Second attempt at writing this post about this block here at Chai Chee.
By right I should have included it when I was writing about the walk from Jalan Daud to Jalan Kembangan to Chai Chee Drive, but because it turned out that I had more to say than I thought, I'm writing this only here and now instead.
Ping An Yuen is an area that I have known for quite some time.
First time I saw it was when I was on a bus with an elderly going from Bedok bus interchange to SATA at Chai Chee Street.
If I remember rightly, back then it wasn't only the blocks that intrigued me. It was also the fact these few blocks had a name significantly different from the Chai Chee zone that the bus was traveling in.
I didn't think much of it back then.
But this afternoon, having walked from Jalan Kembangan to Chai Chee Drive, I decided a visit to this block made for the right time.
It's not hard to get to this block (whichever number it is- I don't know)
But a stranger has to keep to Google Maps as she cuts through the car parks and the HDB blocks lest she get lost and find herself back at the slope of Chai Chee Drive instead of Chai Chee Road.
I was kinda glad when I found the block.
Not because it is anything different, or outstanding from its neighboring blocks, but because it finally answered the curiosity I had been backbenched since a couple of years ago.
I got to the void deck.
I went up the lift.
Where I came face to face with a very huge surprise.
One might think that there were something unique about the space- like maybe someone had put something there- but the surprise came not in the form of the block, but the corridors lining all 10 floors of it.
I had not thought that in a non-mature estate like Chai Chee there would be corridors of this style holding flats of this size.
I had not thought there would be one-room flats this side of island, even.
But apparently there are, and they're conveniently located one bus stop away from Bedok Interchange, the mall, the town center and the MRT.
I don't know if one room flats are still seen in the same light these days but space being space, there'll be some things which don't change.
Just that I no longer see them.
At one time I might have gotten intrigued by the sight of belongings all arranged on the corridor outside them doors.
I might have been keen at the sight of three bicycles, a kid's tricycle, a small toddler-size table and chair, or a heap of shoes all tossed haphazard outside the door.
These days however I am more interested in the views that these residents have.
Drying laundry, wheelchairs, pots of plants, shoe cabinets and knick-knack furniture no longer hold as much interest to me.
Instead I found myself leaning out over the parapets of staircase landings both ends of the block, gazing upon a view which from their own windows on either side, residents would have seen.
It took me a good while before I realized this might be one of the few blocks in this area where you got a good lookout of 360 degrees.
Okay, I don't know if other blocks have the same view.
But this one- where one side got the compass of west, north, northeast and a bit of east, where the other side faced the directions of east, south, southwest and a bit of west- the view was of literally everything within a 5km radius give and take slightly more.
It was fascinating to look beyond the compound of the factory below towards the direction of Bedok North, knowing that Pasir Ris and Tampines lay beyond.
It was even more fascinating to be at this side of the block where Chai Chee Road was and see it lead all the way down to the south side past Opera Estate, the area we call Siglap, Siglap MRT station on the TEL line, and eventually leading to the sea, the beach and East Coast Park.
It wasn't all unblocked, unadulterated view, of course.
We're too small a country to allow that.
There was a block close by, in between which was a tree- large canopy, nice little leaves, and little flowers that seemed to drift really close to you when the wind blew.
I wondered if there were birds.
Me being me, however, I got rather fascinated by the fact that one might actually be able to see the planes as they made their approach towards Changi Airport.
Not just that, I also got fascinated by the fact that one could see the shops frequented day by day below, and in the same frame, a plane making its final approach, both, same scene, same time.
Were they, on a clear day, be able to catch a glimpse of the sea?
And, if they could, their thoughts, I wondered, what were they?
Did they think of lands beyond these waters?
Did they wonder about the people on the planes coming into the country?
Or did they just put the entire view aside and focus only on life at hand?
Sometimes it gets a little difficult to step away and believe there's a world out there.
But there is.
Even if the world seems very far from your hand at this point in time.
This afternoon I stood there for a while looking out over the road, the shops, the blocks opposite, the MRT track cutting across the landscape, the little houses beyond, and right at the horizon, the high rise condominiums which I previously hadn't paid much attention to before.
Sometimes it is a little hard to imagine that an MRT track, and road, can be a sort of separator between the lives of us in public housing, and those of private but that's just how it is- we sometimes look over the fence- but in one form or another, we're too small a place to stay away.
I stood there a while, then decided it was time to go.
We were coming to early evening; people would soon be coming home.
So down the stairs I walked, meeting a little kitty snoozing peacefully away at the side, her little plate of cat kibble in front of her.
It was impossible to walk away without meowing at her.
So I meowed.
And, kitty that she was, woke up, yawned, and meowed back
Back down on the ground floor I decided to do a little bit of an additional trip.
Had I been in a rush, I might not have wanted to walk there- it seemed a little silly- but I was leaving this area, I probably wouldn't be coming back here much again, and it didn't feel right to just get out of the Chai Chee area without being dropping by the NMB Factory.
The logo brought back to me a heap of memories.
Somewhere in the Toyogo drawers back at HH there would be an envelope holding A4 sized paper bearing this logo. I know it was there. I'd seen the letterhead before.
It is a pity that I know literally nothing of his time here at NMB.
There had been no opportunity to ask.
There had been no opportunity to find out what his office looked like, what his desk was like, were there many files and folders and papers he had to sort out and look through, did he have to go down to the floor, did he have a uniform, was there a canteen on the premises, how were his colleagues like, so on and so forth.
The time had been short.
Had there been chance, I would have wanted him to bring me here, for us to see the factory compound together, and I would have wanted to hear how his work life here was like, how it had been- thirty plus years ago.