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The skateboard ban of 1978
Passing by Somerset Skate Park and watching a skateboarder in action, I was reminded of a time when skateboards first made an appearance in Singapore some three and a half decades or so in early 1976....
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A world apart
A look down Orchard Road at its junction with Killiney Road close to 40 years apart. The view in 1975 was dominated by the towering Mandarin Hotel which opened in 1971, but it was probably Cold...
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Silhouettes of times soon to be forgotten
The silhouette of a coconut tree along the shoreline at Sembawang is seen against colours painted by the setting of the sun at 7.09 pm on 22 September 2013. Coconut trees bending to the sea, once a...
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After the storm
6.43 am 9 October 2013, the colours of sunrise showing through after an early morning storm. Filed under: Forgotten Places, Photography Series, Quiet Moments, Sembawang, Singapore, Sunrises
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A Changi well hidden from sight
Looking across a sun baked tarmac during a rare opportunity I had to pay a visit to Selarang Camp, it was quite difficult to imagine the square decorated by the shadows of rain trees along its its...
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Thorns in the urban landscape
Intended to be an icon of a new Singapore, a building topped with a crown of thorns blocks the view from a once well-loved part of Singapore where many enjoy a meal of satay by the sea. The building,...
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A look at a dump
Travelling down the Tampines Road of old back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was hard not to miss the convoys of trucks on their eastward journeys down the road. The trucks, laden with much of what...
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The green, green grass, disappearing from home
In a Singapore inundated with the clutter that urbanisation brings, open spaces – wild, and green, however transient, are always ones to be celebrated. Open spaces such as this one on which a former...
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Geylang in the early light of day
The new day brings with it freshness and hope. It is perhaps with fresh optimism (or maybe not) that Geylang, a neighbourhood in Singapore better known for what goes on after dark, wakes up to each...
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Coloured corridors
Conceived by the founder of modern Singapore Sir Stamford Raffles, the five-foot-way was a feature that was stipulated in the Jackson Town Plan of 1822 and is seen today in the shophouses which once...
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Temporarily eternal
Long a quiet and peaceful corner in Singapore on a plot of land adjoining the former Bidadari Cemetery, is an area of Mount Vernon which once hosted Singapore’s first public crematorium. The...
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A sunrise where the sun may soon set
7.01 am on 21 Nov 2013. The rising of the sun seen through storm clouds at one of the last natural stretches of beaches in Singapore. The beach, is off the area of Sembawang which was once Kampong Wak...
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Riding on in a world that will soon change
One of the few places in central Singapore left untouched by the spread of the concrete jungle, the area bounded by Thomson, Whitley Road (Pan Island Expressway) and Lornie Road, will in the not so...
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A vestige of 16th Century Singapura?
Ravaged by the passage of time and probably neglect, a structure which harks back seemingly to the days of empire and dominion, sits somewhat obscurely and well forgotten on the southern slope of Bukit...
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Fast fading memories of a world we want only to forget …
Besides the lost coastline running along the Changi and Tanah Merah areas, another place by the sea that I was acquainted with as a young child was the seaside parks around the Pasir Panjang area. One...
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Grave losses
Of late, I seem to have taken to wandering around spaces for the dead of late, spaces that my irrational fears would usually keep me well away from. I now find myself drawn to them, seeking out the...
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New journeys on the Rail Corridor
It has been over two years since we saw the last train make its journey through the 26 kilometres of the Rail Corridor from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands. While we do know that the corridor will be...
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Documentation work at Jalan Kubor
Spotted by a friend at the cemetery at Jalan Kubor on the side of the Madrasah Aljunied al-Islamiah – raffia string being strung around grave stones, sparking some concern that the site may be cleared...
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Opening up a backdoor
An partly wooded area on the edges of Toa Payoh that for long has been insulated from the concrete invasion next to it is the plot of land south of Toa Payoh Rise and the site on which the former Toa...
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The palace of an empire lost
It was in the disorder of Kampong Glam of the late 1960s that I first became acquainted with the area. It was where I would occasionally find myself heading to on the back of a beca (trishaw) on the...
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