Why I love this island so!

Religious violence is something you see every day on the news.  If it's not Nigerian churches being torched by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, it's probably the tension between Hindu militants and Muslim extremists in India.

All the violence we read about is absolutely foreign to us who live in Singapore.  Whatever Western critics may say about a "totalitarian" government (which isn't true at all) or the lack of freedom (I don't know about you but I can do without the freedom to get killed or maimed), my advice to the critics is this - you remain in YOUR country and I'll live here.  On the other hand, if you happen to live here and you really don't like it at all, it's a free world and you can always go where you think the grass is greener.  Lately, there have been a lot of foreigners who come to Singapore and avail themselves of the goodness of the land but post offensive and abusive remarks against the country they're milking from.  Here is where Singapore should show its "totalitarian" strength and send these ungrateful chaps packing.

Anyway, this morning, after a very early breakfast in Little India, I cycled round this lovely part of Singapore and took pics of the various places of worship.  I had intended for this post to be a wordless post with pics alone to tell the tale but alas, it's hard to remain silent when what I see through my camera lens is nothing but perfect peace and beauty.  Mind you, these places of worship are of the four major different world faiths and here they stand, no more than 100 metres from one another in perfect harmony, wonderfully tolerant and a great picture of what faith truly means as they each proclaim its gospel of peace and goodwill to all men.

It's when I see such peace and harmony of these four great faiths in close proximity to one another that I know in my heart of hearts that God is in his heaven and all's right with the world.  May God bless Singapore and its far-sighted leaders!  OK, I'll be silent from here on.  Enjoy the pics!

As I was busy snapping a pic of the Hindu temple, a bell suddenly broke the silence of the morning and religious music could be heard within the temple.  I took a quick video of the worship session from the road.  The video is a little shaky; I had to balance my bicycle against my body, remove my gloves and hold them with my teeth and use both hands to take the video.  If you watch the video carefully, you will see a guy in a pink shirt, slightly to the right playing a wind instrument but he stands in the shade so it's very hard to make out the instrument he's playing.  It closely resembles the clarinet but it's much larger and the bell is way too large for a clarinet.  But it's definitely a reed instrument because I saw the reed - placed on the mouthpiece just as in a clarinet.  It's the only wind instrument that you can hear in the video.  I really wonder what instrument it is.

Singapore's nooks and crannies

One tends to think that one knows everything there is to know about an island so small you can't run a marathon in a straight line in without hitting the sea. But is that entirely true?

Is the picture below all one can associate with the island of Singapore?

But it's a beautiful picture nonetheless. It speaks of progress, efficiency and development which are all hallmarks of this amazing country.  But is that all there is to Singapore?

Below are photos taken in Singapore and I bet most people won't be able to tell me where exactly they were taken.  I have blotted out my image from the pics for privacy.

 Doesn't this look like a photo taken in Narnia?

 A water-spouting dragon.

Most people would have thought this pic was taken in Malaysia if they had seen it in the context of this post.

Somewhere in the Netherlands?  Haarlem, perhaps?

Bali, of course!  Without a doubt, you would say.

Land of the gods

Saw 3 temples within 100 metres of one another. Here are two:

The view from my bike

Quite apart from the fact that cycling is environmentally friendly, you get to see a lot more when you don't drive.

Pics I took while on my bike:

All in one day

Before the sun rises, let me take you on a journey round Singapore.  Our first stop is Marina Bay Sands where idiots gamble away their money.  Gamblers either hate money and can't think of a better way to get rid of it or they really can't come to grips with the law of probability.

Here's a pic taken before dawn.

Broad is the road that leads to ... the casino.

Next stop is where there's a large satellite dish on the rooftop:

What follows next is a hearty breakfast.

This is one of the commonest breakfast items in Singapore.  Yew char kway or yew tiao may still be common in China and it used to be the main breakfast food here a long time ago, but no longer.

Next stop is where lots of people are going to within the next few weeks for the medical check-up preceding the compulsory military enlistment called National Service.

That's as far as the photos go.  Cameras and phone cameras are not allowed within the facilities.

Singapore at dawn

The city that sleeps at decent hours.

