Observations of a Singaporean
There are a few things that I discovered upon arrival to the UK, namely the city of London.
First thing I observed was the dry air. Almost immediately you could feel the loss of humidity in the air that you often see in the northern part of the world compared to the equator. After spending a few days, my lips were beginning to crack and my skin become a pale white as they began to dry up and peel off, unaccustomed to the weather. It was not all that bad though. My face was beginning to dry up, and with it the pimples and the thick disgusting layer of oil that I am so used to before (only to have it return upon my arrival to Jakarta).
As I stepped out of the airport and towards the suburban area of the city, I start to notice that the architecture is very different to that of Asian ones. Compare the architecture below:
With Singapore being a relatively young country which has just celebrated it's 48th birthday (Happy National Day!), it would only be expected of the country to comprise of modern architecture. England, with more than a thousand years of history, decided to have kept it's traditional design. With the Eurozone issue, it would be more wise for the government to invest in something more effective to revive the economy than to modernize building architecture. Plus, many tourists (such as myself) enjoy the traditional architecture that one from the other side of the world is not used to and often would act as a tourist attraction in itself. Rather effective idea no? Unfortunately, the people living centuries before did not predict the arrival of the automobile and as a result the streets are exceptionally narrow, leading to many areas having a one lane, two way street road (it's a miracle we found no traffic jam anywhere within the city)
Almost every building in London is ancient; we could go back hundreds of years before and the same building may have stood at the exact same location, serving another purpose. We could go through every single building, but of course that would take too long. However it does ensure tourists that they would never be bored marvelling and wondering what the house could have served as in it's previous life. Alas it would take a lot of time for someone to pull up information about a building in particular, which is why often in tour groups many commentaries stick to the ones that are slightly more interesting than it's surrounding counterparts.
You can find people in England on both sides of many spectrums; this can be in terms of wealth, view towards life and attitude. Often I have seen rich people in sports cars during long drives and homeless people as you near the city center. Fortunately many are humanitarian and it is not uncommon to see someone offering freshly cooked food and drink to homeless people rather than money; as my mother likes to say "When offering good intentions, spending time and putting in the effort to help people is more valuable than money. Tenfold." (Spending time in the soup kitchen is much more harder, yet valuable, than donating money to the poor, which only takes a split second to do).
Lastly, the English seem to be pigeon lovers. Along the pathway on a park there would no doubt be someone feeding breadcrumbs to birds despite new laws against it, especially in the morning and evening periods. The pigeons are fearless compared to the ones in Asian countries, where many often do not have time for such "mindless tasks" as they would put it as. In the UK the pigeons would walk up so close to you that you could accidentally step on it! And even as you lift your feet up they would not move an inch! As though they were invincible! It couldn't have been any more different than the way the dodo bird would have acted before. There were no, if not few, predators and food was available everywhere you turn! I always learned to watch my step whenever crossing a park. You may just step on a pigeon!
First thing I observed was the dry air. Almost immediately you could feel the loss of humidity in the air that you often see in the northern part of the world compared to the equator. After spending a few days, my lips were beginning to crack and my skin become a pale white as they began to dry up and peel off, unaccustomed to the weather. It was not all that bad though. My face was beginning to dry up, and with it the pimples and the thick disgusting layer of oil that I am so used to before (only to have it return upon my arrival to Jakarta).
As I stepped out of the airport and towards the suburban area of the city, I start to notice that the architecture is very different to that of Asian ones. Compare the architecture below:
With Singapore being a relatively young country which has just celebrated it's 48th birthday (Happy National Day!), it would only be expected of the country to comprise of modern architecture. England, with more than a thousand years of history, decided to have kept it's traditional design. With the Eurozone issue, it would be more wise for the government to invest in something more effective to revive the economy than to modernize building architecture. Plus, many tourists (such as myself) enjoy the traditional architecture that one from the other side of the world is not used to and often would act as a tourist attraction in itself. Rather effective idea no? Unfortunately, the people living centuries before did not predict the arrival of the automobile and as a result the streets are exceptionally narrow, leading to many areas having a one lane, two way street road (it's a miracle we found no traffic jam anywhere within the city)
Almost every building in London is ancient; we could go back hundreds of years before and the same building may have stood at the exact same location, serving another purpose. We could go through every single building, but of course that would take too long. However it does ensure tourists that they would never be bored marvelling and wondering what the house could have served as in it's previous life. Alas it would take a lot of time for someone to pull up information about a building in particular, which is why often in tour groups many commentaries stick to the ones that are slightly more interesting than it's surrounding counterparts.
You can find people in England on both sides of many spectrums; this can be in terms of wealth, view towards life and attitude. Often I have seen rich people in sports cars during long drives and homeless people as you near the city center. Fortunately many are humanitarian and it is not uncommon to see someone offering freshly cooked food and drink to homeless people rather than money; as my mother likes to say "When offering good intentions, spending time and putting in the effort to help people is more valuable than money. Tenfold." (Spending time in the soup kitchen is much more harder, yet valuable, than donating money to the poor, which only takes a split second to do).
Lastly, the English seem to be pigeon lovers. Along the pathway on a park there would no doubt be someone feeding breadcrumbs to birds despite new laws against it, especially in the morning and evening periods. The pigeons are fearless compared to the ones in Asian countries, where many often do not have time for such "mindless tasks" as they would put it as. In the UK the pigeons would walk up so close to you that you could accidentally step on it! And even as you lift your feet up they would not move an inch! As though they were invincible! It couldn't have been any more different than the way the dodo bird would have acted before. There were no, if not few, predators and food was available everywhere you turn! I always learned to watch my step whenever crossing a park. You may just step on a pigeon!
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