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The great “hold up” at the sixth mile
1999 would have been a year that is celebrated by the residents of the area in and around the 6th Milestone of Bukit Timah. It was in August of that year when the Singapore Turf Club (STC) moved its...
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The last puppet show
The distractions of the modern world have seen us lose many of the traditions that once coloured the streets of Singapore. One that struggles to survive is Chinese puppet theatre in its various genres,...
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150 metres above Beach Road
Many will remember the DHL Balloon at Tan Quee Lan Street. Rising high above the Bugis and Rochor areas of Singapore for a short while in the 2000s, the brightly coloured attraction, added not just a...
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The Google Shophouse
From doodles that grab your attention whenever the occasion calls for one to transporting you to some street in some far flung of the world from your armchair, Google seems to come up with some of the...
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The Fullerton Hotel National Day light up
As a child, one of the highlights of National Day was the nighttime drive to see the city’s birthday lights. The beautifully lit landmarks, buildings and the fountains that once graced the city,...
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Celebrating the Botanics
In a Singapore caught up in the frenzy of celebrating the abandonment of the past, being given an opportunity to celebrate a piece of our pre-independent history, the Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG),...
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Surviving Hiroshima
The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, seven decades ago, is very much in the news today. The bomb, the first of the only two nuclear devices ever used in war, brought death,...
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Celebrating SG50 and a heritage gem
One of the joys of living in Singapore, a melting pot of immigrant cultures for over two centuries, is the diverse influences seen in the architecture on display across the city-state. One area where...
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Inuits will paint the town red this weekend
The highly anticipated Singapore Night Festival is back! One of the highlights of this year’s festival has to be the appearance of the world’s smallest and perhaps the most lovable Inuits, Anooki...
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Vanishing acts
Standing in silence at what perhaps is a less explored end of Balestier Road is a row that was only recently emptied of all life. Life in the row at the Rumah Miskin end of the road, included several...
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The Causeway queue that started at Queensway
The recent news relating to the introduction of Vehicle Entry Permits (VEP) for Singapore registered private vehicles entering Malaysia, brings to mind the VEP in its previous form. A requirement in...
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Tanjong Pagar after dark
It has been a little more than four years since the lights went out on Tanjong Pagar Railway Station. Left to the ghosts that are said to haunt it, the former station sees the occasional return of the...
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Liberation, 70 years ago, remembered
It was on 2 September 1945, 70 years ago today, that Japan formally surrendered on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing an end to the most devastating of armed conflicts the world had seen. It...
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MasterChef Asia makes it debut
The first season of MasterChef Asia makes its debut on Lifetime today 3 September 2015. Over the 15 episodes, the first ever MasterChef Asia will emerge from the total of 15 aspiring cooks from across...
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DreamWorks School Holiday Adventures
ArtScience Museum’s Dreamworks Animation: The Exhibition closes at the end of September (27 September), and this September school holiday season does perhaps give a last chance to bring the kids for a...
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The season for wayang
Public entertainment during the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, while intended for the special visitors of the netherworld, would once have attracted a large audience across Singapore. The...
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The new permanent: a sneak peek at the museum’s revamped galleries
Much has improved at the National Museum of Singapore since my days as a schoolboy. Then, I thought of it as cold, dark and maybe a little forbidding, a place where, if not for the spiral staircase,...
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The opening of the revamped permanent galleries at the National Museum
The official opening of the revamped permanent galleries of the National Museum of Singapore (see a previous post: The new permanent: a sneak peek at the museum’s revamped galleries) by Emeritus Senior...
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The elegant city Singapore has lost
Modern Singapore stands today, close to 200 years after it came into being as a trading post, as one of the most advanced cities in the world. Icons of the new age now dominate the metropolis, its...
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Behind the stage door
The stage door or hu du men (虎度门) of a Chinese opera stage is what divides the real from the imaginary. It is the line across which the actor leaves his or her real self and becomes the stage character...
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