Singapore : At First Sight

SINGAPORE if we hear the name then the first thing that comes to our mind is it is one of the developed countries in the world with extraordinary facilities to its citizens and attracts millions of tourists from around the world.

There are lots of history behind its development which I planned to write in next blog. Here I will give my view as it is I experienced.

When we are just some 1000 of meters to Singapore Changi Airport, we could see ships that are embarking and disembarking from Singapore port. When we approach still further, we could see beautiful man-made landscape gardens and water bodies.

Ariel view of Singapore

As Singapore is known for its meritocracy, we could see those starting from Airport itself. They have electronic rating machine everywhere in airport right from washroom to immigration check counters with the name of the person responsible in it. We could rate based on how we feel and on our experience.

Singapore is a multilingual, multicultural & multiracial country. The official business language is English but still people speaks different languages. Below is the 'Welcome' written in different languages which the Singapore people speaks

Changi Airport

I should be honest to say that the Tamil used here are more proper and less mix of English words. For example I have seen they used 'தளவரிசை' instead of  'Platform' in MRT startions.

One tip what I could give is lots of useful tourist information pamphlets are available in airport, pick the ones which are helpful.

Temperature in Singapore is always measured in ranges between Hot, Hotter or Hottest. I was carrying one jacket thinking it was December but that was of no use. We hardly get natural wind, so they installed giant fans in all public places. Always good to carry facewash cream, sunscreen protection cream and a towel with us when we are going out. I have seen many use small electric mobile fan which when attached to mobile, starts giving breeze. Once we get inside bus, MRT or malls then it will be cold as air-conditioners are installed. The best attire to roam around to Singapore is thin shorts and a tshirt.

Giant Fan installed in one of the MRTs

Transportation facility is well connected with all the parts of the country as expected in any developed country. All the parts of the cities are well connected by metro trains with five different lines and operated by SMRT. And the buses are operated by SBSTransit with high frequency. The best way to pay for these transportation are by using ezLink smart card which can be recharged and can be used again, the minimum amount to recharge is S$10. We can get a copy of the MRT map from ticketing counter which helps us to plan our MRT route. One problem with bus service, they do not mention what the next stop is, so either we should count the number of stops we should cross before our destination or we should ask for help from co-passengers. Apart from MRT and buses, numerous number of taxis are available.

Clockwise from the top
1. City Bus
2. Taxi
3. Inside MRT
4. ChinaTown MRT station

Number of personal vehicles are very very less in numbers and the reasons beings are

1. Very high vehicle import tax, more than 100% of the vehicle cost
2. Restriction on Certificate of Entitlement licence. Again this can exceed 100% of car value 
3. The life of the card should not exceed 10 years. This restriction makes Singapore second largest exporter of used cards next to Japan.
4. Toll pricing. Singapore is the first country to introduce the ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) system. Thus in taxis we could see ERP charges in the bill, if we went via toll roads.

Housing for residents are managed by Singapore's Housing and Development Board. People cannot own a house but they can take it on lease for 99 years from the government. There are large varieties of flat types for all housing budgets. All apartments comes with amenities like play ground, small convention center and other basic amenities.

Housing units constructed by HDB

Applying for Singapore Visa

This post is intended for Indian citizens who plans to visit Singapore.

There are two options through which we can apply for a Singapore tourist visa

(1) SAVE (Submission of Application for Visa Electronically)

In this option, we should know someone in Singapore who holds the citizenship or Permanent Residence with valid SingPass account

Below is the link from where a SingPass holder can apply for visa electronically on behalf of traveler

https://save.ica.gov.sg/save-public/

(2) Applying through High Commission & Consulate

We have Singapore High Commission in New Delhi and Consulate offices in Chennai & Mumbai. If applying from Bangalore, then visa application will go to Chennai.

For applying Singapore tourist visa, we can approach any of the local travel agents. I inquired many travel agents and finally felt like ThomasCook (http://www.thomascook.in/) is more transparent in their fees.

We can make payment to ThomasCook online and can print the receipt and submit it along with the documents to the nearest ThomasCook office. I went to their office in M.G.Road, Bangalore. It is just adjacent to the M.G. Road metro station.

