To do in Singapore

SINGAPORE which was once a jungle and a barely inhabitant island has become one of the wealthiest & economically powerful country in the world and it attracts millions of tourists annually.

If we look back the history of Singapore, it started its life as a humble fishing village and its modern history dates back from 1819 which is just less than 200 years. This island gained importance after the introduction of trading port by East India Company and the person responsible was Sir Stamford Raffles. Today we could see the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles in the eastern bank of Singapore river and this place is named as 'Raffles Landing Site'.

Singapore river Then & Now

The city planner during the British colony time used river as a division between civic & commercial activities. Thus in the eastern bank, we could see all civic buildings and in western bank all the commercial high rise buildings. 

One such building  in the west bank is the Fullerton Building, this is one of the important building in Singapore's history. When its construction was completed in 1928, it housed 5 tenants; The General Post Office, Singapore Club, Import & Export Dept and few others. During World War II, it even served as hospital for wounded British soldiers.

Today this Fullerton building is a five-star luxury hotel, and the new year count down laser light will be on this building. This also have a Fullerton Heritage Center with free entry to public. Do not miss to roam inside the Fullerton building, from other side of the exit we could reach Merlion Park.

There is a bridge called Anderson Bridge which is adjacent to this building. This was constructed during British colonial period and today it is part Formula One Singapore street circuit.

Fullerton Building Then & Now

Anderson Bridge constructed in 1910 and part of Formula One Street Circuit

New Year 2016 countdown in Fullerton Building

If we exit Fullerton building from Fullerton Bay hotel then we would reach Merlion Park which has the Singapore iconic statue the Merlion. I went on a walking tour with Singapore Footprint team, they are a group of college students who step out during weekend for free walking tour to tourists. 

With fellow tourists in Singapore Footprint walking tour

From Merlion park we could see the Marina Bay Sands, another 57 floors luxury star hotel with 2500 rooms. Marina bay sands has a skypark in 56th floor for bird eye view of Singapore city and they charge S$23 for the same, in 57th floor they have infinite swimming pool. 'The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands' is luxurious mall situated north of Marina Bay Sands and it houses top brand showrooms and more dining experiences. The lift will reach the 56th floor in 40 sec and the velocity of movement will create ear block for few!! Since it is a 2500 rooms hotel, they have more than one reception and entrance to welcome the guests.

One beauty of Singapore MRT (train) is their MRT station will be part of iconic places, for ex: If we exit the Bayfront MRT station, they have direct underground subway to reach Maina Bay Sands, Gardens by the Bay and few other attractions; we don't have to exit the station in street level and walk in the road. 

1. View of Marina Bay Sands from Gardens by the Bay
2. Marina Bay Sands in night
3. The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands
4. Receptions in Marina Bay Sands

Panoramic view of Singapore city from 56th floor of Marina Bay Sands 

Gardens by the Bay is another tourist attraction, it houses trees and plants from all over the world under a dome. There are two dome, one is called flower dome and other one as cloud forest dome. The full dome is air conditioned. I personally didn't like to spend much time in this place. Since it was Christmas and NewYear time, lots of decorations was there inside.

1. View of Gardens by the bay from Singapore Flyer
2. Inside Flower dome
3. Inside Cloud Forest dome

One thing I would suggest to go in Singapore is the Singapore Flyer. It is an engineering marvel and is the biggest one in the world till now. The giant wheel moves slowly and we need to board and deboard when it is in motion. They arrange for dining experience inside the flyer capsule on a special rates. In few of the attractions, as soon as we enter they take welcome photo and will ask us to give different poses. Later in the exit we can print those photos as souvenirs.

1. View of Singapore Flyer in night from Marina Bay Sands
2. One Flyer capsule kept out for display

Simple Fact: The only animals which have been boarded the Singapore Flyer were Orang Utans and Dogs

Interesting Fact: Most of these new attractions like Singapore Flyer, Gardens by the Bay, Marina Bay Sands etc etc were constructed on the land reclaimed from sea for the purpose of city expansion

Wallet Friendly Fact: For buying souvenir, Bugis Street & Chinatown are the best places. Near all the attractions, souvenir shops will be there but priced at high cost.

Chinatown & Bugis streets for shopping souvenirs

There is a fountain in Suntec city mall which was once the largest fountain in world. The fountain and the whole of Suntec mall is constructed based on Chinese's Feng Shui principle. In this fountain the water flows inwards which signifies preservation of wealth. The fountain is opened for touch session where people can go and touch the fountain to absorb the positive aura.

1. Fountain of wealth opened for people during touch session
2. Inward flow of water to preserve wealth

During leisure afternoon time, it will be good to spend time in East Coast Park, this park has 13kms of beach and contains lots of activities like cycling, skating, fishing, barbecue pit, playground and much more to spend even whole day there.

