A Very Short Walk on Ceylon

If there is one thing that I haven't been doing a lot of this year thus far, it is that I haven't been able to take out Chonkycam as much as I wish to. 

Not that I haven't been around, or that I haven't done anything, but I haven't been able to go about and around as much as I wish to, and so whilst most of my pictures are in my phone (Thank God) there haven't been that many on Chonkycam. 

It was for this reason that I decided I wanted to take her out this particular morning.

We were going to the Tin Yeang Coffee Shop at the junction of Joo Chiat Road and Dunman Road for a prata breakfast, and so I decided it good to bring her along with me. 

There aren't a lot of pictures, however. 

I mean, Ceylon Road isn't very long. 

There also isn't much to see. 

But the camera came out on the bridge between Roxy Square and the shop houses on the opposite side of East Coast Road. 

Form where I was, I could see the works of Singapore's Public Utilities Board. 

I could see the beautifully painted shop houses on the other side of the road, and a short distance away, the residential tower of what used to be Odeon but is now most known for being Cornerstone Community Church. 

The other side of the bridge saw more colorful shop houses. There was the distinctive red of the Red House bakery, then what I think is Bombay Garden, Stirling Steaks and Kim Choo Kueh Chang. 

On the other side of the bridge, just above where ice cream parlor Birds of Paradise is, I turned back, and got myself a picture of East Gate, The Gym, and even a little bit of the Village Katong Hotel next to it. 

A short walk below the bridge led to the East Coast entrance of Ceylon Road itself. 

I don't have the full information of what Ceylon Road is, but it is a long road that stretches all the way down past Marshall Lane, Pennefeather Road, and Ceylon Lane until it finally ends at Crane Road. 

I am a little familiar with Ceylon Road on the other side.

This side, not so much. 

Maybe because I haven't really paid much attention to the landmarks that are here, save for these two religious institutions that look like they have been there a long time. 

The first thing about Ceylon Road that catches your eye has to be the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple. If you can't see the temple when at the main road, the gopuram, or monumental entrance tower, will surely catch your eye. 

This temple, by the way, is one of the oldest Hindu temples in Singapore. Her origins trace back to the 1850s, and from what I gather, she hasn't moved from her site since then. There have been constructions, and re-constructions, of course, and today, besides the temple, there are also classrooms, halls, kitchens, a library, and a wedding hall. 

On the opposite side of the temple are a few shop houses, including the well-known 328 Katong Laksa, and the Padma Vegetarian Restaurant. 

But the unit that used to house a vintage-looking hair salon is not there anymore. 

Further on down Ceylon Road one comes to St. Hilda's Church. 

This church, Anglican in denomination, too has a story of her own. Founded in 1934, it used to be a two-storey wooden bungalow with worship services on the ground floor, and classrooms for students on the second floor upstairs. The present building- which they now call the Sanctuary- had its foundation stone laid on January 1949, and the building was completed in November of the same year. 

You know, it is history like this that makes one wonder just how the space of those days were like. We like to think of it as a neighborhood the way we see it today, but there were two cinemas in the area at that time, not to mention, various trades and homes all around the east coast area. 

Amber Road, Mountbatten Road, East Coast Road, Brooke Road, Ceylon Road, Fowlie Road. 

I like to think of them as roads just gently sloping away from the shore into the hinterland. 

After all, the entire stretch of shore did begin from where Marine Parade Road is today. 

More Marine Parade Hawker

So, this is a little startling, even to myself, but I have just realized it has been six months since I last wrote about the food here at Marine Parade Hawker Center.

The last time I wrote about all the food here was way back in January. 

I can't believe it.

Where has all the time gone? 

A privilege it is, I should say then, that I have had the chance to run around and try different foods at different places.

It isn't that I have nothing new to try over here at the hawker center.

It's just that I have been running around to the coffee shop side more. 

But there have been a couple of new plates here at this hawker center since I started eating there in January. 

So I'm just plonking them down. 

You know, I never thought about it before, but if there is one thing I've noticed about these plates, it is that they are very colorful. 

One doesn't think much about it when you're working through your food on the day to day, but put them all together in a collection like this and you suddenly realize that nearly all my plates have been yellow.

