Bus Ride Sights: Guillemard-Bukit Merah

It was a very long bus ride we had that day.

With no destination in mind. 

It was one of those days where we just happened to have had lunch around PLQ, and so took the bus from there. 

The fun began with us attempting to find the bus stop.

At first we thought it was on Tanjong Katong Road ride outside the CDAC. Later we thought it might have been outside City Plaza. 

Eventually we found the bus stop- at this little slip road between Tanjong Katong Road and Guillemard right behind City Plaza.

I had not known there was a bus stop there. 

197 runs along Guillemard Road all the way until Kallang before turning down Crawford Street into North Bridge Road. 

Here it passes by several blocks of flats, a hawker center, a block of flats with lots of shops underneath and finally some sort of community center. 

To be honest I don't know what the hawker center serves. 

Neither do I know whether it is a community center. 

I'm usually just passing through.

From here the bus trundles down North Bridge Road past charming little shop houses that these days offer everything from costumes to fishing tackles to halal pastas to handcrafted ice cream. 

Raffles Hospital comes up not too long after, and the bus carries on all along Bugis Junction until National Library towers in front of you. 

Usually there's nothing spectacular to be seen along this stretch but today there were four of these vehicles from Special Ops parked alongside. 

(I've seen them before- I just don't know what they're there for)

Bras Basah Complex, with her old-school bookshops, second-hand bookstores, music instrument stores and niche shops, was up next, and then it was across the road to Perennial's Capitol Building (and Theater). 

I wish I managed to capture a picture of its charming exterior complete with columns, windows, balconies and all, but we shall have to make do with this one.

The bus trundled on, passing by the offices of law firm Lee & Lee, then this bridge (which I know where it is and have crossed many times before, but don't know its name)

The district of Chinatown- on the South Bridge Road side- comes up almost after. 

You pass by Hong Lim Park, then the side of Parkroyal Pickering Hotel, then it's this 70s style office building that comes upon you. 

I've never taken notice of the name. 

A couple of shop houses later- with decorations of the Mid Autumn Festival hanging across the street over their roofs- the bus comes upon the flats of Kreta Ayer. 

They may be a quiet estate- not much attention is given to them- but residents here consider the Chinatown enclave as their 'house downstairs' and nearly every day you'll see them walking about with walking stick, bicycle, newspaper and plastic bags in hand. 

Onwards the bus goes, and you're right on Neil Road.

It's a little funny- I've never quite understood how it is- but the atmosphere somehow alters a bit between one street and the next. 

It's like if this side were the housing blocks and the community center, and then right across the charming, heritage, hipster neighborhood of Neil Road. 

Maybe there's something we don't really see. 

I mean, how is it that on one side we have the car park, the community center and the heartlander shops, and a two minute walk away we are greeted by co-working spaces, specialty ice cream cafes, pubs and burger places from America? 

It's all very interesting. 

Past Cantonment Road, the bus goes past the back of the Cantonment Police Complex, and its attached structure which once used to be the front building of a Methodist school.

The bus heads past SGH, and the newly built Outram Community Hospital into the region of Bukit Merah.

This is a long road, by the way, 

I don't know for sure where it begins. 

And because I've always found it difficult to decipher where exactly the road begins, I like to assume that it begins somewhere after Kampong Bahru Road close to the CTE expressway. 

Jalan Bukit Merah is one road that you'll see lots, and lots, of housing board flats. 

Interestingly they may run along the same road yet be parts of different housing estates. 

Like, there're those that are part of the Henderson stretch, the Tiong Bahru stretch, the Redhill stretch, the Brickworks stretch and, of course, Bukit Merah Central herself.

I decided not to take too many pictures of the flats along Jalan Bukit Merah. 

So I took only these- near the Tiong Bahru stretch- and Chonkycam went back to her case inside.