I flew Saudi Arabian Airlines the whole way and before each flight they said a prayer that Muhammad used to recite before traveling. The female flight attendants were wearing a headdress that I had never seen before. The airport in Jeddah was also quite interesting. There were several groups of men in military uniforms on their knees praying. Those of us who were transiting to another flight were kept locked in a room for half and hour before being set free to go through security yet for the third time (twice in Istanbul) and women had to stand in a different security line from men. When I walked toward the restrooms, I discovered that they use different graphics to designate the men's bathroom from the women's that in the west. I guess that should have been obvious to me since many men there don't wear pants and therefore the icon wouldn't apply, but I hadn't thought about it before. Instead, they used pictures of heads as the graphics.
Singapore is an extremely multicultural place with various neighborhoods and each feels like a totally different city. Little India is quite gritty with lots of temples, Kampong Glam is full of mosques and textile shops, Central Business District is full of skyscrapers, Garden Road is full of tree lined streets with shopping malls, and Chinatown is, well, Chinatown. Singapore is famous for its food and rightly so. Authentic dishes from nearly any country in southeast Asia and Turkey are readily available and nearly every meal I had was better than anything I ate my entire stint in Europe. A guy at the hostel was complaining that pizza was too expensive in Singapore. Anyone who orders pizza in Singapore deserves to get gouged.
When I first arrived at the Singapore airport, I was able to transit directly to the metro without taking a bus and I was greeted with beautifully modern, intuitive, large touchscreen ticket machines and a cheerful worker standing next them to provide assistance, if necessary. Unprecedented. On the streets, there were plenty of signs pointing to the nearest metro station and displaying far away it was. Singapore is a very easy place to travel in.
I also got to catch up with my Singaporean friend, Sanjee. I don't think he was all that happy to have returned to Singapore recently, but despite his misgivings about his hometown, he had told me in the past that if I visited as a tourist, I would enjoy it and he was absolutely right. I didn't do several of the main touritsy things, such as the night safari. I just had fun walking around the city and observing the people and culture in each area.