It’s around August 9 every year that we get all patriotic and want to tell the whole world what a great country we live in. So, this National Day, we’ve made a list of all the big and little things that we miss most when we’re away from home.
Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
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If you don’t appreciate how amazing our airport is, you need to get your head checked. Only when you travel often do you realise how good we have it, not having to worry about baggage strikes or airport terminals being so far away from one another. And, of course, our immigration officers – they might not always have a smile on their faces but at least they don’t ask us a hundred questions about why we want to enter their country.
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
Yes, Singapore is a food lovers’ paradise and, when we’re away from home, we don’t just miss the plethora of food options, we also miss the prices. Where else in the world can you get a tasty, filling meal for less than $5, without worrying about getting food poisoning? We certainly can’t name many cities that fall under this category.
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
We might complain a lot about MRT breakdowns in the past couple of years but they’ve honestly only happened a handful of times that they’d be considered almost as an achievement in some other big cities. And, when you compare the price of MRT, bus and taxi rides in Singapore with other big cities, you’ll also realise just how affordable they are here. Yes, even with the ridiculous number of taxi surcharges that are hard to keep track of.
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
As the popular local police slogan goes, “Low crime doesn’t mean no crime.” However, the fact that we can go pretty much anywhere in Singapore without feeling terrified – which is not the case in most first-world cities – is a big bonus. And, as women, we especially appreciate how we can take a taxi home in the wee hours of the morning without being afraid of anything untoward happening to us.
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
Having shopping malls to walk around after dinnertime is a feature that not many countries can boast. We’re not being shallow here, it’s not just about wandering around for a new pair of heels or a snazzy new dress for work, it also means that we can do our grocery shopping at night – or even at 24-hour supermarkets – instead of rushing to do it before the shops close at 5 or 6pm, as is the case in some other cities.
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
We make fun of it a lot but we love it, really. It’s part of our national identity and we miss it when we don’t hear it. In fact, we even tend to get a bit excited when we hear someone else speaking it when we’re on our travels. After all, why bother saying things like, “Sure, I’ll get that thing for you right now”, when you can just say, “Can!”
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
There’s just something about Singapore taxi drivers that we can’t get enough of. When they’re not complaining about the ‘gahmen’, they’ve been known to give marriage advice, tell you which stocks you should be investing in and even boasting about what naughty boys they were in their younger days. Sure, we have come across the odd grumpy taxi driver but, in general, conversations with taxi drivers in Singapore are so uniquely Singaporean, you won’t get anything like them elsewhere.
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love
Yes, okay, it’s terribly humid and we spend half our time sweating and basically feel like having a shower at least five times a day. But, think about it, we know exactly what we’re getting weather-wise the minute we step out the door, as we basically have two kinds of weather here – sunny or rainy. No need to worry about whether we need to carry an extra cardigan or whether we should not bother with the vest under our top cos it might get hot later in the day, like you need to in countries with very changeable weather. And we’re also thankful that we don’t need to worry about dangerous weather patterns such as hurricanes and typhoons.
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Feeling nostalgic? Read our stories 15 #SoSingaporean things we love about our country you can’t find anywhere else; Top 51 Singapore dishes and where to try them and 5 Singapore singers and bands we love