Tokyo and Singapore

I recently went on a business trip to Tokyo and Singapore.  Since I'm terrible about taking photos on work trips, here are my meager photos (yet plentiful observations) on both cities.

Tokyo
Tokyo is a massive city, sprawling for miles and miles. But its also an attractive city, with lots of parks, greenery, and temples dotted throughout.

The massive urban sprawl of Tokyo

The coolest window perch in my hotel room, overlooking Tokyo

The great thing about Tokyo is that it has a very unique culture to it - unlikely anything I've yet seen elsewhere in the world. Around every corner there's an assault on the senses -- lights, colors, cartoons, music, parks, skyscrapers, palaces, animation. The best example I can think of to show this is the "harajuku" fashion style of some of the younger teenage girls.  Its really hard to explain, but basically it is a fashion style where younger girls dress up in mixed and matched, loud, colorful, punk-style clothes.

I didn't take this, but it shows an example of the harajuku style

Looks like Halloween meets Japanese anime, right?  Much of Tokyo follows a similar theme - it may look kind of strange on the outside to us westerners, but its unique and full of soul.

Oh, and no summary of Tokyo is complete without a discussion of SUSHI. You won't find fancy combo rolls with non-standard ingredients as this was essentially an American adaptation.  Instead, sushi in Japan is simple yet fresh and well crafted, a winning combination of the necessary elements.

Singapore
Singapore is modern, orderly, and clean.  In this way, it reminds me a lot of Switzerland, except in Singapore, even spitting your gum out on the street or jaywalking will get you fined.  There are rules for everything and the citizens diligently follow them.

This sign in the subway station warns that heavy fines will be imposed for drinking or eating on the subway!

Similar to Switzerland, most of Singapore's commercial growth has been in the past 30ish years and is attributable to tax incentives offered by the Singaporean government to attract foreign investment.  While the city still maintains a lot of its historical areas, most of it is fairly new and is full of modern skyscrapers and flashy lights.  I ate dinner on top of the unique Marina Bay Sands building and was treated to stunning views over the city.

Marina Bay Sands building from afar (again not my photo…)

Looking out over the sunset at Marina Bay sands

One of Ryan's best friends from high school currently lives in Singapore, so he took me out for a night on the town and we ended up back at Marina Bay sands for another view of the skyline from the rooftop bar.  

Some other observations of Singapore I had were that (1) it was HOT HOT HOT and HUMID and (2) it has a lively expat community that loves to travel and explore Asia.  I can see why many people want to live here!