The list of documents that we need to carry:

1. Passport with minimum 6 months validity
2. Form 14A (here we need to mention where we are going to stay, how long the duration of stay, purpose etc)
3. Address proof (If in case the address in passport is different from current address)
4. 2 Photographs with white background and 80% face
5. Covering Letter (Checkout in Google for sample letter else ThomasCook people only will prepare one)
6. Copy of onwards and return ticket

Approximate cost of applying for Tourist Visa is 1900 INR, this includes Embassy Fees of S$30, VFS charge 150 INR and ThomasCook service charge 300 INR.

Minimum time to get the Visa is approximately 3 working days. I submitted it on Thursday and I got it back on following Tuesday.

Info: We often us the term Embassy, High Commission and Consulate in synonymous. Below link highlight the differences

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-high-commission-consulate-and-embassy

In both the case i.e., whether we receive it through SAVE or through consulate, our visa will be a print out in A4 size paper and nothing will be pasted in our passport. And we have to show that eVisa during departure.

Buying foreign currencies:

There are many agents selling foreign currencies within the city, it is always best to buy in the city rather buying in Airports or converting after landing in new land. I browsed through HDFC Forex, SBI Foreign Traveler Card and ThomasCook Borderless prepaid card. Finally I decided to go with ThomasCook, the reason being was their simple formalities, quick work and easy reload option.

Four things to be careful while buying a prepaid card

1. It should be either Visa or MasterCard as it is accepted worldwide by almost all merchants
2. How easy the reload option is. We cannot predict precise expenditure that we expect in new country, if incase we are running out of money then it should be easy to topup the card with simple procedure.
3. How easy the refund of excess money in the card once we are back. Also important thing to note here is whether they add additional charges.
4. How much the ATM withdrawal charges

One tip I would give is do not buy this card on Saturday as the market is closed they will fix a higher rate.

ushare in MIPS platform

If looking for a light-weight DLNA Media Server (DMS) to run in embedded device then ushare is one of the good option.

http://ushare.geexbox.org/

 The development for ushare is stopped now but still the version is good to bring up a DMS quickly. Ushare depends on libupnp and libdlna modules.

http://pupnp.sourceforge.net/
http://libdlna.geexbox.org/

The objective of this post is to mention how to cross compile ushare successfully with its dependency for MIPS architecture.

(1) Dependency Matrix

Very first thing is the dependency matrix which I could not see anywhere and spent more time to identify that

ushare - ushare-1.1a

libpupnp - libupnp-1.6.19

libdlna - libdlna-0.2.4

ffmpeg - ffmpeg-1.0.10

(2) Cross compile libpupnp

(3) Cross compile ffmpeg

Export the toolchain location in PATH environment variable.

#export PATH=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/toolchain/mips4k_gcc_x86_linux_22/bin/:$PATH

#./configure --prefix=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/ffmpeg --enable-cross-compile --cross-prefix=mipsel-linux- --arch=mipsel --target-os=linux --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-pic --extra-cflags=-O2 --enable-memalign-hack --disable-devices --disable-muxers --disable-encoders --disable-filters --disable-hwaccels --enable-muxer=adts --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay --disable-ffprobe --disable-ffserver --disable-yasm --disable-demuxer=matroska --disable-stripping

Since we need only the libraries, we can disable the generation of executors like ffmpeg, ffplay.

In runtime, I was facing 'Illegal instruction' when av_log() API is invoked. Not sure about the root cause; for quick resolution, I commented the implementation of av_log API in libavutil/log.c file.

#vi libavutil/log.c




Comment out the implementation of av_log API

#make

#make install

(4) Cross compile libdlna

In the configure file the ffmpeg dependency was not not properly listed and that was causing 'Symbol not found' error. After that edited the configure file to resolve the problem

#export CFLAGS="-I/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/ffmpeg/include/"


#export LDFLAGS="-L/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/ffmpeg/lib"

#vi configure

Add -lavutil -lavcodec and -lswresample in line number 646

645 echolog "Checking for libavformat ..."
646 check_lib libavformat/avformat.h av_register_all -lavformat -lavutil -lavcodec -lswresample || die "Error, can't find libavformat !"
647 echolog "Checking for libavcodec ..."

648 check_lib libavcodec/avcodec.h avcodec_register_all -lavcodec || die "Error, can't find libavcodec !"

