Short Walk in the City

I had the camera with me this afternoon. 

I also had some free time. 

So I did what I always do when I have the privilege of having both together, and placed Chonkycam in my hand. 

It's true- random moments sometimes make better pictures. 

That is, if you're in the right frame of mind.

(I not always am) 

This afternoon I was walking from the bus stop outside ORPC- Orchard Road Presbyterian Church- so I decided to go via YMCA, which I used to walk past very often, but don't do that anymore.

There used to be a McDonalds here. 

I know because I used to come here for lunch on my own, armed with a stack of books borrowed from the National Library next door. 

Those were the days when fast food restaurants printed coupons and put them in letter boxes. 

I used those then. 

My favorite McDonalds meal was probably chicken nuggets back then. They allowed me to nibble, and I could eat them with one hand whilst turning the pages of the book with the other. 

The McDonalds is, of course, long gone now, and I still don't know what has replaced it since then. 

At the junction of YMCA and National Museum, I took a picture. 

I took a picture of the National Museum. 

I also took a picture of the adjacent road. 

For fun.

Because Fort Canning Road is the road that drivers take when they want to go to Wesley Methodist Church. Orchard Boulevard and Grange Road.

This afternoon, however, I was going the opposite direction, so across Stamford Road I went, and into the public domain of SMU. 

Here I stopped a while. 

The rains were a tad too heavy for someone without a hoodie. 

I continued on after a while, crossing the road towards Waterloo Street where the synagogue is, where the (currently renovating) Singapore Arts Museum is, and where Plaza By The Park used to be. 

i don't know if the property still holds the same name. 

There's now a huge monkey hanging from the walls of the frontage, and Lazada's logo is on the top. 

I didn't go onto Waterloo Street. 

It wasn't the direction I was heading to.

Instead I walked along the boarded up stretch of SAM until I reached Queen Street on the other side. 

Here I took a picture of the cathedral on the diagonally opposite side of the road. 

The Cathedral of Good Shepherd has to be one of the oldest churches in the country. 

For how long I don't know, but I think at least a hundred years, if not more. 

They have some of the most beautiful decorations when it comes to Christmas and Easter time- one year they had glittery, golden fairy lights lining depictions of angels blowing on trumpets celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. 

It made for a very heartwarming sight. 

I continued walking down the road, going past Queen Street and the NTUC Union House. 

Here random pictures include that of SMU, and Carlton Hotel. 

On the other side of the road opposite Carlton Hotel lies the low side wall of CHIJMES.

Once an orphanage, a convent, and a school, today the place has reinvented itself with restaurants, cafes and drinking spots. 

Traces of its history however still remain, not only in the form of the big door, and the architecture of the chapel, but also in the peaceful little hush that falls upon the spaces away from the music and the chatter when darkness comes.

It doesn't feel  that way, of course, if you aren't in the premises, and if you are, like me, on the opposite side of the road.

The only sounds I got came from traffic. 

Lots of traffic.

It felt funny; I wonder what the drivers must have thought of this lone female skulking behind the landscaped plants armed with a camera seemingly taking pictures of the vehicles on the road. 

I didn't take many more pictures after that. 

It was time to go.

But I got a shot of Raffles Hotel from the shelter outside Odeon Tower.

And I hope i managed to get a good one.