From Clementi to Orchard: 2022

This is another of what we usually would call a photo dump. 

Except that it not quite is, for the reason that I have actually written about it before but the pictures were edited differently at that time.

Let's just say it wasn't always that I used Adobe Photoshop Express.

So these pictures here are nicer. 

Much nicer. 

It would make sense if I were to begin this article from Clementi, which is where this bus journey started, but that would mean a whole lot of pictures and I don't know if I want to put everything up. 

Anyway here goes.

And let's see how it will be along the way. 

One thing about this journey that I can be very sure of is that it began in Clementi. 

Whether it began from the bus interchange, or from some random bus stop along the road, that, I don't know, but it was definitely in Clementi, and it was definitely on the side of Clementi leading down Pandan Valley towards Holland V and Holland Road.

I know it is Holland V because of this picture above. 

This was a time when Fosters was still there but I'm not sure if they are still there anymore.

If my memory of events serves me well, I don't think they're still at the same spot that they had been occupying for so many years prior. 

There was an outpouring of regret and nostalgia when they left the enclave, even though, I think they have reopened elsewhere. 

From here the bus went down Holland Road, first going past Dempsey Hill, and then finally it hit the Orchard belt.

You know, one of the reasons I wanted to write this post in 2026 was because some of the landmarks I had taken out the window that one particular day in November or December of 2022 are now no more. 

Tanglin Shopping Center- once a distinctive landmark building this side of the Orchard belt, is gone. No doubt, they had been quiet for a while before the building was demolished, but there were still people who went there, and there were still people who had memories there. 

I don't have much of a memory about the place. 

But there used to be a fair number of carpet stores facing the road, and there was a very homely, 80-ish feel Indonesian restaurant called Tambuah Mas where I once had a very nice dish of tahu telur- the Indonesian tofu omelet.

The one thing about these pictures that strikes me are the Christmas @ Orchard decorations.

Sometimes in the day to day, we just live, we just take the picture, and we don't think so much of what it is, but then comes a day when we look back and realize what a difference that one Christmas, and the years ahead, actually did make.

Hopefully this year I might get a chance to go down Orchard and see the lights again.

In that sense, perhaps, I am glad.

I am glad that everything else down the rest of the Orchard belt is going well, with Forum the Shopping Mall, ION, Ngee Ann City, Mandarin Gallery and 313 Somerset lining the entire stretch until one reaches the Istana Garden and the area of Dhoby Ghaut beyond. 

Bus to Hougang: 2022

Not going to lie, but these pictures of the bus ride I took from Geylang Serai to Hougang Bus Interchange were a little hard to see. 

It wasn't because they weren't well taken or that they weren't nice to look at, but simply because they were taken during a season that reminds me of a tragic time that came not too long after- resulting in a time I wish would end very soon. 

This bus ride had been on a Saturday afternoon. 

It was a trip that saw me go from Geylang to Hougang, take a letter out of the letter box, then make my way up to Yishun on an errand for Mr. Radioman. 

Actually, the pictures themselves are charming. 

Had early 2023 not taken place I probably would be able to appreciate them the same way I did back in 2022.

But life changes. 

It isn't the whole journey that makes me feel this way, however. 

I don't feel the rising bile when I see the blocks of flats at Ubi housing estate, the car showrooms that came after, even the entrance to Bartley Road East or the Kim Chuan Road area after. 

The feeling of bile comes somewhere around here at the blocks of Hougang Avenue 1, Hougang Avenue 3, and the turn between Hougang Avenue 2 and Upper Serangoon Road. 

Maybe because these blocks have been in my life most familiar with me.

It's a bit of a pity.

These pictures were beautiful. 

But the sight of them brings me a reminder of the life I have lived, the family that I have had, and the life I have to still live now. 

Actually the sight of those flats at Hougang Avenue 1 aren't that bad- they remind me of my childhood since my school was close by and I had friends on the school bus who lived in the blocks here. 

They also remind me of the time I walked here with Mr. Radioman in the wee hours and we went to the Prime supermarket and Molly's bakery and confectionery before making our way back.

These days however, I don't think of these pleasant times when I see these blocks.

I think of the (unpleasant) flat that still awaits me. 

You know, I wonder if it be possible for parts of my life to take themselves completely away.  

Or if there be parts of my life which, even in my memory, I do not wish to anymore see. 

I don't see why I should.

Those people whom used to live in Hougang and whom I care about have all gone. 

My grandmother who used to live in Hougang Avenue 3 has passed on. 

My aunt who used to live with her has since married to Australia. 

My aunt, who used to live on the opposite side of the stadium migrated, my cousins going along with her. 

Mr. Radioman is gone.

And my grandfather who used to live in the People's Garden estate behind this junction, has since passed on too. 

There's nobody left in Hougang whom I feel anything for. 

Perhaps this then is a cue. 

A reminder that it is time to close the gates on this estate (metaphorically), wish it a goodbye, walk away, and metaphorically never return. 

Bus from Yishun: 2022

So I was sorting through some of my pictures the other day and found, quite to my surprise, a bunch of pictures that I thought I had previously edited with Photoshop Express, but turns out, I did not. 

I have written about this bus journey before. 

