My two biggest takeaways from Singapore — everything's expensive and you can't do anything.

A decent meal starts at S$30 (just to remind you, S$1 ≈ 0.7€). Google is full of places marked S$100+ per person. What really caught my eye is that a regular beer costs S$15-20 (I saw ads on the street for happy hour at S$8). Non-alcoholic drinks are cheaper, but not by much.

You can eat without breaking the bank at street food stalls. The food is delicious and there are options for less than S$5 per dish. These stalls occasionally get Michelin stars. I went to the one that used to have one, but I wasn't too impressed. Still, for S$12 I can tell everyone I ate at a Michelin-starred hole-in-the-wall.

Grocery store prices are great too. A dozen eggs go for S$5-8. Potatoes here are basically a delicacy. S$1.80 per potato (!). I've never seen them sold individually before. Rice and other local stuff is more affordable. S$16 per kilogram of fresh shrimp — that's actually a great price.

No wonder a barista at some unremarkable takeaway spot in a shopping mall is offered S$3000 a month.

Fines are pretty much astronomical for everything. Prohibition signs are everywhere. I especially loved the fine up to 200 bucks if what you ate or drank comes back up (to be fair, I only saw that in a couple of places). While I was on the metro, I just automatically grabbed a bottle of water from somewhere and took a sip. Then I realized that costs S$500. Nobody seemed to notice. Hopefully I won't get a bill for it.

4/4. As expected, China: three-quarters of Singapore's population are Chinese. By the way, people in the video aren't singing for money. It's a local karaoke thing. Anyone who wants to can come and have a blast. There were some performers I thought weren't that great. But nobody took the microphone away from anyone.

3/4. Left-hand traffic, temples and other colonial buildings are a legacy from the British. And the observation wheel kind of resembles the London Eye.

2/4. The skyscrapers and road signs clearly moved straight out of New York. They even have the Statue of Liberty (:​

1/4. A slice of India with Hindu temples and mosques, Indian food and Indian people. The only thing missing is chaotic traffic and the constant honking of tuk-tuks.

I seriously started to doubt that they actually brought me to Singapore. There's this bakery called Yugoslavia with ajvar and burek, opened by a Macedonian guy's daughter. Then these Bosnian guys are offering cevapcici for S$25 (€17) (honestly, I'd rather grab them in Serbia). We even had a really nice chat in Serbian :)

For years now, Singapore has been seeing territorial disputes between local otter gangs. Clashes often result in serious injuries or even deaths for those involved.

These events regularly make the local news and sometimes go international (here, here, here). Wikipedia has a detailed writeup on the largest family — Bishan.

Bishan is also the most aggressive bunch. They control the most territory and haven't lost a single fight! A lot of that is thanks to their numbers. Close behind them is the Marina family. They adapt really well to new environments, but keep getting beaten down by Bishan, losing territory and having to move to worse neighborhoods.

The local police? Totally hands-off... but honestly, they don't need to do anything. Because these territorial disputes are happening between smooth-coated otters :)

If you're thinking it'd be cool to see a Netflix series about them, well, at least there's an episode about Singapore's otters in Night on Earth. Plus Google even gave them some love with a Doodle.

Video credit here. There's actually a whole community of otter watchers on Facebook. They share maps and honestly, they're awesome.

PS I wonder if an otter from the Bishan family could fall for a Marina girl? :)

I spent a whole hour trying to convince the check-in staff in Belgrade that I absolutely needed to be registered for the flight. They spent a whole hour convincing me otherwise.

Timatic apparently showed them that I needed a Singapore visa, which I didn't have. But on the government website it says you don't need one if you have a ticket to a third country within 96 hours of arrival (which I did).

There was quite a heated discussion with colleagues on-site, three calls with different airline departments, and a couple of times they said there was no chance without a visa and I should just go home.

Eventually we figured it out. They apologized profusely for the misunderstanding and issued me a boarding pass. No problems with Singapore immigration officers.

Singapore airport is awesome. The greenest one I've ever seen. I'll go explore the country since they let me in.