Searching home in other country

Everyone has some or other thing in his or her 'must do' list. I had fascination of going to a developed country since my college days. Finally i got a chance of going abroad and this chance was not for 5 or 6 months but was as a permanent job in Singapore. It's been around 6 months in Singapore. I thought to write how good or bad it feels now.

When i came to Singapore, i took a cab from Singapore airport to my hotel. I was looking at the city infrastructure and was pleasantly surprised looking at it. My journey had just begun and good/bad things were waiting for me. Some of the things i like and some of them i do not at all.

Let me start with good things first. Best thing i like about Singapore is it's weather and pollution level. Both complement each other. I was surprised to see and was wondering how can a country manage such a low pollution level. Pollution level of Singapore is 40. Below 50 is considered to be very healthy. In fact below 100 is considered to be good. Above 150 is considered very bad for health. Most of the Indian cities have pollution levels greater than 200.

So how do they actually maintain it. Well, government of these countries pose rules which promote people to use public transport than personal vehicles. For example government imposes very high taxes for possessing personal vehicles. Other than that government improves public transport facility.

Apart from this i am impressed with overall infrastructure, very low tax rates and overall standard of living. These things attract investors and others to come to the country and contribute to the economy.

Now there are some bad things also which, according to me, will over pass good things. One thing which i do not at all like is food. Although everyone may not agree with this but i am a vegetarian and do not like food served here at all. Given the fact that i am fond of Chinese food, i never get satisfied with it and never like to have it here. In starting i could not even bear the smell of food while passing by restaurants and food courts. I literally felt vomiting while passing by but now i am used to of this smell. Until some time back we had very few options of having lunch but now we have found few more. Last week we had to go for business lunch with our team which has some localities and few from other countries also. We decided to go to a Korean restaurant. Although we ordered vegetarian food, i did not like it at all. I could not develop taste for local food and i think i will never be able to. On the other hand, i have got benefit of it also as i am now slim and fit :-) but my fitness is because of my jogging. There is a nice beach and park near our home. We usually go there for jogging and having fun.

apart from food one more thing i do not like here is we have very few things to do on week ends. I agree that it totally depends on you how you enjoy your life but i feel that we have very little scope of having fun. First of all we have very limited group of people and some how could not expand it so having group activities is not possible. Secondly in India we could go to a good restaurant, cafe and could spend time but here because of food restrictions this option is also eliminated. Although night life in Singapore is really good but having enjoyed it in starting one or two months i started feeling bored from it.

Last thing to mention is i feel more distant from my home. In fact i feel more distance from my country and never feel at home in Singapore.

So all in all i would say: "Sare jahan se accha Hindustan hamara"