You can see how quiet the roads are:

Waterfalls of yesterday

There were some pretty waterfalls in Singapore but you had to search hard for them.  But they now belong to the past.  Like many things in Singapore, they were demolished to create space for new buildings.

Here's another one that was torn down to make way for development:

Can you guess where these waterfalls used to be?  I believe they were so obscure that most Singaporeans aren't able to give the right answer today.  What's more; I may very well be the ONLY person who has these photos!!!  There may be fame or profit in "camwhoring" after all!

A matter of angle

It's really just a matter of the angle a photograph is taken.  Look at this pic:

It looks just like a kampong in Malaysia or Indonesia.  But just scroll down to two days ago and you will see a pic taken from the same location but from a different angle and you will see it's not that kampong-like.

Over a murmuring brook

I tested out my cyclometer after installing the battery. 2050mm for tyre length seems to be the best calibration for my bike.

I felt strangely out of sorts the whole day and I knew why.  We ran out of milk and I didn't drink any the whole day.  That's the thing about being a mammal - we need milk.  Most mammals need milk only in their infancy but we humans have evolved to a much higher level.  I took my bike out in the evening but the view too tempting for me to just hurry on.  I felt constrained to stop at a footbridge over the canal to take a pic as the sun began to set.  It isn't really a footbridge.  It's more a road with a pavement.  Speaking of a footbridge, there used to be a real footbridge over this same canal further down the road.  There was a McDonald's just next to the canal.  They were all torn down to make way for a road over the canal. 

Fort Canning Tunnel

This is what caused the old and much-loved National Library red-brick building to be torn down or am I wrong?

This week begins with Thor unleashing his fury

This is what it looked like at 7:10 this morning.

Beautiful Arch

One of my pet peeves is the tearing down of old buildings by the municipal authority.  The Singapore government is notorious for this.  I will always maintain that the old National Library building shouldn't have been torn down.  There's a charm to it that no modern building can have.  There are still many buildings and structures that exude the old-world charm.  Here's one I just took:

I love arches especially when they are old.  Here are samples of the arches I've taken which I picked at random from my computer.  Some may think I've taken rather shoddy examples of arches and I should post the famous Arc de Triomphe but like I've said, these are random arches that are currently in my computer.  And I'm comparing these arches with one in Singapore and this is a huge disadvantage to Singapore which has a rather short history.  All the same, our arch doesn't look too bad at all.

We have so few of these old buildings and structures.  That's the sad state of affairs in Singapore.   We can't change our history.  But we really can't afford to tear down any more of them.

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through...

Early mornings are a lot more pleasant for a bike ride. The activity or revelry that took place the night before would usually leave behind in the crisp morning air a tale of some of its secrets.  It may be the litter from a wild scene of raucous partying by riotous youths or, it may be what I saw this morning as I climbed the steep slope towards Marina Bay Sands - a fat middle-aged foreign-looking man dragging his luggage, looking petulant, bedraggled and forlorn, a scene that conjured up in my mind a feverish night of gambling and drinking, of heavy losses and the despair that followed.  


I took a pic of what used to be Marina South but is now wholly occupied by Marina Bay Sands.  As you can see, there is always something respectable about Singapore; it's cleanliness and orderliness are second to no other city in the world.  

Shortly after taking this pic, I looked to my left through the supporting columns of a flyover and saw a strange building structure that I had not seen before.

I cycled on and after turning into a different road, there loomed ahead of me the imposing Marina Bay Sands building, seen from a different angle, complete with the Singapore Flyer further in the distance.

It didn't take long before I saw policemen on the road.  Don't forget - this is one of the safest countries in the world.  Nobody frets when criminals are locked away for ever.  There is no "unsafe neighbourhood" and you could take a stroll anywhere on the island at 3am and you wouldn't get mugged.  Those in the West can talk about personal liberties and the rights of a criminal but we don't care about these things.  We only want to be able to walk or bike anywhere we want without being threatened with harm.  Criminals who don't like it here are welcome to go to Norway where they can kill a hundred youths on an island camp and not have to face the gallows.  An Anders Breivik  would swing by his neck and we'd all be perfectly happy.

