My Singapore World is A Garden

     Yesterday, I ventured down to Tanjong Pagar station, located in the southwest corner of what's preserved of Singapore's Chinatown.  After lunch (Chicken cutlet worthy of two meals.) at the must-return-with-spouse Maxwell Food Center, I walked over to the Singapore City Gallery .  It's part of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, and critical to understanding how this city-state-nation sees itself.
     Front and center is a scale model of the entire island.  Without a selfie-stick I could not photograph is adequately.  To give you an idea, see below the model of the Marina Bay complex:

That's the cruise-ship atop three buildings.

Or check out the condominium tower where we live:

We are on the 11th floor of the leftmost of the three towers.
Swimming pool beyond verandah structure not shown.

Another favourite is the Chinese Garden in the reclaimed land of Jurong.

The Chinese and Japanese Gardens are on the islands at left.

From the third floor gallery, I could photograph second model, this one of downtown Singapore:

Note the red tile roofs of Chinatown shophouses.

What you can't see in these models is the insistent greenery of the place. After all, it is virtually on the equator, and in the zone of tropical rainforests.  Lee Kuan Yew imagined a city in a garden.  It reminds me of the marvelous, transitory mural by Qiu Zhijie, The World Garden, which took up the entire wall of the Berkeley Art Museum.

Imagining the entire world as an island garden.