Singapore

Singapore tourists can enjoy local Peranakan dumplings for breakfast, speed-shop along Orchard Road for cut-price designer wear, dine big on fish-head curry for lunch, visit in the afternoon a mosque, a Sikh temple and a Chinatown museum, and pick up a year's worth of fine woollen socks for a song.

And this is all before dinner, which may be a flash-frying tom-yum soup emporium or a traditional Chinese restaurant complete with deep-fried scorpions in a roof-top Italian restaurant.

No other city in Asia provides as much variety. Little India, Chinatown, the Arab quarter, the Malaysian-influenced hawker food markets, the British colonial monoliths on the fringes of the CBD, and the beautifully restored temples along Telok Ayer Street have maintained their identities and their distinctly colored and flavored neighborhoods.

There are not gimmicky cosmetic ghettos. They have evolved and morphed with it, and now Singapore is reinventing itself again as the city undergoes its largest urban transformation in decades on land reclaimed from the sea around Marina Bay.

At the excellent Chinatown Heritage Centre (48 Pagoda Lane, www.chinatownheritage.com.sg), which traces the lives of early Chinese settlers, you will find the best history lesson. The street is also a good example of traditional architecture of shop-houses, terraces of buildings where street-level original Singaporeans worked and traded, and retired to live and sleep upstairs.

The cluster of temples down Telok Ayer street is another must. After their long ocean voyages, this was the original city waterfront where the first Chinese merchants landed. They immediately constructed shrines in order to thank them for the safe passage across the South China Sea. The most interesting is Thian Hock Keng Taoist temple, recently restored, where you can pay tribute to a dozen different deities.

If you want guided tours, the Singapore Tourism Board has professional tours that fits almost all. Nature rambles, brewery tours, golf tours are here... A special urban planning tour is also catered for by visiting architects and town planners.

If time is tight and you squeeze between meetings in some community, then you might want to hire one of the ever-courteous and professional city taxi tourist guides (contact Singapore Tourism Board, www.visitsingapore.com). Choose a path of your own, or ask your driver to suggest an itinerary.

Get them to drop you in Little India at the Mustafa Centre in Little India (Syed Alwi Lane, www.mustafa.com.sg). To stock up on good-quality underwear and socks at knock-down prices, Singapore regulars flock here. It might feel like Boxing Day's London sales, but it's worth it.

If you want to drive the boat out for supper, book ahead for San Marco, an Italian restaurant on the roof of the triumphantly columned Fullerton Hotel, located in an old lighthouse (1 Fullerton Square near Raffles Place, www.fullertonhotel.com). It is serene, peaceful and serves delights such as pan-fried Foie Gras with coffee oil and roasted piglet rack.

Try the Banana Leaf Apolo café (54-58 Race Course Road; www.bananaleafapolo.com) at the edge of Little India for the best South Indian fish-head curry outside of Kerala.

On level 71/72 of the Swissôtel The Stamford hotel, New Asia Bar is still one of the most attractive watering holes in the city ( Www.swissotel.com/singapore-stamford) from where the thoughts are incomparable. An excellent cigar club called City Space Bar is on the floor below, serving high-flying bankers with mouth-watering Iranian caviar.

St. James Power Station is the newest and hippest location in town ( Www.stjamespowerstation.com), a brand new nightclub center in Singapore. There are nine separate clubs housed in the city's first coal-fired power station, which are a big success for locals, for whom dancing with abandon is something of an art-form. You can start with Latin jazz at Movida, move on to Powerhouse for house music, then chill out in the Bellini Room with American jazz classics.

The Fullerton Hotel, in Singapore, is still the most striking building. When it opened as the GPO back in 1928, it was the epitome of colonial confidence and a sure sign that places were going to this area. It has lost none of its grandeur, and is now home to one of Asia's finest hotels.

The Singapore Flyer (Marina Bay, www.singaporeflyer.com.sg) is a colossal wheel 35 meters taller than the London Eye, which will open in spring 2008 to the public.