From Marina Bay Sands, I took a turn into the business district, and five minutes later, I was on the Esplanade bridge.

This photograph brings back a lot of memories. More of this in the future.

 Here's another photograph taken on the Esplanade Bridge.

The blissful ride was a little marred when I passed by what looks like a homeless man.  As far as I know, there are no homeless people in Singapore.  How can this be?  But I'm jumping to wild conclusions.  He may have been out late and drinking and since he was in a state of drunken stupor, he dozed off here.  As soon as he wakes up, he'll be heading home to his wife who is even now busily preparing  breakfast and a few harsh words to greet him with.

 

Speaking of breakfast, I soon headed for home and pedalled as quickly as my waning strength permitted me.

This isn't a city that never sleeps.

There are cities that don't sleep and Singapore most certainly isn't one of them.  Here is a pic of what I took at 7:51 this morning.  This area is the Las Vegas of Singapore but it pales by comparison with Las Vegas which at this hour, would have been bustling with activity and swarmed with vehicles and people.

Happy New Year

Here's wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year,
this year of the Rabbit

Why I could not be in church today

I would have gone to church and played in the Wind Ensemble (so inviting is the company of the wonderful people in it) if not for some urgent errand I had to run.  Since today was Youth Ministry day and the letter to church musicians made it clear that we did not have to play for the first half of the service (the youths would be performing), I figured that today was the day of least disruption.

My errand brought me to a residential estate and I was surprised to see trees decked with bright decorations. But Christmas is half a year away. What can be the reason for this?

Here's a clearer pic of the lights:

An overloaded bike

Look what I found!  A bike that's really cluttered with everything imaginable.

Flash flood in Central Singapore

I was out for an early morning breakfast and bike ride when I got caught in a terrific thunderstorm.

Little India

View of Little India at 8.50am

Night Rider

Tonight, I went on a bike ride that spanned from the centre of the island to the west and back to the central region again.  I took pics along the way and if you will let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets, I'll show you something about the history of this lovely tropical island.

First stop on my bike was:

This is the church that gained notoriety for organising a group to take over AWARE, a women's organisation, last year.  The church is known for its strong anti-gay stand.  I looked for the banner that says "GAY BUT NOT HAPPY?  CALL US AT...."  but it was nowhere to be seen.  My children spotted it years ago when we happened to drive past the church but it must have been taken down.  After the take-over of AWARE's exco, the church group was ignominiously ousted when Singapore's women showed solidarity in repulsing the group and passing a vote of no-confidence against the new exco which was shamefully removed.  Even though the Senior Pastor, Derek Hong urged the church members to give their support to the take-over group and many of the women joined AWARE as members in order to be able to vote for the new exco, they were nonetheless trounced.  It attracted so much national attention that Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister voiced his disapproval of the group and cautioned that religion and politics had to be kept separate.  See this link.   Thank God that the Singapore public and the Singapore Government are levelheaded.

That church is in the west.  Next stop is

On Saturday nights up to the early hours of the morning, this place is crawling with party-goers.  There are many dance clubs, pubs and restaurants here.  But it was a bit dead when I was there.  Look at the street itself

This is Robertson Walk.  You can barely make out the name.

I've never really noticed this delightful temple just opposite Robertson Walk

Next stop is the heart of Singapore: Orchard Road.  Someone once told me that Orchard Road was the Oxford Street of Singapore.  Always on the side of the underdog, I corrected him: Oxford Street, I stressed, was the Orchard Road of London.


There's Wheelock Place, to my left is ION.      [Time stamp: 12:32am]

You can see how dead Orchard Road was and it was just a little after midnight.  That's CK Tang.  Notice how deserted Orchard Road was.

And here is the busiest junction in Singapore, where Scotts Road meets Orchard Road.  You can hardly spot a single car.  This was the last photo I took and the time stamp says it was 12:33am and it was almost completely deserted.  Well, I suppose I was wrong.  Orchard Road is the Oxford Street of Singapore and not the other way round.  One just has to be truthful.

Total distance: 17.76km