Singapura - The Lion City

Legend has it that in 1399, the Sumatran Prince, Sang Nila Utama, after a storm tossed crossing from Bintan to Tumasek Island, spied an animal with a golden mane. He had never seen such an animal as yet and was told it was a Singa, the sanskrit word meaning lion.
Henceforth, he promulgated that the island would be called Singapura or the Lion City.
Whether he actually saw a real lion or not has been the subject of debate ever since.

Nevertheless, the lion has become the symbol of this city.
I thought it would be interesting to see where in Singapore, this animal can still be found.
Here are some of the places or icons where the lion serves as a reminder that this is the Lion City.
(Click on the photo for larger detailed views)

Coleman Bridge

Bank of China, Battery Road.

The Cenotaph War Memorial, Esplanade Park

The Merlion, Marina Bay

Lim Bo Seng Memorial, Elizabeth walk

Fullerton Building

National Museum of Singapore

Peninsula Hotel

Singa the Courtesy Lion, Fort Canning

The State Crest

The State Mace

Replica of the Merdeka Lion, Bukit Batok East Police Centre

The former tomb of Tan Kim Ching at 13ms Changi Road.
The 4 lion statues are now at the National Museum of Singapore.
(The 2 in the rear are elephants not lions)

Lion statue from the former grave of Mr Tan Kim Ching, National Museum of Singapore.

Grave guardian lion statue at Bukit Brown Cemetery.
(Grave of Mr & Mrs Tan Cheng Hoe, my grandparents)

Former Bukit Timah Fire Station

Chinese Gardens, Jurong Town.

Armenian Street Restaurant Signboard

Armenien Street Shop Signboard

Cavenagh Brodge

Singapore Fire Service helmet

Ngee Ann City

Tangs Department Store

Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry

Municipal City Emblem

Istana Gates

The Legends Lion

St Mark's Lions, Sacred Heart Church

Wak Hai Cheng Bio, Philip Street

Ying Po Fu Kun Ancestral Temple

Chinese Weekly Entertainment Club

Teochew Building Lions

I will add to this post as and when I find more lions in Singapore. Do return for more updates occasionally. There will be a photo essay of the lions found at Bukit Brown Cemetery following soon.

If you do know where lions can be found, please send me a comment.

How the Brownies found my grandparents.

In December 2011, I blogged about how I feared for my paternal grandfather whose burial place might be affected by the announced plan for an expressway that was to run across the old Bukit Brown cemetery at Adam Road (article here).

I had never known my grandfather in life and had last visited his grave as a very young child over fifty years ago. None of my living relatives knew where the grave now laid.

By a stroke of good fortune, it was then that I came across a group of enthusiastic heritage conservationists of Bukit Brown Cemetery. I followed their exploits online, both on their webpage and on facebook. After a while, I decided to write to them asking if by any possibility they might be able to trace a lost grave amongst the hundred thousand there.

A young lady, Ms Khoo Ee Hoon, replied almost immediately that same Thursday evening asking for a bit more details of my grandfather. I directed her to my blog article which was basically all I knew of him.
She read it and came back with a few unusual questions...did he take part in any sports (dunno)?,  was he a clan member (dunno)?,  what did he do (he was a towkay at Boat Quay) ?, what year did he die (dunno)?
The only thing I knew was what my mother had told me from her sketchy memory, which turned out to be completely wrong, except for  the clue that the grave was near a pavillion.

On the following day, I received a note from Ee Hoon. I found your grandfather ! He's located at Hill 5, plot 172 and buried beside your grandmother at plot 179! 

I was astonished and impressed, truly I was amazed at the speed at which they went through their own information database and records and found details of my grandparents.
What's more, the next day, Ee Hoon actually located the grave on Hill 5 and sent me photos of it! for this, I am forever in her debt.
Thankfully, their graves were not affected by the planned expressway except that it would be running very close to it in future.

My paternal grandparents graves at Hill 5, Bukit Brown.

Though I did not become a 'Brownie', I continued to follow and support their cause. Even meeting up with some of them, including Ee Hoon, as our paths crossed through other internet forums.

Last Saturday, I finally joined them on one of their free guided tours through Bukit Brown Cemetery.
I would encourage anyone who has not been there to join one of their weekend tours. It would be an eye opener for many and you will feel the dedication, the enthusiasm and passion of the 'Brownies'.
I dedicate the following video that I made to them for all their efforts to preserve this part of our country's heritage.

The geographic centre of Singapore.

Do you know where the Geographic Centre of Singapore is?
Frankly, I didn't but I suspected it might be the same as the Geographical Origin of Coordinates of Singapore which I did know about.

