Explore the Gardens By The Bay in Singapore

This week’s “Wicked Cool” find is the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Singapore is one of my favorite cities in the world. I first visited there in the late 1980s when I was working for Texas Instruments. We had built a set of system modeling and code generation tools which we were selling under the commercial brand IEF (for Information Engineering Facility). A version of the IEF is still in active use around the world under the Broadcom Gen brand. I worked on the development team, helped set up our consulting team, and then got the opportunity to build our business in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

Singapore was a very easy place to travel to and stay as an American in the late eighties and early nineties. It was a modern, vibrant, multicultural city. Everything always just seemed to work—from immigration as you arrived at the airport to the taxis and trains. English is a primary language, so it was always easy to get where you were going or order what you wanted to eat. I was definitely a warm-weather person, so I loved being in the tropics. Despite a tremendous amount of development on the island, there was lush foliage and flowers growing everywhere. The most difficult thing I remember was how cold I got whenever I went indoors since every place kept the AC very cool.

Gardens By The Bay Singapore Ariel View

The architecture in Singapore always fascinated me. There were still lots of examples of colonial-era architecture alongside modern skyscrapers and factories. The Raffles Hotel reopened after a major renovation around this time. I haven’t had the opportunity to visit Singapore over the past fifteen years, but I am always amazed when I see images, videos, or shows of how the city has continued to grow. One of these I came across recently is this video about the Gardens By The Bay. This 250-acre park is definitely “wicked cool.”

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