Singapore fines for chewing gum, spitting on sidewalk, littering… no eating on trains hence cleanest city in world. But one place littering is encouraged at Long Bar in Raffles Hotel. 

Singapore started150 years ago. 

All marine traffic passes by Singapore. It is only 225 sq miles. Singapura, the former name … means lion city after someone saw what they thought was a lion but there are no lions here but maybe it was a tiger.  

1819 was the key to the birth of modern Singapore. With Stanford Raffles (who became governor for 4 year), worked for a British trading company. Only 2000 people lived here at the time….. the Dutch had colonized it. Stanfort Raffles appealed to a different sultan, (a different one had sided with the Dutch), to assist the British. It then became known as the Gibraltar of the east. He made it a free port or atleast less tax charged, which encouraged growth. With the 1822 Jackson plan … segregating populations making it easier to organize.  There are pockets of ethnicity to this day.

In 1869 with the opening of Suez, shipping took 9-10 less days from Britain to China. Then came the rubber industry (rubber balls for sports) then production of tires.   Someone (I didn’t get the name) stole 70,000 rubber tree seeds from the Amazon and took them to Kew Gardens in Britain and then to Gardens in Singapore and Malaysia and so began the rubber industry here.  

Raffles Hotel originally was built on Beach Drive. Because of reclaimed land it is no longer on the ocean’s edge, was built in 1890’s. In 1915  a bartender developed the Singapore Sling. …. He concocted it for womens consumption. It looked fruity (gin plus several other ingredients), so that they could enjoy drinks like the men. The bar at Raffles, sells between 800-1200 drinks per day now (which includes peanuts) at approximately $40 USD.  

In 1965, Singapore gained independence from Britain, an island city state. It now has a population of 6 million inhabitants.