So it's been a couple of days and here are my first impressions...
I see this city as an unpolished form of Singapore. Unpolished, yet refined, rustic, yet appealing. It's like Singapore in many ways - excellent infrastructure, congested traffic, a ballooning international population, mild (harmless?) racism. Yet it's so much better in many other ways - beautiful colonial buildings bordering every street in central London, working fireplaces, John Wesley's home, linguistic superiority, a thriving arts scene, accental sensuality, an authentic and natural cosmopolitan feel, harmony in diversity, a delicate mishmash of the traditional and the modern, the reality and harshness of life that every child should face while growing up, political maturity, communal spirit, freedom to express, freedom to choose, freedom to accept, freedom to reject.
We'll see....
I see this city as an unpolished form of Singapore. Unpolished, yet refined, rustic, yet appealing. It's like Singapore in many ways - excellent infrastructure, congested traffic, a ballooning international population, mild (harmless?) racism. Yet it's so much better in many other ways - beautiful colonial buildings bordering every street in central London, working fireplaces, John Wesley's home, linguistic superiority, a thriving arts scene, accental sensuality, an authentic and natural cosmopolitan feel, harmony in diversity, a delicate mishmash of the traditional and the modern, the reality and harshness of life that every child should face while growing up, political maturity, communal spirit, freedom to express, freedom to choose, freedom to accept, freedom to reject.
We'll see....