The Origin of Coordinates for any country is that point from which all local maps, distances, surveys and longitudes and latitudes are measured from. This point takes its own reference from the Greenwich Observatory in London which is longitude 0, or the prime meridian.

From the late 1800s in colonial times, Singapore's Origin of Coordinates was officially marked as 1°17' 15.528"N and 103°51' 10.808"E. And where exactly in Singapore is this officially confusing and difficult to understand point?

It is the precise spot where the flagstaff of the old Colonial Office of the Surveyor General of Singapore was. This was on top of the Empress Place Building, today called the Asian Civilisation Museum.

The flagstaff can be seen on the extreme right in the above picture.
(Source: National Heritage Board PICAS photo database)

With the heritage conservation of the old Empress Place Building and conversion into the Asian Civilisation Museum, the flagstaff unfortunately was dismantled and its heritage value forgotten.
There is a new flagstaff on the roof at the new entrance to the Museum but this is not the original Origin of Coordinates.

In 2005, with the implementation and widespread acceptance of GPS, the Origin of Coordinates for Singapore was moved to a new spot.
The new ground zero is simply 1 22 00 N, 103 48 00E.
This puts it on a spot at the Upper Pierce Reservoir.
It was done to simplify the coordinates, dropping the confusing seconds and decimals.

The official Origin of Coordinates for Singapore.

Another Milestone
Although map coordinates were zeroed in on the Empress Place Building, the measurement of milestones or distances radiating from the city centre did not begin from Empress Place.
Originally, it began from the entrance of the New Police Station on North Bridge Road.
This Police Station was located opposite St Andrew's Cathedral, beside what is now the Capitol Building.  (The spot where the old National neon sign was - see my friend Lam Chun See's blog here for this old landmark)

When the Police Station became defunct, the Colonial Surveyor General, who had by then moved his office from Empress Place to the new GPO building around 1929, decided that all milestones would from then on radiate from the entrance of the GPO Building and be measured from there.

Today, roads are measured from where it begins and no longer from the GPO.
For example, 10km PIE would be the distance from its start at Changi/ECP.


(Please note: There are varying standards in measurements and GPS so some maps may point to a different coordinate...but that's another story)

Better behaviour for pleasant journey

LTA (Land Transport Authority) is studying better design features to encourage commuters to move inside the MRT cabins, according to a report in the TODAY broadsheet, 17 Feb 2011.

I commute on the trains almost daily so I wish to put in my 2 cents.

I must have put in almost a few dollars already on this topic but I still see no improvements on the trains on the issue of overcrowding at the doors.

I must admit though there is a marked alleviation of the general overcrowding problem on the return journey in the evenings at Jurong East Station. This is due to the separation of the incoming passengers from Boon Lay side to platform A, while the incoming passengers from the city are directed to platform D.
Thank SMRT for little mercies.

I am not sure of the situation at other stations.

However, the problem of the squeeze near the doors during peak hours still persists.

My suggestion is controversial but I feel it merits some consideration.

Make the exits and entrance ONE WAY ONLY.

There are 4 doors to each cabin. Alternately, make each door an ENTRANCE or EXIT only, not both ways, as is the current practice.

This will surely make the commuters move further in on entry knowing that they must reach the exit farther in sooner or later.

Currently, there is no compulsion to move in as staying near the door makes it easier to exit on arrival.

My other suggestion is to remove the vertical grab poles in the center of the cars. They actually obstruct the passageway and is not conducive to proper spread of passengers standing in the cabin.

DO place more overhead handhold, even near the doors, for SAFETY reasons.

There will be passengers who are unable to move in during peak hours but SMRT still have to bear in mind their safety during the ride.

The reason of NOT placing more handholds at the doors to encourage movement inside does not hold up to reason, as passengers are not motivated to move in anyway. Their safety is compromised without any means of support if they are caught unwittingly on their part being squashed at the door areas.

Bukit Batok's 'Mt Fuji'

For many visitors, Bukit Batok still remains a very confusing area to navigate. That's probably because Bukit Batok is divided into 2 separate 'zones' - Bukit Batok and Bukit Gombak. The town is divided by a small hilly ridge which completely separates the town into two distinct precincts.Today , the 2 zones are connected by roads skirting both ends of the ridge as well as the MRT track that tunnels through the ridge itself.

When I was asked which part of Bukit Batok I live in, my reply would be 'across from the MRT station'. But in the past, I would say 'next to the Fuji Hill'.

Yes, there was (is?) an officially named "Fuji Hill' located at Bukit Batok.
Though today most residents do not call it by this name, it was a landmark in the early 1990s.
I guess it's a bit of an embarrassment to call it" Fuji'

Here is an old picture of the hill without its covering of trees found today. It's easy to see why people called it such in the earlier days.
The road in front of this hill (in the picture below) is Bukit Batok St 21. The wayang stage on the right stands across where the chinese temples are located today.