Those that aren't have a story of their own. 

Like the green one which was a plate of beef nasi goreng that we ordered from one of the halal Malay stalls, and which I had been curious to try. The rice was tasty, a little peppery, I thought, but it was a good portion and there was more than enough beef slices distributed around.  

Then there's the black bowl- this one a Japanese style don bowl which, if I'm not wrong, we ordered salmon fillet, and which came with an extended squeegee of Mentaiko sauce on top. 

Thinking about it now, I am so glad for the food here. 

There are places where stalls serve food which aren't appealing, and which, after spending that amount of money, make you wonder just what you have spent it on. 

Doesn't happen here.

One of my favorite food stalls here is the roasted meat stall. 

I don't know its name, but it's close to the restroom area, along the same row as the long-standing Neptune dim sum stall, and which always has a queue. 

Why exactly people queue for, this, very likely it is the way the meat has been roasted, the generous, skillfully cut portions, the soup, and the abundance of rich sauce that they drown your rice in. 

People who like their roast ducks, char siews, and roast pork will find this appetizing. 

I myself like the way the meat has been cut. 

I don't have to worry about bones. 

I also like the char siew. 

It's tender with just that little bit of fat. 

When it comes to the rice, all I have to figure out is where on the big mound of rice I should arrange the duck skin so that I can have it after I've finished the duck meat. 

We tend to get a shared plate here, my friend and I, where there usually will be roast duck, with either a serving of char siew or roast pork. Sometimes he gets two separate plates, where on both plates there will be the roast duck, with char siew on one, roast pork on the other.

He likes the sauce and the soup. 

I like the sauce. 

There are times when the stall is closed, however, and so on those days we go for either the chap cai png, or the China-style dumplings, both stalls which stand at opposite ends of the L-shaped hawker. 

The China-style dumplings I've written about before. 

But, don't underestimate this stall of the chap cai png, by the way.

It's legendary.

Prices are what they are, but the food- it can be said- is good. 

I'm always excited by what my friend brings back. 

Sometimes he brings back a plate containing a fish fillet. Sometimes he brings back a plate of prawn fritters, which, shall I say, are a rare find when it comes to a hawker economy rice stall. I like the prawn fritters, but I am also not particular. Whether it be the vegetables or the chonks of braised brinjal pieces, I take a fancy to them all. 

In recent days we have found ourselves attracted by the Western food stall close to the MRT side. 

I don't know its name, but it serves up a flat filet of really well breaded fish. There're also chips and coleslaw, with a generous amount of mayonnaise. 

Uncle never hesitates to give you more if you ask him. My friend and I like our mayo, so I always ask for another. I usually get a bit paisei asking for too much, so I mostly get just one extra. 

Between the two of us who share one plate, splitting the fish into two makes for a very light, nice, meal. 

I have grown to like other dishes too in this hawker center too, like the char kuay teow done dry style, isn't very oily and easy to pick up with chopsticks. It's not a renowned stall, this one- the well known one closed down a couple of years ago- but this dish is pretty good, and I'll order again when the feeling hits next time.

There're still other dishes in the hawker that I want to have, and go try.

Like the ban mian stall. 

The other chap cai png stall. 

The popiah stall. 

The bak chor mee stall. 

The Peranakan food stall.

The Korean style samgyetang ginseng chicken soup stall. 

I'll make sure to take pictures of them when I go eat them, but for now, I'm suddenly thinking about this bowl of century egg lean meat porridge that you see up there. 

You can see the grains, but mistake it not, the porridge is actually very smooth. Cantonese that I am, I tend to be very particular about the way I like my porridge. Best way I like it is when the taste is consistent throughout the entire bowl, and the texture thick and smooth from the top of the bowl all the way to the bottom.

The porridge here meets those hopes. 

Thick, creamy, smooth, and full of flavor, it is made with a recipe passed down four generations since 1958. Reassuring, comforting, and homely, it is a bowl that warms the stomach, lets you have a generous serving of your favorite ingredients- I love how the yolk of the century egg is smooth- and keeps a person's mood cozy and satisfied. 

Oh, and the price is good too. 