#./configure --prefix=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libdlna --cross-compile --with-ffmpeg-dir=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/ffmpeg --cross-prefix=mipsel-linux- --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-debug

#make

#make install

(5) Cross compile ushare

#export CFLAGS="-I/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/ushare/ushare-1.1a -I/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libupnp/include/ -I/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libdlna/include/"


#export LDFLAGS="-L/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libupnp/lib/ -L/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libdlna/lib/ -L/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/ffmpeg/lib/"

#export CC=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/toolchain/mips4k_gcc_x86_linux_22/bin/mipsel-linux-gcc


#./configure --prefix=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/ushare --with-libupnp-dir=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libupnp/  --with-libdlna-dir=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libdlna/ --cross-compile --disable-nls --disable-strip --enable-debug --enable-dlna

There is a bug in ushare source code, before make fix the code in ushare.c:line number 191 file

# vi src/ushare.c

ip = ((struct in_addr*)&request->CtrlPtIPAddr)->s_addr;

#make

#make install


At run time, export LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before executing ushare binary

# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libupnp/lib/:/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/libdlna/lib/:/user/venkateshm/work/ushare-cc/OUTPUT/ffmpeg/lib

Southampton: Gateway to the World

SOUTHAMPTON was a largest city in south coast of England. It has so much of history with it and was considered as gateway to the world by Britain people; because it was a major trading place with major port and ships starts from here to others countries of the world. It has been an important port since the Roman occupation of Britain.

For example, RMS Titanic started her maiden voyage from the port of Southampton with more than 2000 members onboard to New York city. Today in this city we could see lots of memorials for peoples died on Titanic, for engineers who built the Titanic and a dedicated museum for it. Not only Titanic, there were so many historical British ships like Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth I, Mayflower ships started their journey from Southampton to cross Atlantic Ocean.

Titanic Engineer's memorial

Memorial for people died on Titanic

The apartment I stayed was very near to the ports and I could see many cruise ships coming there daily. To name few, I saw Queen Mary II, Ocean Cruise, P & O Cruise

P & O Cruise

Queen Mary II

Southampton during Medieval period: 

During medieval period (between 5th to 15 century), the city was a fortified city protected by walls to safeguard people and the import & export goods. This city faced so much of destructions during WW I & WW II.

Bargate which was once the main entrance to the city

Northern Wall

Since this city was an important place for trading with the world, many merchants setup their residence here for trading during medieval period. Most of the old houses were destroyed during war and few over the time. Today the city still maintain one such merchant home for public visiting.

Old merchant house

Same merchant home

There was one more similar house called Tudor house, this house has history from 12th century and was a dwelling place for Normans. During 15th century, the Royal family used it for supplying foods for navy. Later during 16th century used as business place by one ship owner.

Infront of Tudor house

International Food Street

Every Friday and Saturday we could see world cuisines in High Street and Above Bar Street in Southampton. Chefs from different parts of the world prepares their food and delights Southampton people. Obviously I saw stalls from India with dishes like Samosa, Madras Chicken, Kaati roll, rice and more. All these shop will be closed by 5:00 pm .

International Food Streets

County flag on top of their Stall

Apart from this, if we want to try international food all over the week then we could go to oxford street, here we could see many restaurants which serves cuisines of the world. Both the sides of the street were filled with restaurants and the platform of the road was so wide that they have table on it.

Oxford Street

Bike Nights

UK people has more craze on bike riding. They do not drive for normal commutation but drive as a passion. There were so many biker clubs and the members meets at one particular place and starts their ride from there. In Southampton there was a biker club and people meet at Bargate area and start from there every Thursday night.

Assembled in Bargate area

Boat show in Southampton

Every year in Southampton, the boatshow use to happen in Mayflower park. The main theme of this show was to exhibit and showcase different ships, yacht and other accessories necessary for ship by ship makers.

In front of one of the Yachts kept for display

47th Boatshow in Mayflower park

As a part of Boatshow, there was aquarium, giant wheel, boat riding and much more. One such thing they arranged was air show and we did enjoy the performance of pilots in the air.

Exploring London in 12 hours

LONDON, one of the busiest, one of the world's leading financial hub and the most visited city in the world with over two thousands years of history in it.

Even we spend 365 days in London, we could not fully experience and enjoy what the city offers. Fortunately I got at least 12 hours of my time to be spent in this spectacular city and I wanted to use the best of best from it.

The good way to plan is to fully browse the http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ and shortlist the places to visit or book a tour package before arriving the city. 