But these pictures, as they are now, I have not.

So, here we are. 

To be honest I have no idea which part of the bus journey these pictures exactly are. 

I just know that I had been heading to SAFRA Yishun for an errand on behalf of Mr. Radioman and I had had come from the Geylang Serai side, gone to the letter box downstairs his house, taken his IC and his collection letter from the letter box, and taken 854 up to Yishun where the SAFRA was. 

The route, if I'm not wrong, probably ran along Yio Chu Kang Road and maybe part of Seletar Road, or somewhere that's close to the Lentor side heading towards the northern part of the country. 

What's a little odd is that I don't recognize a single landmark in this set of pictures.

I don't know what those blocks of flats are, where they belong to. 

I don't know where the intersections are, what those factory buildings belong to, even where they are. I completely have no idea. The only thing I have is an inkling, one that means makes me think the buildings were somewhere on the Upper Yio Chu Kang side corresponding to the area above Ang Mo Kio and before the Seletar reservoir.

Also, don't ask me about the condos, and the terrace houses. 

I have no idea what they are, their name, which street they are on, or which part of the journey they actually are on.

The only thing I cab be a little bit certain of is the expressway. 

That, very likely, is the Seletar Expressway. 

I don't think the CTE stretches this far up north. 

But I like the pictures.

They give ma quiet sense of nostalgia. 

Also a bit of regret, not on my part, but on Mr. Radioman's part. 

He had been excited to collect these vouchers. To him they represented his identity as a citizen, as someone who had served the country in the military as a combat medic way back in the 70s, and as someone whom the country- and the military- still remembered. 

I have no idea what he planned to use these vouchers on.

But he did buy some cough medicine from the Unity Pharmacy at Kangkar Mall. 

That was November- same month I collected these vouchers on his behalf. 

He held on to those vouchers all through December.

But by early January he was gone. 

A Very Short Walk on Ceylon

If there is one thing that I haven't been doing a lot of this year thus far, it is that I haven't been able to take out Chonkycam as much as I wish to. 

Not that I haven't been around, or that I haven't done anything, but I haven't been able to go about and around as much as I wish to, and so whilst most of my pictures are in my phone (Thank God) there haven't been that many on Chonkycam. 

It was for this reason that I decided I wanted to take her out this particular morning.

We were going to the Tin Yeang Coffee Shop at the junction of Joo Chiat Road and Dunman Road for a prata breakfast, and so I decided it good to bring her along with me. 

There aren't a lot of pictures, however. 

I mean, Ceylon Road isn't very long. 

There also isn't much to see. 

But the camera came out on the bridge between Roxy Square and the shop houses on the opposite side of East Coast Road. 

Form where I was, I could see the works of Singapore's Public Utilities Board. 

I could see the beautifully painted shop houses on the other side of the road, and a short distance away, the residential tower of what used to be Odeon but is now most known for being Cornerstone Community Church. 

The other side of the bridge saw more colorful shop houses. There was the distinctive red of the Red House bakery, then what I think is Bombay Garden, Stirling Steaks and Kim Choo Kueh Chang. 

On the other side of the bridge, just above where ice cream parlor Birds of Paradise is, I turned back, and got myself a picture of East Gate, The Gym, and even a little bit of the Village Katong Hotel next to it. 

A short walk below the bridge led to the East Coast entrance of Ceylon Road itself. 

I don't have the full information of what Ceylon Road is, but it is a long road that stretches all the way down past Marshall Lane, Pennefeather Road, and Ceylon Lane until it finally ends at Crane Road. 

I am a little familiar with Ceylon Road on the other side.

This side, not so much. 

Maybe because I haven't really paid much attention to the landmarks that are here, save for these two religious institutions that look like they have been there a long time. 

The first thing about Ceylon Road that catches your eye has to be the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple. If you can't see the temple when at the main road, the gopuram, or monumental entrance tower, will surely catch your eye. 

This temple, by the way, is one of the oldest Hindu temples in Singapore. Her origins trace back to the 1850s, and from what I gather, she hasn't moved from her site since then. There have been constructions, and re-constructions, of course, and today, besides the temple, there are also classrooms, halls, kitchens, a library, and a wedding hall. 

On the opposite side of the temple are a few shop houses, including the well-known 328 Katong Laksa, and the Padma Vegetarian Restaurant. 

But the unit that used to house a vintage-looking hair salon is not there anymore. 

Further on down Ceylon Road one comes to St. Hilda's Church. 

This church, Anglican in denomination, too has a story of her own. Founded in 1934, it used to be a two-storey wooden bungalow with worship services on the ground floor, and classrooms for students on the second floor upstairs. The present building- which they now call the Sanctuary- had its foundation stone laid on January 1949, and the building was completed in November of the same year. 

You know, it is history like this that makes one wonder just how the space of those days were like. We like to think of it as a neighborhood the way we see it today, but there were two cinemas in the area at that time, not to mention, various trades and homes all around the east coast area. 

Amber Road, Mountbatten Road, East Coast Road, Brooke Road, Ceylon Road, Fowlie Road. 

I like to think of them as roads just gently sloping away from the shore into the hinterland. 

After all, the entire stretch of shore did begin from where Marine Parade Road is today.