The country held her Bicentennial celebrations in the summer of this year. Well, technically it wasn't a summer, because there aren't seasons in this little red dot of ours, and where once we used to have at least June monsoons and December monsoons, climate change has made it such that we don't know when it will rain, when it won't, from where the winds will blow, and from where they won't.
Still, weird weather patterns or no, life goes on, and so starting from June, there were activities and celebrations all around the island- with the singular intention of kicking us all into high patriotic gear.
Can't say that their efforts didn't succeed.
There was quite a bit of excitement with the AR thing going on at Fort Canning, and although I don't know how theirs works, utilizing technology to reveal nuggets of history right on-site where it actually happened is remarkably fascinating. It must have been quite a success- they've extended it to December.
I didn't do the AR thing.
There was no time- and okay, it was because I didn't fancy prancing about Fort Canning Hill by day or *gasp* in the dark of the night armed with a phone to see history come alive for the sake of seeing history come alive. Yeah, I'm a bit dull like that.
What I did do, however, was to get myself (on foot) from Bugis to Suntec City just so that I could capture these pictures you see above. It isn't every day I get to see them (thank God) and neither is it so that I can simply waltz into Sungei Gedong or wherever it is they are housed to see them up close and take pictures, can I? The original plan had been to go to this particular bridge on Nicoll Highway- that's where I'd been when they made their last appearance in 2015- but that height grants me only a top-down view, and someone had told me that you could get a closer look at these military machines if you stood outside Suntec City where the Duck Tours were.
True enough, the intel- I got close enough to get a great look at the barrels- less than two meters away they were- and had I not been so self conscious, might have whipped out my phone and done a selfie the same way the others around me had done.
But I was content to take a picture. Even if the picture was one of those one-shot things that you do, hope you got it right, decide to edit the heck out of it later, and move on. No time (and no permission) to ask the personnel to please sir move aside, you're in the frame, you'e blocking the barrel, so yeah, I'll just have to take it that the uniformed dude photobombed.
The rest of the pictures I took randomly as I moved down the pavement right outside the Mall. I've no idea what these machines are, actually, and neither do I know what they do. I'm just glad that no one stopped me. :D Frankly I had no idea whether my camera was permitted, or not, but after three clicks and two deletes, no one approached me, so I continued. Then again, even if they had tried, well, whilst as a good citizen I would have politely complied, it would have been pretty hard to tell the same thing to the bunch of excited Duck Tour tourists who came up right behind me snapping away happily with their phones. There were quite a few of them, mind, not just one or two, male, female, children, adults, all hailing from countries large, very large, small, and very small.
I guess it is an opportunity for them as much as it is for me.
Can't say that their efforts didn't succeed.
There was quite a bit of excitement with the AR thing going on at Fort Canning, and although I don't know how theirs works, utilizing technology to reveal nuggets of history right on-site where it actually happened is remarkably fascinating. It must have been quite a success- they've extended it to December.
I didn't do the AR thing.
There was no time- and okay, it was because I didn't fancy prancing about Fort Canning Hill by day or *gasp* in the dark of the night armed with a phone to see history come alive for the sake of seeing history come alive. Yeah, I'm a bit dull like that.
What I did do, however, was to get myself (on foot) from Bugis to Suntec City just so that I could capture these pictures you see above. It isn't every day I get to see them (thank God) and neither is it so that I can simply waltz into Sungei Gedong or wherever it is they are housed to see them up close and take pictures, can I? The original plan had been to go to this particular bridge on Nicoll Highway- that's where I'd been when they made their last appearance in 2015- but that height grants me only a top-down view, and someone had told me that you could get a closer look at these military machines if you stood outside Suntec City where the Duck Tours were.
True enough, the intel- I got close enough to get a great look at the barrels- less than two meters away they were- and had I not been so self conscious, might have whipped out my phone and done a selfie the same way the others around me had done.
But I was content to take a picture. Even if the picture was one of those one-shot things that you do, hope you got it right, decide to edit the heck out of it later, and move on. No time (and no permission) to ask the personnel to please sir move aside, you're in the frame, you'e blocking the barrel, so yeah, I'll just have to take it that the uniformed dude photobombed.
The rest of the pictures I took randomly as I moved down the pavement right outside the Mall. I've no idea what these machines are, actually, and neither do I know what they do. I'm just glad that no one stopped me. :D Frankly I had no idea whether my camera was permitted, or not, but after three clicks and two deletes, no one approached me, so I continued. Then again, even if they had tried, well, whilst as a good citizen I would have politely complied, it would have been pretty hard to tell the same thing to the bunch of excited Duck Tour tourists who came up right behind me snapping away happily with their phones. There were quite a few of them, mind, not just one or two, male, female, children, adults, all hailing from countries large, very large, small, and very small.
I guess it is an opportunity for them as much as it is for me.
Just one thing: As a civilian, and a female to boot, I would have loved to get even closer to these tanks, but hey, this isn't Army Day, only ten minutes before they roll, and I didn't want to be breaking any rules, so yep, we've all to be content with seeing these shiny, polished, olive green machines camouflaged amidst the citified structures of LTA road fence and NParks-planted ferns. :)
A fact which, when I think carefully about it, I don't really mind, for is not being able to take my own sweet time snapping pictures of these quietly parked tanks outside Suntec City Mall in the Downtown Core, the essence of Singapore's National Day after all?