Singapore

Watch this and you'll see the Singapore that most tourists see. It is beautiful and clean, and every bit as dynamic and crowded and colourful as this video makes it out to be.

But there are also other Singapores. The Singapore that the typical NUS student sees consists primarily of the NUS campus, followed by a depressing number of study rooms and computer labs and student lounges and (occasional) rooftop barbecues.

The Singapore that the typical Singaporean sees is very different from the rich places you see in the video above - their Singapore consists of HDB flats and void deck events like the occasional marriage, and old men playing chinese chess on stone benches. (Void decks are the empty spaces underneath HDP flats, designed to be community gathering points by the Government). This Singapore, is, I think, more realistic.

And there's also a dark Singapore, consisting of night clubs and KTV pubs and Thai bars, which my friends tell me range a spectrum of raciness. The old fashioned Chinese KTV pubs have older women singing and sitting with men, the younger Thai bars are covered in mist to hide vice (and other, erm, activities).

Singapore is beautiful, but only if you can afford it.