Singapore had always occupied a strange little corner of my mind. It was the dream city, the futuristic city, the place that seemed to have been designed by someone who had been asked to imagine what would happen if technology and nature decided to stop fighting and build something together. I had seen it through Bollywood films like Krrish and Pyaar Impossible, absorbed its skyline through photographs, heard people talk about its incredible modernity, and somehow formed this almost cinematic idea of what Singapore was. But when I finally arrived, the thought that kept coming back was much simpler: holy crap, this actually happened. I was here. In Singapore. The city I had filed away somewhere under one futuristic day, now completely surrounding me in warm humid sunlight, tropical greenery, glass towers, modern structures and an energy that felt both incredibly advanced and wonderfully alive.

What struck me immediately was that Singapore didn’t feel like a city that had simply become modern. It felt like a city that had deliberately designed its own future. The architecture rose like circuitry from the ground, all glass, steel and impossible geometry, but instead of pushing nature away, the city seemed to weave it directly into its blueprint. Trees appeared between towers. Gardens climbed into the skyline. Water reflected buildings that looked as though they belonged in a concept drawing for the next century. It was as if the city had taken the language of technology and translated it into something organic. Skyscrapers became vertical landscapes. Gardens became pieces of infrastructure. Greenery softened the machinery of the metropolis. Singapore seemed to be saying that a modern city did not have to choose between becoming technological and remaining alive.

And then there was the cleanliness. The order. The almost astonishing sense that everything worked. There was a calmness underneath the vibrancy, as though millions of moving parts were operating inside some enormous invisible computer and nobody had forgotten to write the code for kindness. People were polite. Considerate. There was a sense of respect in the way people moved through the city, and as a woman travelling there, I remember feeling a genuine sense of safety. Not the kind of safety you convince yourself you feel because you are trying to enjoy a holiday, but the quieter kind where your body actually begins to relax. I could walk, explore and take in the city without constantly scanning my surroundings for danger. That feeling mattered. It allowed me to experience the city rather than simply navigate it.

And beneath all that futuristic polish was something I hadn’t expected to feel so strongly: culture. Singapore was modern, but it wasn’t culturally blank. Quite the opposite. It felt like multiple histories, communities and traditions had found a way to exist inside this extraordinary modern framework. Chinatown, Little India, Malay influences, Chinese architecture, temples, food, languages, religious spaces and contemporary skyscrapers all existed within the same city. Some things felt recognisable because they connected to cultures I already knew, while others felt distinctly different. There was a beautiful tension between that familiarity and difference. You could recognise something and then realise that Singapore had given it its own accent. The city wasn’t erasing its cultural layers in the pursuit of modernity. It was carrying them forward.

That was perhaps one of the most fascinating things about being there. Singapore felt technologically advanced without feeling disconnected from humanity. There were futuristic buildings, enormous developments and architectural structures that seemed to announce the arrival of tomorrow, but underneath them were people eating, talking, laughing, shopping, praying, working and simply living. The city was vibrant. It wasn’t a museum of the future. It was a functioning human place.

And then I stayed at the Marina Bay Sands.

I don’t think I can describe this without sounding slightly ridiculous because the whole experience genuinely felt ridiculous in the best possible way. Marina Bay Sands is already one of those buildings that seems to exist as a piece of visual shorthand for Singapore. You see the three towers with that enormous ship structure balanced across the top and your brain immediately categorises it as iconic. Then suddenly you are walking into it. You are staying there. You are looking around and thinking, wait, this is actually where I’m staying?

The elegance was on another level. Everything felt deliberate, polished and extravagant without needing to shout about it. It was luxury fused with architecture, technology and spectacle. The building itself seemed to embody the city outside it: ambitious, precise, futuristic and completely unafraid of scale.

And then I went swimming at the top of a skyscraper.

That sentence still feels slightly absurd.

