I went for a long hike early this morning.

I did not anticipate how long I would have to walk, but now my legs hurt like hell.

I have been averaging 25 to 30,000 steps a day in the last week. Not being used to such stress might be why my legs hurt now.

Back home, I need to walk more. The problem is that my town isn’t exactly walkable, and I end up using a scooter or car.

In our recent town master plan workshop, walkable cities were a primary topic. Having more public spaces and updating the city design to be more walkable will solve health, traffic, and general well-being problems people have.

We haven’t focused a lot on these, and most of our towns are poorly designed beyond repair. I don’t know the history of how we reached this situation, but we had poor designers in the government. I hope in the future, small towns like ours make an effort and implement initiatives to promote public spaces and transport.

Living in a country with one of the best public transport systems and spaces in the world, you can see how easy our lives can be with public infrastructure.

There might be a lot of different challenges in making this a reality back home. We may be subjected to different constraints than Singapore. Still, as we emerge as a developing nation, this should be prioritized.