I went on an impromptu night excursion with two old friends, Brian and Shyue Chou on Christmas Eve after dinner. We started off from Mr Bean Cafe, then down along Selegie Road towards Bras Brasah. We stopped by the semi-complete ‘restored’ Cathay, and lament on how a historical monument was destroyed and replaced by another cancer. It’s just another kriffing mall, goddamit? What’s the big damn deal about it?

After which, went across and into the SMU and took a look. Here are the photos:

‘The Senate Floor’	What the … Underground Tie Fighter Hangars?
Outside a 7-11 in SMU	Inside the 7-11
Nice	Along Stamford Road
TCC	One of the other Cafes
5 Star Hotel? Or University?	An openable ‘Sliding Roof’? For Darth Vader’s Tie Interceptor?
The “Imperial Throne Room”. Can almost imagine Darth Vader looking out.	Satellite Photo of the general area. From Google Earth.

All SMU Photos Taken With Sony W550i. Please click to Enlarge

I must say, we are awed. And somehow, we sort of lamented that we were born a little too early, because we do notice that the schools these days are way nicer than the ones we had. Damn, I am not sure if I drooled looking at all the better amenities and better facilities! It’s nothing much for the undergrads today, but we didn’t have 7-11s, TCCs and modern cafes when we were students!

We agree that we definitely have all the hardware but do we really have the software? State of the art university, but what about the cirriculum? We went on to discuss if we are really born too early or born too late, because we missed the harder, and yet more exciting era of our fathers – the post war period towards independence etc etc. Somehow, we felt like we are a forgotten generation, whereby we had things easier, but not as easier as the generation of the 80s.

We also wondered why they are complaining that the food is too expensive, considering this is a generation with fancy gadgets, expensive accessories like mobile phones and iPods. Also, knowing that this is a management university, these guys must be nuts expecting the vendors to sell extinct 50 cents ‘tuckshop food’ in an university offering MBAs and Master courses!!

We touch on some other topics and also mentioned something about this being the ‘Age of Gods’, discussing certain outstanding individuals like Tiger Words, Schumacher etc. Well, there’s too much of that discussion to put it here.

This is not the entire excursion. When we hit the end of the SMU at Victoria Street, we went pass the SMRT building and headed towards North Bridge Road, where we took a left and headed towards Bugis. We stopped by Chijmes, looked at some of the colonial buildings, talked about the architecture and then went on to Parkview Hotel. I think it’s a hotel, not sure what it is, where we look at the statues there, and discuss the architecture of this particular building compared with the rest, and how it stands out among them. (Hey, there’s also an interesting bar there, and it’s supposedly for members only. We saw this lady in a costume with wings hanging on a rope ‘floating’ up and down and guess what? She was actually being hoisted up and down looking for wine!!)

We then headed further down to the Kampong Glam area, whereby we went to Istana Kampong Glam, where the ‘Sultan of Singapore’ once stayed.

What? The ‘Sultan of Singapore’? There isn’t any Sultans in Singapore, you said? Well, according to Brian, the ‘Sultan of Singapore’ was a puppet Sultan set up by the British to counter the influence of the Sultan of Johor. I guess I’ll go find some references on that. Maybe more on that another day.

We then headed down along beach road to the hawker centre where they sell army accessories, and went on to discuss how badly these people were hit by the SAF’s eMart. And of course, I can’t help but touch on the topic that this is just a repeat of the successful NTUC Fairprice model, which basically wiped out our traditional neighbourhood provision shop.

We crossed over the road to make our way back towards Raffles City, and discussed a little about Golden Mile, realising that it’s a typical 70s building, where you have malls on the lower levels, offices in the middle level and, yes, apartments on the higher level. We also talked about how these buildings look like one another, citing examples like People’s Park, Beauty World etc.

We then walked pass the rest of the building along Beach Road, stopping at what was once the Beach Road Police Station, then the PDF camp which was also SSVF (Straits Settlements Volunteer Force) HQ. Sorry we had no photos because well, phone cameras just aren’t up to the task.

That’s about all of it. It was around 12:30am when we crossed over back to Raffles City after passing the old SAF NCO club opposite Raffles Hotel, and that’s the end of Christmas Eve night excursion.

Of course, Brian and I went on from there all the way to Tanjong Pagar Train Station. But I shall not bore everyone with the detals.

These photos were taken when I visited the library last week. I didn’t take any photos inside the library itself but it’s damned impressive. Far better than the old one at the foot of Fort Canning Hill which they took down.

There’s been quite an extensive collection of books and also AV (Adult Video Audio / Video) Material. I am surprised that I even found TV serials, some old movies and even old TCS documentaries there.

There’s also some art work displayed and some talks on Cheng Ho when I was there. There is a Hans Restaurant on the ground floor facing North Bridge Road, and there’s free wireless broadband there! You can even get it sitting at the stone bench right outside, which is along the road. I don’t know how far the signal goes, however.

So, at least I felt so much better now and not so sore with them for taking down the old one.

Now I know where I can spend some of those lonely Saturdays…

Facing Middle Road	A garden on the 3F	The ‘Forbidden Garden’
Facing Victoria Street #1	Facing Victoria Street #2	Click on a picture to enlargePhotos are taken with Siemens S65 Mobile

孩子，你难道现在还不明白？生命不可能回头。它也没必要回头。就是因为它不能回头所以它才可贵。