

Ganesh che avanza imperioso

an ambulance was waiting behind the elephant.   After a few minutes the driver gave up, turning of the siren.

  

Ambulanza bloccata