Since I love cycling, I booked my tour in a 'Fat Tire Bike Tour'; there were also walking tour, private taxi tour, bus tour etc., If we were visiting the city for the first time, do not know anyone here and we have to roam alone then the better option would be to book a tour. The group tour make us feel we are not alone and makes us more comfortable in new place and also we can cover more sites in short time.

One important thing to note is to find from which part of the city these tours are started, the connectivity within the city is extraordinary but the point is we should consider the travel time required to reach the given location within the time.

Packing my things for a day trip

Must have things

1. Printed city tube map (freely downloadable from internet)
2. Printed city bus map (freely downloadable from internet)
3. Wallet with some money ;)
4. Mobile & SIM card with data pack
5. ID proof

Good to have

1. Drinking water
2. Some snacks
3. Umbrella
4. Towel
5. Mobile charger

With my personal bag I arrived Victoria Coach station, London at 8:00 AM in the morning. The weather was very cold and it drizzled too. I finished my breakfast inside the bus itself so I should head directly to Queensway tube station where the bike tour supposed to start.

Notes: 

• Victoria coach station is the bus stand. 

• In London, the underground metros train are called as tube and station is called as tube station.

The Victoria terminal can be seen similar to Majestic terminal in Bangalore. Like Majestic, here we have the bus station, tube station and inter-city train station very adjacent to each other. By walk I went to Victoria tube station, this tube station have multiple entries and the one entered was not so great in look and has narrow pathways. When I entered I got the feel of entering Mumbai or Chennai electric train station.

There were self-help ticketing kiosk and the traditional counter too. Either we should buy oyster card OR we could buy one day pass which can be used both in tube and bus. The difference between oyster card and pass was oyster card itself is charged but we can surrender when we no longer need it and get the refund. In London city bus, the driver will not take cash for ticket, so buying an oyster or pass is mandatory. 

One of the tube stations

I purchased one day pass and took train which would take me to Queensway tube station.

A Guy was waiting for us with Bike Tour board in Queenway tube station

Once all the people who booked for the tour were arrived, we went to the 'Fat tire bike tour' office. After going there I got to know, they have offices in France, Spain & Germany too. We were totally 20 people and they divided in two groups and assigned different guide for each group. Each one of us picked one bike and went to nearby Kennington park.

1. Kennington Garden

London city has numerous number of parks and they have dedicated cycling track in park as well as in road. Our guide asked us to get used to the bike for few mins in this park. They have mixed varieties of UK and US bikes; in UK bikes the gear and back wheel break in left and front wheel break in right, for US the reverse. Guide was carrying all the necessary tools with him all the times.

After getting comfortable with our bikes, we started for the tour !!!!

Started our tour :)

2. Kensington Palace

The Kensington palace was not built with the intention as royal residence. In the beginning of 17th century, wealthy business man constructed this mansion far away from central London. In late 17th century the King wanted to stay away from the crowded and smoky air of London so he purchased this mansion. That time Kensington was a suburban village outside London.

Queen Victoria was born and brought up in this Palace. Today Prince William and Kate were staying here. This palace has two parts, one is accessible to public while the other is used only by the royal family.

Kensington Palace's Main Entrance

Queen Victoria coronation statue

The above coronation statue of queen Victoria is designed by Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria. 

3. Wellington Arch

The Wellington arch was built between 1826 to 1830 to commemorate the Britain's victory in Napoleonic Wars at the battle of Waterloo. The location of current arch was short distance away from where it was originally installed and the statue on the top was replaced. There was statue of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington but in 1912 it was replaced by statue the Quadriga, the winged Goddess of victory. This Quadriga is the largest bronze statue in Europe.

Standing infront of Wellington Arch

4. Buckingham Palace

Next place were we stopped was Buckingham palace which was the home of British Queen and state rooms. The guide questioned us whether the queen was in home at the moment, we gave mixed answers. After our answers, he told us a way to find out this. If a UK flag was flying then queen was not in home, if royal standard flag was flying then it means queen was in home.

Guide told us about the story of Michael Fagan, the Buckingham palace intruder who broke into the palace and entered Queen Elizabeth II's bedroom in 1982.

In Buckingham Palace

5. Trafalgar Square

Next we headed to Trafalgar square and parked our bike for lunch. There were lots of restaurants and sandwich shops for either having a lengthy, casual lunch or quick lunch. He gave us 45 mins time to finish our food.

