Written 100 years ago, many of us will know the song “On a Little Street in Singapore” from Glenn Miller, Bob Dylan or Manhattan Transfer. Today, it’s the attraction of those “Little Streets” that draw us to this Island State. Those “Little Streets” are the result of Singapore’s multi-cultural, colonial and wartime past and make it a destination in its own right rather than just a stopover. Being uniquely placed at the tip of the Malay peninsula, at the cross roads of trade routes it has been the meeting point for Asian and European cultures. British influence is clearly evident as many of us are familiar with the Raffles Hotel named after Sir Thomas Raffles who brought the British to the island and the Anderson Bridge named after the Governor of the Region in 1910.
Due to its size and history there is so much to see and do, it’s all very easy to access and so much can be packed into such a short space of time. On the one hand you have traditional Chinatown and on the other the Sands Skypark and shopping in Orchard Street. Singapore’s nickname is “City in a Garden” and it’s possible to get away from it all at the National Orchid Garden and the Jurong Bird Park which home to 400 species of birds.