East Coast Park

Singapore is a friendly place to roam around independently without anyone's help. But if we are alone or in a small group then joining any of the city tour group would always be a fun. There are so many guided tour options, I chose one from HopOn HopOff Singapore sightseeing (http://www.ducktours.com.sg/hippo.php). They have a kind of tour called ducktour, in this tour they will take us in a retired war vehicle which  goes both in land and in water, so we can enjoy attractions from land as well from river.

In City Sight seeing bus

Retired Vietnam war vehicle which goes both in land and in river

Planning tip:  I use http://www.viator.com/ to shortlist the places I am interested in

Walking tours: If interested in walking tour then below are the useful links. Be aware, for few walking tours we need to book in advance.

http://singaporefootprints.com/http://www.indiesingapore.com/

Group in Singapore footprint walking tour

Foods to try in Singapore

As Singapore is a multiracial & multicultural country, we could see many different native cuisine. Also since it is a tourist attracting city, we could find cuisines from all around the world from West to Europe to Asia.

Singapore chicken rice is one of the most popular & must try food among the people who live here and also for tourists. It is also considered as national food of Singapore. Unfortunately I could not try this as I follow vegetarianism.

Singapore chicken rice

There is a place called 'Singapore Food Trail' in Ground floor of Singapore Flyer complex in Raffles Avenue Road. The concept of the trail is to bring back the nostalgic feel and experience of Singapore in 1960s, so the theme of each shop looks different to give the best possible old charm.

Singapore Food Trail

I did a full round around the food trail and again my bad luck, I could not find a type a food I wish. The shopkeeper will not understand the definition of vegetarian food, we should ask for food which has 'no fish, no chicken, no meat, no..' then based on our luck, he would say YES or NO. Finally I found one Subway nearby and asked for Veggi Delight. I guess the subway guy use to get so many Indian customers, he was asking me 'Kaise ho' while billing !!

If wanted to try seafood then Boat Quay is the best place to visit, here we could see number of restaurants lined up in the bank of Singapore river. 

1. BoatQuay captured from other side of the bank
2. Restaurants lined up in BoatQuay

If looking for Indian cuisine then 'Little India' is the perfect choice. If we enter 'Little India', we will get a doubt whether we are in India or in Singapore. As soon as we get down from bus or MRT, we will start hearing tamil songs from petty shops, hotels & garments shop; this makes us feel more localite and closeness to Singapore. Even we could see pure vegetarian restaurants and few restaurants even serve jain foods. In this area we could see all popular food chains like Hotel Saravan Bavan, Anjappar, Ananda Bavan and more.

1. Chennai Flood relief
2. Little India main street

Andhra meals in one of the Indian restaurants

Another popular snacks which we could see in most of the places is corn flour chips, this they serve with flavored cheese to make it more delicious. This would be a quick, healthy & yummy eat to break us from hungry.

Corn flour chips with flavored cheese

I wanted to try some Chinese food too but majority of it are meat, pork, chicken and fish. Still I explored each and every shop in ChinaTown area to find out veggi options.And my exploration didn't turn me down this time, and found a new, completely different food called Pau; Pau literally mean bun. We could explore the ChinaTown food centers only if we can bear the smell the meat.

1. Pau in the steamer
2. Pau in the basket
3. Sliced pau

 I do not know how to explain the taste of the pau but it was completely different taste to me. The outer surface was so soft like sponge and stuffing inside differs. The one I tried was Lotus seed pau and red bean pau, both are sweet and tastes yummy.

Another new snacks I tried was roasted chestnuts and Chinese Veggi Pancake.

1. Seller roasting the Chestnut
2. Closer look of Chestnuts

Chinese Pancake

If going to Bugis streets then do not miss this cool yogurt roll. It is a Thailand dish and taste was yummy, more that the taste the preparation was awesome. We could see the live preparation of the yogurt roll, after each order, they start making it freshly and each preparation time take 5 mins atleast. So patience is important. It is prepared by pouring fresh yogurt in freezing pan, spread equally, cut it & roll.

1. Pour fresh yogurt with fresh fruits in freezing pan
2. Smash the fruits and mix
3. Spread it equally on the freezing pan
4. Cut it and roll

1. Shop name
2. Cool Yogurt roll

I tried coconut chips in AirAsia flight. When I saw the name initially, I thought they would have just added coconut flavor to normal chips. But when I opened, they literally fried the coconut slices and the taste was heavenly. Its a Thailand snacks, almost all tropical countries have lots of Coconut tree and different countries different food out of it.

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.