I have a surprisingly large number of pictures for what is, technically, a very short ride.
Whilst that might not hold huge a significance, what it might possibly mean is that Mountbatten Road does have a lot of stories that one might not see, hear, or experience anywhere else.
The bus ride today had begun from the bus stop right outside Parkway Parade, but Chonkycam didn't come out until somewhere at one of the condominiums that lie along Mountbatten Road.
What name it is, admittedly, I don't know (and I'm too lazy to check right now) but if I'm not wrong it likely is the one that borders Mountbatten Road, Amber Road and East Coast Road.
They're doing construction on this road right now- what exactly they're doing, I don't know- but it looks like there be some major construction going on down below there, and looks like it is going to last a while.
From here the bus went on, stopping at the bus stop, then at the junction where Tanjong Katong Road leads down to Tanjong Katong Road South and up onto the expressway.
It used to be a quiet stretch this one, but now with the MRT station down here, and all them houses nearby, maybe one day Tanjong Katong Road South will become a Point more than just a passing byway.
Here on the bus continued on Mountbatten Road.
To be honest I don't know how to define exactly which part of Mountbatten Road is which part.
I just know that there are rows of terrace houses all along the stretch where, if you were to drive in, or ride in, you'd be going into roads like Broadrick Road, Margate Road, and Arthur Road.
The one thing, I have to say, that does make this side of Mountbatten Road unique are the houses.
Some of them along this stretch don't look like they were built in the last twenty or thirty years. They've got architecture significantly different from our typical terrace houses that we of this generation are familiar with.
I'm not sure if people still live inside some of them, but these houses definitely look like they have stories waiting to be told.
It's not always wise to pry, of course, especially when some stories may or may not do any good after being told.
Still, I do wonder how the place looked like when those houses were actively used- whatever they might have been used for.
What were the surroundings like?
How did this road even look like?
Was it as spacious, or structured as how it looks now?
Did it have as many trees?
There're probably a good number of pictures somewhere in our archives that show just how this place used to be. We just don't see them featured very often.
Still, Mountbatten Road is Mountbatten Road and it is interesting how it begins from somewhere after Ean Kiam Place all the way past the McDonalds Kallang and Kallang Sports Hub until the junction of Nicoll Highway and Guillemard Road.
You don't sense it so much when you're traveling on it.
Especially when after all these houses, suddenly up comes Katong Community Center and Kampong Arang Road, followed by the small, intimate, yet fascinating estate of Jalan Batu, and the two petrol stations of SPC and Esso.
The blocks of Jalan Batu have been painted very colorful now.
Like a rainbow.
They didn't use to be.
Maybe they're meant to be more visible from the Old Airport Road side where today there is a whole new section of public housing and private housing coming up over that side.
It's familiar- the architecture of these Jalan Batu flats.
In another life I might have recognized them from another place, another housing estate, but today, with all that I am living today, all i remember is an elderly lady who came to a Senior Activity Center at one of the blocks here every Thursday. Same elderly lady had at first found it difficult to adapt to a new post-stroke life, but somewhere along the way became so used to the schedule that one day when the usual red van didn't turn up at 930am to fetch her, she called her son to call the center to find out why. (The van was late)
It feels long ago, all these incidents, yet, also, also not that long ago.
Perhaps that's what it means to be in a place where some things stay whilst some things change.
The bus went along past Decathlon and McDonalds Kallang now, and then it was onto Nicoll Highway.
I don't have that many pictures of the Sports Hub area- somehow I missed taking picture of the Kallang Dome- but whilst on the Merdeka Bridge, I snapped a couple pictures of the Kallang Basin which looks out onto Tanjong Rhu, and Marina Bay.
The scene looks more peaceful than I thought it would be.