The Sides of Roxy

Not gonna lie, it isn't every day that I get the right frame of mind to take pictures of the place around me.

It's not because I don't see her beauty.

It's also not because I don't see her charm.

It's just that there's always a lot on my mind and I don't look around and about me on the day to day. 

But sometimes- like on this particular afternoon a couple of months ago- I do.  

It was one of those afternoons where I'd decided I was going to take a walk around, so, I did.

My first picture however wasn't of the terrace, or the patio outside, but of the view opposite from the balcony. 

It doesn't look very significant, the sight of the condominiums opposite, but consider that this view is one that can only be seen from a position on this very spot six floors up, that changes everything. 

I'm not quite sure the name of them two towers of white painted residences, but I think they are the Marine Blue condominium, with the western facing wall of The Flow seen diagonally in front of it.

What makes this picture unusual is the angle.

Both properties actually don't stand next to each other, and there wouldn't be such a picture at ground level six floors down.

Can't say the same for the wall outside the balcony though, not when the whole exterior of Roxy I and Roxy II has the same style of tiles shaded with rich colors of seashell holographic especially when seen in the light of an afternoon sun. 

There's something about evening here at Roxy I and Roxy II that makes things look particularly beautiful. 

I'm not kidding.

You don't get the same atmosphere in the morning or in the afternoon.

Maybe the very early morning= I don't know- I haven't had to wake up that early.

But the evenings hit different. 

It is the rays of the late afternoon sun, I should say, that switch up the whole environment. 

I love how they slant so gloriously over the brown tiles of the terrace floor outside.

I love how they cast a special golden glow on the surfaces they land on. 

Suddenly the bicycles under the staircase don't look the same. Suddenly the stuff outside on the wall with the big cupboard and the trolley and the ladders don't look the same. 

Everything gets enhanced, thrown into different perspective, into different light. 

The whole place transforms, becoming calm, pensive, reflective, thoughtful.

I like to think that the evening light grants her a voice of her own that only surfaces during at that time, and not anytime else. 

Someone once told me it were the saturation of the tiles, the richness of the colors. 

It might also have been the structure, the layout, the way the place had been arranged. 

Honestly I don't have the right words to describe it. 

Even after all these months, I cannot determine if the atmosphere is captured by the rich red of the tiles, the way the tall palms with their skinny trunks wave ever so gently in the breezes from the north and south, the sturdy tables and benches, or the slight of green that the bushes and shrubs by the wall hover. 

I just know that there is a quiet strength of beauty about this terrace and patio that is hard to describe.

Sometimes I think of it as a canvas where, with fairy lights and wooden benches the place would look cheerful bursting with energy and life. 

Sometimes I think of it as a space where children might ride a tricycle or adults might play a game of badminton, risking the shuttlecock dropping all the way down.

That, however, doesn't happen, doesn't usually happen. 

She has a quiet dignity, a quiet discipline that makes it difficult to be disturbed, impossible to be intruded. 

That doesn't mean she's not happy, or that she doesn't have character.

No, character is determined by the energy of the people who dwell there. 

It is determined by the personalities of the people who make the place their own. 

Which is why I say that in the last few months she has become more of a canvas than last, especially with her newly fixed ceilings, and her newly painted walls.

Fort Canning-Clarke Quay

Most of my pictures of the walk this afternoon are of Clemenceau Avenue. 

Why it is I didn't take any of the route before this walk, well, I suppose I were too busy chatting with my friend to actually take note of the surroundings, and the view. 

Thinking back, it is a bit of a pity to have missed out on the scenes from the stroll that began at SOTA. I might have taken a picture of Hotel Rendezvous. I might have taken a picture of SMU- the Singapore Management University. I might also have taken a picture of the Orchard Road Presbytarian Church or the YMCA Building next to it. 

There is much to see along this stretch before you hit into Clemenceau Road. 

There is the Istana Park. 

There is also the Tan Yeok Nee House. 

And Singapore Shopping Center, with the hotel of Citadines now in the vicinity right behind it. 

Perhaps I had been too busy talking about the meal which I'd just had earlier.

But Chonkycam came out only after I'd started walking right by Fort Canning Hill, and realized I was missing out on these slopes, and these trees.

