One thing I love about urban (and rural) explorations is that you never know when, or where, it is that surprises will spring up upon you.
You may think you know a place well.
You may think you've been here regularly countless times before and you need no introduction to the place.
But if there's one thing I've discovered over all the many trips I've done, it is that you can never know a place as well as you think you do.
I'm familiar with the 'hood of Lorong Seven Toa Payoh.
It was a place that I'd drop in religiously on Saturdays to one block, Sundays to another. No doubt I can't say I know the whole 'hood really well- it was just those two blocks I went to most of the time, and it was merely for a couple of hours each time- but let's just say that I went there often enough to grow a feel for the place, and better still, to remember it well.
A good number of my 80s memories are locked in this place.
This is where I had lots of chewing gum. This is where I had lots of fruit-flavored lollipops. This is where I had Kickapoo and Sinalco and triangular-shaped packets of Daisy chocolate milk and this is where I bought Kaka and those frozen fruit sticks from the provision store.
At the corner coffee shop here I used to buy bags of fries from the ABC Western food stall. At the video rental store here week on week I studied the faded, peeling poster of Edward Scissorshands. At the hair salon by the corner I went to cut my hair.
This is a place where I learnt to appreciate the fragrance of freshly baked bread. This is a place where I realized how important zichar meals were. This is a place where I understood the impact of high floors and sunshine. And this is a place where I compared the difference between a plain cement floor and a linoleum-laid one.
But for all the years that I'd dropped in here, and for all the years that I'd spent hanging around here, there's just one thing: I'd never crossed the road to the other side, and neither had I ever gone to a space this high.
So imagine my complete surprise (and delight) when on this early evening on a corridor from floor so high, a view like this presented itself before me.
Never would I have imagined that from a single spot on a single height I would be able to throw my (uninterrupted) gaze towards all four sides of the island.
Never would I have imagined that I would be having such a magnificent, significant view in this 'hood.
All these years my views had been confined to the ground level where I only got to see what I was required to see. Never once did it occur to me that there could be so much more in the neighborhood that I thought I knew. And that it had been here all along, all the while.
It was just that I didn't get to come here.
And so I didn't know.
Would it have changed my (narrow) perspective of the world then? Would I have thought otherwise of what I thought I knew back then? Maybe. Maybe I would have seen the 'hood in a different light. Maybe I would have asked more questions than to accept what I was being told. Maybe I would have interacted with the individuals differently had I then gotten this view.
Because it is not every place that you get a chance to see this.
It is not every place that you see the world around you all at the same time. I've not had this view- not all the time anyway.
But a glimpse can be enough.
On one side I was looking towards Bishan and the canopy trees of Lower Pierce with Bukit Timah Hill somewhere in the far off distance. On the other side were the blocks of Lorong Eight, a bit of Serangoon, Lorong Chuan, more trees, Ang Mo Kio and the cluster of the northeast. Behind, towards the east, were the distinctive blocks of Potong Pasir and Geylang Bahru, with the dome of the Stadium on the horizon, this evening gleaming in the orange glow of the setting sun. Southwards, if I leaned further out (which I tried) were the skyscrapers of Millenia Walk, City Hall, and the banks of the Downtown Core.
I didn't get the 360-degree views- of course- it's not possible when you're standing in the public space of the lift lobby of a Z-shaped block, but because I'd come here on some sort of impulse, may I just say that I'm glad for the clear skies, I'm glad for the winds, and I'm glad I got to see the sun drop below the horizon in the west behind the solo condominiums near Balestier, and Whitley.