The main attraction was the Nelson's column. It was built to commemorate the victory of British's naval forces during the  Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain. The four bronze relief panels on four sides of the column were cast from captured French guns.

Trafalgar Square

Bronze panel made from cast of captured French guns

Really I should appreciate the guide for explaining us how British has defeated French and Spanish ships even though the British had less number of war ships. He asked us stand in the same naval formation commanded by Admiral Nelson during the battle and made us understand the British's naval tactics during 18th century.

Infront of Nelson's Column

6. Horse Guard Parade

Horse guard for Buckingham palace starts from Whitehall everyday at 11:30 AM. Since we went after lunch, we could not see the change of guard ceremony. I noticed signal for horses too in London like how it used to be for pedestrians and cyclist.

Whitehall Palace

Above: Not the actual horse guard, the actual guard will be with uniform
Below: The actual horse guard for palace

Next to Whitehall was #10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister's home and office. Just adjacent to it was Churchill's war room where he discussed all his world war II war plan.

7. Westminister Abbey

Westminister abbey is a large church in city of Westminister, London. It has been the traditional place of coronation and burial site for British monarchs. Princess Diana's funeral was held at this abbey.

Westminister Abbey

Though the narrow streets of London

8. Westminister Palace

It is called House of Parliament and the meeting place for both House of commons and Lords. It was the primary residence of England King until the fire accident happened in 16th century. After reconstructing the Westminister Palace they started using it for Parliament. The design they wanted to adopt was to completely move out of Roman design with dome structure; the primary reason for this was US was already having their Federal Government building with dome and UK wants to be different from them.

Westminister Palace

A part of Westminister palace was the Elizabeth tower which was commonly called as Big Ben after the name of its main bell. It was one of the iconic landmark for London.

Big Ben

9. Victoria and Albert Museum

This was the last site for our bike tour, after this we went back to Queensway tube via St James Park, Hyde Park and that concludes our bike tour. On the way we stopped for photo shots in this beautiful gardens.

All around London, we could find plenty of museums. Few are free and most of them are charged. Each museum will take atleast half a day of time.

Lake in Hyde Park

Infront of Victoria and Albert Museum

10. London Eye

London eye was a giant Ferris wheel located in southern bank of River Thames and started operation from 31st Dec'1999 to mark the millennium. During 1999, it was the world's tallest Ferris wheel. It provides highest viewing point in London but we need to stand in a big queue for that. The speed of rotation was very slow and the whole ride takes 30 mins.

Standing in Westminister bridge and infront of London Eye

11. Tower of London

It was a castle and in history it even served a prison. Today they have a museum here and kept Crown Jewels which has India's Kohinoor diamond, the 106 carat diamond. Each and every stone in the crown has its own history.

12. London tower Bridge

Ofcourse how one can miss Tower bridge when visiting London. It was next to Tower of London and crosses river Thames and was one of the iconic symbol of London and to UK itself.

Infront of London Tower bridge

I was a little bit lucky enough to see the lifting of bridge for boat to pass through. The bridge lifting time will be published in their official website. 

Panoramic view of Tower of London, Tower bridge & modern building in Southern bank of Thames 

There was an exhibit in towers of tower bridge but it was chargeable. Pedestrians can walk on the bridge and we could see the engine room in southern bank. I enjoyed the view of wide Thames from the bridge.

Snap on the bridge

 In the southern bank we could see live musical performance, lots of shops and restaurants. We could sit for sometime and get relaxed after seeing the flow of Thames.

In Southern bank with the view of Tower of London on Northern Bank

13. Borough market

Borough market was one of the oldest wholesale and retail food market in London. Here we could see stallholders from different parts of UK. Almost all the shops get closed at 5:00 pm, so if we would like to shop some food better to go soon.

Main entrance of Borough Market

14. Victoria Railway station

Victoria is one of the busiest railway station in London. This Victoria station structure resembles our Mumbai's CST, I should have told in reverse order ;) its ok :p

Victoria Railway Station in London

Bye Bye London, see you again

After exploring this historical city for the whole day, I said bye with hard emotions and reached Victoria Coach station. From here all inter-city bus departs.

Victoria Coach station

I saw River Thames again on my way out of London :)