Don't laugh. 

These pictures are important to me. 

Last couple of months haven't made me able to go around taking pictures of places with trees. 

Not as much as I like, anyway. 

Hardly has it been that I've been able to go to, say, East Coast Park, or Lower Peirce Reservoir, for an urban hike and some pictures. Hardly too has it been for me to be able to go to Pearl's Hill, much less the further places like Changi Village or Pulau Ubin. 

I didn't want to miss out on these here. 

This side of Fort Canning Hill looks the same as I've always remembered. 

One actually feels kind of small standing at the foot of the hill gazing up. 

From here, it doesn't look as high, but get up there to the summit near where the reservoir is, and the view- let me tell you- is completely, utterly breathtaking. 

Not only will you get a view of the Singapore River, you also get a view of Chinatown, Outram, Bukit Merah, and a bit of open sea on the southern front after the CBD and the port harbor. 

Looking up at the bulge of the slope now I wonder if the bunker side is here, or if it is on the other side, but this slope looks steep enough to house a WWII concrete bunker beneath- supposedly 9 floors down. 

It is the gradual slope after the bulge that gets to me. 

That doesn't appear everywhere.

Somewhere around this spot too I took pictures of Clemenceau Avenue, and the landmarks on the opposite side. 

It would've been nice if I had taken pictures of the church- the Church of the Sacred Heart- but all I managed to get was a bit of a blurred glimpse of the Ngee Ann Kongsi Teochew Building- at the back of them trees lined along the middle of the road. 

Ironically, the nice picture I took from this very spot turned out to be the still Under Construction property that locals born and bred often refer to as Daimaru, or Liang Court. If I'm not wrong, it's now called Canninghill Rise. 

How far the construction of this property has come, I don't know, but it looks like it's close. 

In this picture too- the first one- at the back- was the glistening white grid exterior of the State Courts as it seemingly looked around from the back. 

Perhaps what made this walk pleasant- despite the heat and the light- were the shadows. 

I loved how they stretched over the pedestrian path, and the ground. 

It were the shadows that attracted me to the owners themselves- the big trees- on the sprawling beautiful slopes of Fort Canning Park. They created a song in themselves, these trees, and their shadows, making me feel like I were not along a road in 2026, but another time before. 

Had they been there all this while, I wonder? 

Or had the necessity of horticulture taken over?

There'd be much more to write if I knew what the names of these trees were, but I don't. 

Perhaps one day I should visit this Jubilee Park. 

Anyway, I haven't gone to Fort Canning in the longest time. 

This afternoon we were heading towards the river and Clarke Quay, so too, I only managed to stroll past. 

We didn't go up, we didn't go in.

The only thing we did was to stop long enough to admire the huge space of field and her meadow-like energy. 

It isn't just the space that intrigues me. 

It is that there are not that many large open spaces in Singapore which do not feel like abandoned land, or unused empty space awaiting new owners. 

This one felt like it had been deliberately kept there. 

Like it had been there a long time, maybe during colonial times, maybe during Japanese Occupation times, maybe during pre-independence times. 

We won't know. 

We won't know why this space is now this way.

Or whether this space awaits something else. 

The answers, I presume, we'll know in time to come. 

This afternoon however, we just went on. first turning left onto River Valley Road, then crossing it, then going into Clarke Quay via Tan Tye Place where some of the newest haunts on the block included the supermarket of NTUC. 

It's gotten quite popular, this supermarket. 

More than the rest of the clubs and pubs, it seems. 

Maybe it speaks to a market that doesn't need the ambience of the pub to boost interaction. Maybe it speaks to a market that knows what goes into their drinks, what they are happy with, what it is they are willing to pay for, and what it is the actual amount they actually open their wallet for.

No one ever thought a supermarket in a clubbing area would have the boost it enjoys now, but it has, and a growing influence it has, too. 

We didn't stop to take a look at the cocktail menus of the places now just opening in the late afternoon. 

Instead we simply went on, first crossing the Read Street Bridge, then walked along the bank of Clarke Quay where Paradox Singapore Merchant Court is, heading towards Clarke Quay Central.