Where is Singapore?

I just came across a blog entry with a pretty funny title, What Country Is Singapore In?
This blog is of AngryAngMo, a German expat living in Singapore for *just* 2 years.

To Singaporeans, this is a ridiculous question for sure. But for foreigners living in Singapore, this is not surprising at all. When I left my country, Vietnam, to Singapore, a lot of friends asked me that very same question, and more. Questions like "Is it very cold there?", "So can you speak Singapore language?", "Which city in Singapore will you stay?" are always at my expectation when I told someone that I was going to leave for Singapore.

I was at first a bit surprised tho coz Vietnam and Singapore are both in South East Asia and some basic knowledge about the region is taught in school. Then I was not sure I should blame this to Singapore being a such small country or the poor education in Vietnam which stuffs things in one ear and run out of the other.

That being said, I did get surprised in AngryAngMo's entry that Singapore is one of the only four sovereign city states, same San Marino, Monaco and the Vatican. This is the first time I heard about this. I just simply thought Singapore is a country and that's it!

I decided to make a search on "sovereign city states" and I came to a Wikipedia page where it says Singapore maintains "a significant armed force", "ranked highly in terms of defence spending and troop size". Even though I know every Singaporean guys have to go through army, I don't expect Singapore army has a significant troop size. That's pretty cool, hope the pirates in Malacca get busted.

If you are a foreigner going to live in Singapore, I highly recommend AngryAngMo blog. A lot of fun stuffs are there.