The Garden City

Time magazine's top 25 authentic Asian experiences span the continent from Malaysia to Mongolia, but find no room for any thing that you can do in Singapore, Time magazine's top business city in Asia for five years running (before the competition was, I guess, pulled in 2006.)
Glancing at the list, I suspect this omission results from the authors' emphasis on what they find "authentic."
In a sense, the authentic is the opposite of what is artificial, or human-made.
And what we offer our visitors is often a human-(however well-)made experience...
The Garden City (what is a garden if not a small piece of nature fashioned by humans).  Instant Asia.  The Night Safari.
And the Merlion?