An 8-hour flight early in the morning brought me to equatorial Singapore, where a free city tour took us along the outskirts of the city where we could view the skyline of downtown, and to the beach resort of Sentosa. The remainder of the short, 8-hour stay was spent at Singapore's glitzy Changi Airport.

Singapore is a city-state holding 4 million people in a tiny surface area of merely 1000 square kilometres. It's climate is hot and extremely humid, and one-third of the city's electricity is used by air conditioners. Malay legend says that a visiting Sumatran prince spotted a lion sheltering from a storm, and so founded the city named Singapura - Lion City. Today, the Merlion - half lion, half fish - is used as the city's mascot, and a tremendous merlion statue complete with laser light show stands on Sentosa Island.

My 11-hour stay in Tokyo was spent mostly on trains, heading the long distance into the city and exploring the regions of Ginza and Shinjuku, exploring the bright and busy streets, and witnessing the expansive cityscape from the observation deck of the Metropolitan Government Buildings.

Formerly named Edo, Tokyo in the 16th century was merely swampland. Within 100 years, it became the largest city on Earth, and would twice more see unprecedented regrowth and prosperity following the Meiji Restoration in the late 1800s, and following the destruction caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake and World War II. Today, Tokyo sports a population of over 12 million people in the city and 30 million people in the entire metropolitan area.

My final stop in Los Angeles let me explore downtown LA, quiet on a Sunday afternoon, and then on to the centre of the motion-picture universe, Hollywood, to catch a glimpse of cheesy movie glitz and the famed "Hollywood" sign.

Los Angeles is the hub of America's monstrous film industry. Hordes of people with dreams of becoming a star move to LA to make or break their fortunes. Los Angeles county is a massive sprawl of over 90 independent cities, and the city itself is a mass of grid-lined streets with little centralised focus. It is often referred to as 75 suburbs in search of a city.