The Birds Are Back

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I stopped at the traffic light beside the "famous" Tiong Bahru Bird Corner at the Link Hotel.

Seems that the Link Hotel has placed some tables and chairs for the Bird Lovers to relax when their pet birds interact with the other birds.

Hope to see all the hooks at that corner being taken up soon.

Link Hotel, I think many residents and visitors will be appreciative of your effort.

I wish you success!.

It's like that one

Saturday and Sunday mornings are the busiest time for the Tiong Bahru Estate.

These are the 2 days where people will bother to drive all the way here to do their “marketing” and traffic usually comes to a slow crawl.

And when the traffic slows down, the tempers quickens.

And it is usually during such occasions that people from Planet Oblivion stands out the most!

And I spotted one from that planet today!

I was trying to get onto Tiong Bahru Road via Kim Pong Road from Lim Liak Street.

And the 2 lane became 1 lane because this driver decided that that was a cool place to park his car and bask in the morning sun.

If you see the picture, the whole right-most lane was rendered useless and this guy was totally oblivious to the situation.

I’m not against anyone parking along the road to wait for someone but I supposed common sense must prevail right?

If my car is clogging up traffic, I will move it somewhere else.

Why can’t this guy park his car along Lim Liak Street so that he doesn’t get in the way of other motorists?

There are also other carpark lots on the other side of the road.

But many a times, I’ve seen inconsiderate drivers parked their cars on this side of the road while they scoot off to the Tiong Bahru Post Office to do their errands and everyone else has to squeeze into 1 lane.

Anyway, this inconsiderate act will continue to surface every now and then and no one can do anything about it.

And since we cannot do anything about it, the next time I see such stuff again, I will just say this to amuse myself: “It’s like that one”*.


*“It’s like that one” - I heard this great statement while I was listening in to the morning show of 98.7 for several mornings....those deejays kept saying: “It’s like that one”. It is Singlish but it is funny!

Delayed - The Tiong Bahru Repainting Exercise

Seems like the repainting exercise for the Tiong Bahru Estate has been delayed till the 4th Quarter of 2009.

A white tape has been pasted over the previous date to indicate the revised date.

See the pictures in my previous post : Repainting of the Pre-War Tiong Bahru Section

What's Going On Here?

About 3 days ago, as I was walking back home, I noticed 2 blue stained stairs at the HDB walkup section of the Tiong Bahru Estate.

Initially, I thought someone had spilt paint all over the stairs.

After I walked all the way up to level four to investigate, I knew it wasn’t an accident anymore.

"Maybe someone was just fedup with the stairs and wanted to beautify it", I thought to myself.

And since those residents living at that 2 affected stacks did not complain about that ugly blue stains, I should just mind my own business.

But as I was walking around the estate today, what I saw made my heart sank as I immediately knew that those blue stains were not that innocent mistakes after all.

It seems that the Tanjong Pagar town council is repainting all the stairs at the post war section of Tiong Bahru!

The finished product has erased (maybe covered up is a more appropriate word) all those lines and imperfection of these beautiful cement stairs.

The newly painted stairs looked so smooth and it does feels a lot more slippery.

And the dirt on the floor are magnified a lot more....especially those stairs landings that have plants around them.

Do we really need to spend money on this?

It is strange because no budget* was allocated to replace those rusted bamboo pole holders but there are budgets allocated to "uglified" these stairs.

I wonder what other unnecessary things our town council will spend on next.

*(I was asked by the NEA to ask HDB to replace my unused bamboo pole holder as it had rusted to a point where I cannot cover it and rain water might be collected in it. And HDB told me to wait as they will replace it during the repainting exercise. I called back to check on the progress and was told that they will not be doing it as they have no more budget!)

It was a big deal back then

Back in the 70’s, if you’ve got a Colour TV with remote control, you will be beaming with pride when you invite your friends to your home to watch Channel 3, 5, 8 or 10.

In the 80’s, you will probably have the same “kick” if you can afford those Humongous $2000 or more VCR player to invite your friends over to watch “Men in the Net” or the “千王之王”.

I supposed the 90’s was those ear drums shattering Karaoke Laser Disc Machine complete with Home Entertainment System.

Nowadays, we have tons of other stuff to show off and everyone will have something to show off to somebody.

As long as you are the privileged few to own something before the rest does, you earn yourself the bragging rights.

So what do people living in 1930’s Tiong Bahru showed off back then?

Let’s travel back in time to the 1930s.

Imagine you got yourself invited to your friend’s place at Tiong Bahru.

After settling down in the small living hall, your friend volunteered to take you around the home.

Everyone jumps up in excitement and followed the host around.

He takes you to the light switches and starts to turn on and turn off the lights!

Wow! Everyone gasped with envy.

Then he brings you to the kitchen and turns on the tap.

Clean water comes out from the faucet immediately.

By now, everyone was starting to drool like the taps already.

The tour probably ended in the toilet.

All eyes were probably trained at the hole in the ground.....with lots of excitement in the air.

And when your host pulled a cord to flush the toilet, everyone was ecstatic and probably clapped!

We may think it is funny right now but that was how things were back then.

People were using the bucket system to clear their waste, candles or kerosene lamps to light up their evenings and water collected from some far away water points or wells for their bath or laundry.

Such modern amenities were probably only confined to the upper class.

I felt compelled to blog about this because many people kept asking me why can’t the architect for the Tiong Bahru Estate build more toilets in the first place.

If we understood under what circumstance these flats were built, we will understand why even ONE toilet in each home was already a DAMN big deal already.

I took this picture at the Zoo. Apparently, snakes like to hide amongst the waste buckets as it is dark and damp. So it may not be a relaxing activity in the past.

I should have poked my camera into the hole to show you the bucket.

2 Kittens for Adoption

Do you know of someone who might want to take these 2 kittens into their care?

Please pass the word around to help this kind soul find these 2 kittens a great home.

(I saw this pasted on the walls of Block 80 Chay Yan Street this afternoon)