Fun facts about Singapore

• Since 1905, Singapore has changed it's time zones 6 times.
• Collectively, Singaporeans are the fastest pedestrians in the world, walking at a speed of about 6.15 km/h.
• You can actually sit and enjoy free movie screening 24/7 at the Changi Airport. CHeck out terminals 2 and 3 for 2D movies, and terminal 4 for 4D cinema.
• The youngest person in the world to have passed GCE 'O' level chemistry paper at the age of just 7 is from Singapore.
• There is an actual law against not flushing the public toilet after using it in Singapore and you will be fined 150 SGD if you get caught.
• 7th of November is officially celebrated as the National Tree Planting Day in Singapore, when everyone from diplomats to the common man plants trees. Some people even adopt trees as birthday or wedding presents.
• The lowest temperature recorded in Singapore was 19.4^oC, on the 31^st of January in 1934.

Vertical gardens

To make buildings as green as possible, Singapore set up ‘The Green Building Masterplan’. The goal is to make 80% of all buildings in Singapore, counted by square footage, green before 2030. They plan to achieve this goal in three steps. The first step was taken in 2009. It contained the following rule: All new buildings with a surface of over 2000m², should compensate for the same amount of surface in green in or on the building. This way no green that is occupied by the building gets lost! Buildings that exercise this ‘extra well’, so have more green surface than needed, can even win a prize! The fun thing about this, is that there are a lot of vertical gardens because of this compensated green.
Not only do these gardens look awesome, but they have several advantages. All plants on the side of the building make it cooler inside of the building. This means the airco has to work less hard.
On the 60 Chestnut Avenue is the ‘Tree House’, a complex of four flats. When this was built three years ago, it broke the record for biggest vertical garden consisting of no less than 2298m². Sadly, the record was broken again soon after. Nevertheless this building still looks very beautiful.

Holland in Singapore

Did you know... there are a number of famous places in Singapore with 'Holland' in their name? Holland Village, a small neighbourhood known for it's hip restaurants, cafes and nightclubs, set up by a small group of Dutch citizens around 1900. Other examples are Holland Road, Holland Avenue, Holland Drive and Holland Close. However, these are not named after the Netherlands, but after the Englishman Hugh Holland, a citizen of Singapore and aside from an architect also an amateur actor.

Food in Singapore

Did you know that Singapore is known as ‘The Food Capital of Asia’? Singapore has restaurants for all kinds of different cuisines. Name a cuisine and Singapore has a restaurant for it. Eating food is also a social activity for Singaporeans, which is the reason why Singapore has so many different options and places to get food with your friends and family. Singapore has ‘hawkers centres’, food courts with diverse cuisine for you to buy, mostly cheap(!) food. In these places you can relax on the terrace and enjoy the delicious food with your friends. The food courts are also present in shopping malls.
In addition to the hawkers centers, there are so-called ‘kopitiam’, which literally translates to coffee shop (‘kopi’ = coffee, ‘tiam’ = shop), where you can order small portions of food with your cup of coffee. Examples of food you can order are: egg with toast, coconut rice (nasi lemak) and fried flat rice noodles (char kway tiao). These kopitiams are so important in the Singaporean culture, that they have the saying ‘Coffee shop talks’, which refers to a group of people who are drinking their coffee while exchanging gossipat the kopitiam. So, when you are in Singapore, it would be a good idea to visit one of the many food courts for some good cheap food and order a ‘Kopi’ at a kopitiam to enjoy the nice weather and lovely food.