Life Sucks

During my teens year, I spent a lot of time in the Outram area, especially in my secondary school, Outram Secondary School. Those were probably the most memorable years of my life, where I made a lot of goods friends, some of which still remains today. It was where I accepted Christ, where I attended and served in my first church, had my first brush with the law and of course as any true blue teenager, had my first crush. The area around the school, namely Jalan Kukoh and York Hill unlike Margaret Drive had not changed that much - if it had, it was for the better. The first thing we see on my way to school was this long flight of staircase. We used to race up and down the staircase on our way to and from school. Now, on my way down to take this photo, I had to walk gingerly and panted badly while going up. Where have all the leg power and energy gone to? This block of rental flat is typical of the flats in the area. The residents who stayed there are mainly in the lower income group a...

" next time people will want to get married to monkeys. And they will want rights " Who said that? Ha ha ha no prize for guessing. But it is not a joke. And I am not laughing. In fact I pity the poor chap and I completely agree with him on his comments. This has nothing to do with bestiality as alleged by the pro-gay/lesbian community. It is about basic rights and as far as I am concern, in Singapore, if you are a gay/lesbian, you have no rights. The vocal minority voices of the gays are getting irritating and annoying. And it is time the silent majority come out loud and tell them to shut up and if they are not happy with the treatment they are receiving in Singapore, fine, leave and go to the US, Netherlands or wherever where there are no morals and there they can do what they want! So I hope the police throw out the complaints. I don't see any merit in it at all or what grounds they have. To accuse Pastor Rony Tan of creating unrest among the different class of people ...

The Margaret Drive Food Centre. A drab looking place where time stands still and the government has forgotten to upgrade. It is here that I watch many of the hawkers grow up or old in some cases like the 2 sugar cane brothers at the corner stall. They started helping out when they were kids and continued to sell the sugar cane even after they grow up. However, the stall seemed to have closed the last time I was there. My favourite stall is of course the Char Kway Teow. A nondescript one man show, long queues formed every evening to get a taste of the char kway teow which he cooks individually plate by plate. I liked to joke that the CKT taste so good because he perspires a lot and all that sweat goes into the CKT to give it that extra favour. He will be moving to Telok Blangah soon so catch him before he goes off. Another stall that I remember fondly is the Laksa Yong Tau Foo stall. It was my first experience of eating Laksa yong tau foo and I absolutely went crazy over it although tru...

When I was in primary school, I walked all the way from home at Margaret Close to Birkhall school which was located approximately in the middle of the stretch of Margaret Drive. It was a good 3 bus-stop away and we the children would walk to/from school on our own. I can't imagine any modern day parents will allow their primary school children to walk that distance especially as it involves crossing roads. But I enjoyed the walk. In those days there were many block of flats along the way and we would invariably meet up with classmates or stop at classmates home to chitchat and play. Right now, it is all empty piece of land. Here where there were several block of low rise flats was where most of my classmates stayed. Behind as can be seen in the picture was the imposing Queenstown Remand prison. That is one area that we seldom venture near. Cannot remember why though. (Unfortunately I couldn't get a close up photo of the prison even though it is now no longer in operation as the...

A giant plate of raw fish salad. The bowl only luckily otherwise won't know how to eat the rest of dinner. A table tennis ball, a pineapple tart and another pineapple tart. But just look at the size of the tart in the middle. It is touted as the golf ball tart but I think it is a tad smaller. But it is good. However at 100 calories per tart - not something that can just eat non stop. More about the golf ball pineapple tart here Unfortunately, no sponsorship for this write up. In fact had to order in September just so can get early bird discount otherwise it is $1 per tart.

Wishing all my friends and readers a Happy Bountiful and Prosperous New Year. Huat Ar!

Continuing my walk down old home town This was where we saw our very first 'modern' department store. It was in those days a magnificent 3 storey building. On the ground floor was a modern bakery Mon't dor (or something like that) and a supermarket. There was also a bank where we go to pay the PUB bills. On the 2nd floor was the Tah Chung Emporium. I loves to walk through it whenever I passed by - not that we could afford a lot of stuff there but for the air con. On the 3rd floor was a Chinese restaurant. Sadly like most of the HDB blocks in the area, it is now demolished. Fortunately, so far this was the only major building that was demolised. Still intact is the very quaint looking wet market. It is a 2 storey structure with the ground floor selling wet produce on the inside and 2 rows of food stalls on the outside. The upper floor was where the dried stuff were sold. My favourite stalls there were the duck noodle and the aquarium stall. I used to just go there and gawk ...