HANNAH: I LIVE IN SINGAPORE!

Reader Hannah lives in beautiful Singapore... read on to find what it's like!

Hannah says:
I am seventeen and I live in a flat in Singapore with my parents and my thirteen year old brother. Singapore is very small - it's both a city and a country. It is very developed and you see a lot of high rise buildings and lots of greenery too, trees and flowers lining the roads... Singapore is known as the garden city. Our flat is small but very expensive because of the land restraints here, and we don't have any pets alas. It's always warm in Singapore - the temperature never falls below 25 degrees. It rains quite often too, and this adds to the humidity levels. When we get the chance, my family and I love to escape to countries with four seasons - cold weather is really refreshing to us! I have never experienced snow... Singapore is a tropical country and all we have is rain or sunshine!

I went to a girls school for ten years and now I'm in my first year of junior college. It's weird now, having to adjust to being in a mixed college and talking to boys! At school, we have to wear uniform. I used to wear a blouse or PE clothing beneath a pinafore, but now in junior college it's a blouse and skirt. I take biology, chemistry, maths and history and we have project work and a general paper too, which is basically English and my favourite subject. We speak English and Chinese in Singapore, but I'm actually fairly bad at Chinese. I can converse easily but I don't score well in the exams! Our schools are pretty strict. Girls have to tie up their hair if it is past the shoulders and often only transparent studs for earrings and black coloured hair accessories are allowed. School began at 7.30am and you couldn't be late or you'd be in trouble! College is more relaxed!

Singapore is a multi-racial society, with many different races and cultures living alongside each other. On special occasions such as Chinese New Year or perhaps Deepavali (festival of lights for the Indian people) each group will wear their traditional costumes. On Racial Harmony Day, we often wear different traditional costumes to school for fun and to show our acceptance of difference races and cultures. Food-wise, we are well known for our chicken-rice. It's really just steamed chicken on flavourful rice... the rice, to me, makes the dish taste good. I could eat it alone and still feel satisfied! We also have chilli crab, stay (barbecued meat on a stick) and ice kachang (shaved ice with syrup). Singapore is such a melting pot of cultures - we have so many different cuisines available, from Indian to western to Korean and much more.

For tourists, Universal Studios is a must-visit, along with the Gardens By The Bay, Singapore's famous man-made nature park. Visitors should also try some street food from the hawker centres and simple things like going to the movies or shopping! Singapore always has and always will be my home. I had a fun and memorable childhood here and everyone I love is by my side. It's the people who make this place so special - wherever in the world we may be, somehow we can always pick out fellow Singaporeans from a crowd of strangers. There's something uniquely different about the way we are, and I wouldn't want it any other way! One day, I'd love to be a marine biologist - or a writer - or both - and I am willing to work really hard to make that happen!

Cathy says:
I've been to Singapore myself and I totally agree with Hannah... it has a unique blend of east and west and is a lively, vibrant, friendly place quite unlike anywhere else I've ever been! Have YOU ever been to Singapore? Or would you like to write about YOUR country for DREAMCATCHER? COMMENT BELOW to have your say!