Last weekend, we brought little Ayra back to my wife’s hometown at JB & Singapore. Ayra now has officially used her passport for the 1st time! We originally planned to go back on the Malaysia National Day weekend, but decided on an earlier date because we anticipated that there’ll be a massive traffic jam on the North-South Highway.

As usual, upon entering Singapore I’ll start to notice the difference in the general atmosphere of the 2 countries. It’s not hard to see that Singapore is generally much cleaner and organized and I sometimes pick out small things that made the differences.

The dividers, overhead bridge columns, sidewalks materials, etc are usually cleaner and painted/maintained properly. Compared to JB’s dirty, peeling and mouldy materials, this affects our view when we’re driving around in Singapore roads. Also the bushes, trees and plants along the roads are also well taken care of.

I also notice that Singaporean cars are a lot cleaner. Of course, they don’t have a lot of old junkyard-worthy vehicles like we have here, but most of the cars there gave me the impression that Singaporeans clean their cars several times a week.

Also, due to the strict traffic enforcement, they don’t simply park their cars in any available space on the roadside like we do. This eases the traffic flow along small lanes and avoids the disorganized look of illegally parked cars.

When you come back to JB, you’ll definitely notice the mess as soon as you pass through the checkpoint after the Causeway.