Fuji Hill around 1980, before someone went berserk with tree planting

Today, Fuji Hill is covered by trees and looks like any other park. It was my neighbourhood park.

This how 'Fuji Hill' looks now.

Bukit Batok New Town was built upon a hilly area and one of those hills left remaining where it stood was commonly referred to as the Fuji Hill due to its conical shape.


Related blogs:
My neighbourhood park
Bukit Batok, my neigbourhood

The house always wins.

Here's an article in Yahoo today that you might be interested in reading, especially if you have that occasional itch to try your luck at the casinos.

Click here to read the whole article.

Doesn't actually say much more than what we already know. That the casinos always wins.

In the Yahoo writeup, they cite the report from Wynn Las Vegas Casino which stated that their average take from each gaming table was US$7117 per day, while the slot machines were US$273 per day. They win at every game everyday!

Mathematically, the odds are always in their favor.  

The funny thing about this is that some casinos in the US actually brazenly advertise these odds in full glare.  Gullible gamblers, mainly tourists like you and me, never stop to think of the implications.

In Las Vegas, to attract customers, some casinos outrightly announce 98% payouts at their joints. What gullible people don't realize is what they are really saying is that the casinos will always earn $2 out of every $100 you play. The longer you play the more they win! 

Yet, we are still so gullible that that we always think we have an extremely HIGH chance (98% wow!) of getting back our money! The old adage of  "There's one born everyday".

I have not been to the casinos at MBS nor RWS yet but I have been to Las Vegas six times. Gosh, how I miss Las Vegas. Was last there in 1997.
OMG! That's like so 20th century !
The Bellagio and Venetian were not even built then!

In fact when I was last there, they were filming Con-Air and I saw them filming the part where they wrecked the old Dunes Hotel by crashing the plane into the building! Who remembers Nicholas Cage in ConAir? The Dunes Hotel was imploded later to build the new Venetian Hotel.

Back in my dinosaur era, I made an annual trip to Las Vegas. Not to gamble but to attend the COMDEX IT convention. That was the largest gathering of IT people at that time.

I miss Las Vegas. I wanna go back there! sob, sob.

Hillview Railway Bridge Revisited

Today, on my way to Woodlands, I stopped by Hillview Road to re-visit the site of the old railway bridge which was dismantled on 26 Nov 2011.
I was just curious to know if any further removal of the remnants took place.

The Hillview Railway Bridge July 2011

The bridge was dismantled on 26 Nov 2011.

Bridge removed with only the collision barrier remaning (26 Nov 2011)

The collision barrier removed (12 Dec 2011)

Photo taken 12 Dec 2011

The height warning gantry still remains.

It's so typical of the way the various government bodies function.
One is responsible for dismantling the bridge, another to remove the collision barrier and finally some other has to remove the height warning gantry.
Wouldn't you expect that a coordinated tender to remove all three at one go?

I would expect the next development would be the widening of Hillview Road once the Hillview MRT station situated there is completed by the middle of 2012.

Related links:
Passing of an era.

Christmas present for my friends

Christmas is but once a year as they say.
It's about celebrations, it's about feasting, it's about exchanging, giving and receiving presents,
It's about Church and Midnight Mass, it's about caroling and that warm gushy feeling.
But most of all, Christmas is always about family and friends.

Each year around this time, I usually put out my Christmas greeting to all my friends.
The past 2 years via video. I tried to do one last week but the mood and the street lights seems so insipid this year that I decided against it. Maybe I should re-hash last year's video? That the message is perennial and never changing helps.

Some friends told me that my video last year was a touch cynical. I apologize.
I realize that not everyone is Christian and they can celebrate Christmas in any way they prefer.
After all, the true message of Christmas is that God sent his Savior for everyone, not just believers.

Last year was a turning point for me. I joined the ranks of the unemployed for a while. At my age, it was a period of anxiety, but it allowed me to deeply reflect and take stock of my present state.
I can't stop the world and get off, but I decided that I didn't need to keep chasing it either.

So my life is now on a slower pace. I stop to smell the flowers.
I go around photographing places, bridges and elephants; not arty-farty stuff but pictures I like.
My wife noticed a change as well. Our lives and our bond are much stronger for it.
I am a much happier person.

This year, I decided more than just send a Christmas greeting, I am giving all my friends a Christmas present. Not something wrapped in a tinseled box but hopefully just as colorful.
I am giving my time to anyone who want or need it. I am giving myself for you.

Here is your claim check for your present :

I am here for you. Call me. There are no conditions attached.

A Happy and Blessed Christmas to all.



p.s. if you drink this Christmas, don't drive, call for sleigh ride home. ok?