Monthly:December 2012
It’s interesting looking at Google Street View around here. Pagoda Street, and the whole Chinatown area, has been spruced up in the intervening years. Pagoda street itself appears to be a pedestrian street now so there is no Google Street View of it but if you take a Street View drive along South Bridge Road and stop at the eastern end of Pagoda Street and look at the building you’ll see the same roof lines.
Below the official flag of the state flies the unofficial flag – the daily laundry. No hiding the unmentionables here! Rather, everything is put out on display for everyone to see.
This sign was in the restroom of a bar in Chinatown, Singapore. Talking with the locals, it was aimed at the older generation of locals who had grown up without flush toilets. But the sign was in English! I kept wondering who was tasked with enforcement while feeling glad it wasn’t me!
Typical of the area were the laundry poles projected from the windows above the streets to dry clothes in what breeze passed by. Also typical is the commercial nature of the ground floor, shops, workshops, cafes, bars, offices – any type of commerce you can imagine could be found here. Then on the floors above, what I imagine to be cramped living quarters.
Much like KL, parts of the old city were being torn down to be replaced though there was still plenty of character in the surviving streets as future postings will show. What stands out to me in this photo are the colors of the old buildings and the drab grey concrete of (most) of the new high-rises replacing them.
It was a rainy day back in August 1989 when I stepped out of the Boulevard Hotel for a wander. The church is the Orchard Road Presbyterian Church. The area has changed quite a lot in the intervening 23 years though the church remains a pillar of strength, anchoring the intersection.