I was in a rooftop infinity pool, high above Singapore, with the city stretching out beneath me. Buildings, roads, water, greenery, movement, sunlight. The skyline looked almost miniature from up there, yet the scale of the city was enormous. I was literally floating above a modern metropolis.

Holy crap.

There are moments when you don’t need a profound interpretation. Your brain simply needs a second to catch up.

This was one of them.

I had watched Singapore in films.

I had imagined Singapore.

I had thought about Singapore.

And now I was swimming above it.

The view was breathtaking, but the deeper feeling was almost stranger. I had somehow crossed the invisible distance between I would love to experience that one day and I am currently experiencing it. There was no vision board in front of me. No photograph separating me from it. No screen. Just water, sunlight, sky and one of the most extraordinary cityscapes I had ever seen.

And perhaps the films mattered more than I realised.

• Krrish and Pyaar Impossible had given me glimpses of Singapore long before I had an airline ticket to prove I had been there. Bollywood had made the city part of my visual world. I had watched characters move through its streets and architecture, and somewhere along the way Singapore became associated with a particular feeling: modern, glamorous, exciting, almost impossibly advanced.

So when I finally walked through it, there were moments of recognition that felt almost dreamlike.

I’ve seen this before.

But this time I could feel the heat.

I could hear the city.

I could smell the food.

I could feel the pavement beneath my feet.

I could watch people moving around me.

The dream had acquired weather.

And people.

And sound.

That is what made Singapore different from some of the other places in my Wanderings. It didn’t feel like I had simply taken something from my imagination and turned it into reality. It felt more like I had stepped into a dream that had been quietly assembling itself from different parts of my life. Films had contributed something. My fascination with technology had contributed something. My love of beautiful architecture had contributed something. My curiosity about the future had contributed something. My desire to see the world had contributed something.

And then one day, all of those threads seemed to meet in one place.

Singapore.

It was as though someone had taken the question What might a future city look like? and decided to answer it in glass, gardens, water, steel, technology and light.

Yet somehow, it still felt human.

That mattered to me.

Because the future I want to see isn’t one where technology replaces the human experience. It is one where technology gives human beings more extraordinary environments in which to live, create and connect. Singapore gave me a glimpse of that possibility. A city can be incredibly advanced and still have gardens. It can be immaculate and still be vibrant. It can be densely urban and still breathe. It can be technologically sophisticated and still carry its cultures visibly and proudly.

That combination stayed with me.

Perhaps that is what made the whole experience feel so dreamlike.

Not that it was unreal.

But that it was real in a way that still felt impossible.

I could stand beneath buildings that looked like they belonged in the future. I could walk through gardens that seemed to grow out of the machinery of the city. I could hear different languages around me, eat food shaped by different cultures, watch people move through their daily lives and feel both completely elsewhere and strangely at home. I could swim above the skyline and look down at a city that had once existed only as a name in my imagination.

And through all of it, I kept feeling grateful.

Deeply, ridiculously grateful.

For the warmth.

For the architecture.

For the greenery.

For the people.

For the safety.

For the culture.

For the luxury.

For the films that had introduced me to the city years before.

For the curiosity that had made me want to see what a technological future might actually feel like.

For the sheer privilege of being able to stand there and realise that I was no longer watching somebody else’s Singapore.

I was experiencing my own.

Singapore taught me that sometimes a dream doesn’t announce itself as a goal.

Sometimes it arrives as a feeling.

A fascination.

A film you love.

A city you keep noticing.

A conversation about the future.

A place you can’t quite explain why you want to see.

And then, one day, you’re standing at the top of a skyscraper with warm sunlight on your skin, floating above a city that looks like nature and technology have merged into one living organism, and you think:

How on earth did I get here?

I don’t know.

Maybe that is the beauty of it.

Somewhere between the films, the fascination, the desire, the decision and the journey, the dream found a way to become a moment.

And I was lucky enough to be there when it did.

Singapore.

The dream city.

Not because it was perfect.

But because for a little while, it felt like I had stepped into tomorrow and discovered that tomorrow was beautiful.