What do you do when you're supposed to be out celebrating but you're occupied with work and so you can't really get into the mood of partying and chomping on good food yet you still wanna go out and DO something?
You go for a walk.
And you bring a camera along to take pictures.
I happened to be in this neighborhood this sweltering hot Saturday afternoon. Okay, technically I happened to be in this neighborhood, but I also wanted to go about and explore the rest of this place beyond the frequent hangouts. :)
After all I'd been thinking about it for a while..
This neighborhood is indeed very charming. After going round for three hours, I finally understood what the old-timers in this area meant when they said they loved this place, that they had been staying here for forty years, some even during their grandparents' time, and if possible, they would never, never move.
One thing though. I'd always assumed that the charm lay only in the Koon Seng Road area. Uh uh. There's the charm with the brightly painted houses, yes, but the charm goes beyond that. It's in Joo Chiat Terrace. It's in the lanes. It's in the shop houses that line the main road and the shop houses that line the roads from Still all the way to Onan. The magic of the neighborhood, the space of the living, it lies beyond Joo Chiat Road, and beyond whatever we often find in the touristy guide books.
I found it in the roads where cars seldom pass. I found it amongst the residential enclaves and the quiet shop houses with their dustbins neatly laid out in front. I found it in the ferns and the palms. I found it in the quaint walk up apartments with their wide balconies and huge yards and the present-day low-level condominiums.
And I even found the magic in the back alleys and the drains.
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| Tembeling |
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| Silent and Quaint |
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| Structured Shop Houses |
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| There's a Magic! |
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| A Charm hard to Describe |
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| Junctions: Very Significant. |
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| A Walk Up Apartment |
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| I can See the Kampong |
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| I can Also see the Kampong |
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| A Quiet Lane |
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| It's very 60s. |
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| The Kampong Never Leaves! |
