Currency: 1 Singapore dollar (SGD) = 100 cents

Opening hours: Most shops in the city are open from 10am until 8pm or 9pm every day of the week.

Tourism Website: Visit Singapore

Newspapers: The Straits Times, The New Paper, The Business Times

Emergency numbers: Police 999, Emergency/Ambulance/Fire Brigade 995

Singapore Visitors Centre (Tourism information) locations:

Singapore Visitors Centre at Liang Court
177 River Valley Road,
Level 1, Liang Court Shopping Centre
Tel: + 65 6336 7184
Open daily 10am-10pm

Singapore Visitors Centre at Orchard
Cairnhill Road / Orchard Road Crossing
Open daily 8am-10.30pm

Singapore Visitors Centre at the Airport
Changi International Airport Arrivals Hall
Terminal 1 and 2

In an announcement by the International Olympic Committee Chairman on 21st February 2008, Singapore was voted by the Committee as the most attractive location to host the inaugural games.

Singapore boasts a sterling track record for organizing and hosting very large events on a global level, and has strong experience and capabilities to manage the first Youth Olympic Games and ensure that it is a success.

Singapore’s bid was strengthened by the fact of:

• Several well maintained sporting facilities
• A world-class transport network
• Adequate and comfortable accomodation
• A wide variety of leisure, arts and cultural facilities and activities
• A very safe environment for youth
• Excellent connectivity with the rest of the world

Singapore is also a very young nation, founded only in 1965, and has always been a melting pot for the South East Asia region where a variety of cultures, languages and backgrounds live, work and play together.

However, most importantly, it was the passion and commitment of the Singapore Youth Olympic Games bid team and the strong support of Singaporeans from all walks of life that swayed the vote towards the city state.

Singapore is clean, safe and efficient and the inhabitants are as proud of this as they are of the city’s great financial heart beating around the clock. The harbour is the busiest in the world and capital flows on the stock exchange. All the world’s banks, insurance companies and investors are represented here.

In 200 years, Singapore has gone from being a deserted island to an eminent industrial nation and major financial power, as reflected in the flourishing townscape.

A good start for anyone who wants to experience Singapore today, with its mixture of old and new, is to have a drink on Boat Quay or Clarke Quay in the late afternoon and evenings. The renovated leisure districts are packed with bars and restaurants. Many people from the financial district meet in these 2 spots after work to socialise, as do many locals and visitors on both weekday nights and weekends.

Another popular destination is the Raffles Hotel, built, and newly renovated, in the Colonial style. Is there anything more embedded in mystic than to enjoy a Singapore Sling in the hotel’s Long Bar? It is the perfect way to experience Singapore and perhaps the very best way of all to experience the meeting between the city’s exciting history and modern, progressive outlook.

Anyone who is looking for the original Singapore might like to head for the crowds of Chinatown where fortune-tellers, calligraphers and temple visitors are a permanent feature of everyday life.

In Little India you will find the best Indian sari fabrics and lots of exciting spices. Don’t miss the small shops on Arab Street either, nor should you forget the quaint Malay Village community just off Geylang.

This video was made during the deadly SARS epidemic that affected the world in early 2000. Singapore was especially vigilant given that it was so closely located in the epicentres of the outbreak in Asia.

Singers: Jadani Sridhar, Asha Edmund, Emma Yong, Lily Ann Rahmat, Jai
Wahab, Shabir Mohammed, Sebastian Tan, Gani Karim
Music & Lyrics by: Jimmy Ye

Lyrics:

Will you make this island
Amazing in all ways?
Surprises every corner,
Delightful nights and days.

Will you take this country
And turn it from a place
To a home that greets you
With smiles on every face?

Will you come on this brave journey?
Will you help to make it real?
Will you write us grand new stories,
Songs that everyone will feel?

So… Will you swim the current?
Will you scale new heights?
Will you make it happen,
Will you let your dreams take flight?
And… Will you make the difference?
Will you seize the day?
Will you live each moment,
Will you dare to find new ways?

Will you take this city
And turn it into a place
To a home that greets you
With smiles on every face

Will you come on this brave journey?
Will you help to make it real?
Will you write us grand new stories,
Songs that everyone will feel?

So… Will you swim the current?
Will you scale new heights?
Will you make it happen,
Will you let your dreams take flight?
And… Will you make the difference?
Will you seize the day?
Will you live each moment,
Will you dare to find new ways?

Dare to find, dare to find, dare to find new ways!

Hope you love it as much as I have loved it.