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Feb 28, 2012

How the Fort Canning Tunnel Altered our Road Landscape

Fort Canning Tunnel

If we do a poll on the most detested and ugliest structure in town among heritage lovers, I suspect the honor would go to this tunnel through Fort Canning Hill. That time I checked out Orchard Presbyterian Church to investigate the 1984 curry murder, I saw its exit at Penang Road for the first time since it opened in 2007. I was momentarily at a loss for words staring at this edifice. Just as surprised would be the ancient kings of Temasek who could not have imagined a tunnel cutting right into their sacred Bukit Larangan.

Feb 23, 2012

Death by Gunshot in this Vivocity Toilet


Camomilla Vivocity

A toilet in Vivocity caught attention for the wrong reason on 22 December 2011. A Cisco police officer was found dead inside one of the cubicles with his service revolver beside him. There was a gunshot wound to his head though the actual gunshot was barely audible to most shoppers and staff in the mall. The cubicle was locked from the inside and a security guard was the first to discover the body. Just where is this toilet in Vivocity? For me, sitting behind the computer, I was intrigued.

Feb 19, 2012

70th Anniversary of Sook Ching in Singapore

Sook Ching North Bridge Road

2012 is a special year. Even though the nation observes Total Defence Day every Feb 15 and for some, remembrance day at Kranji, this year happens to be the 70th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore. NHB has a series of events lined up under the heading "70th Anniversary of the Battle for Singapore, 1941-1942". I do note the nationalistic spin on it, the "Battle for Singapore" instead of "Fall of Singapore", though some events actually use the latter title so we have a little consistency issue here. Many netizens recounted the events from Pearl Harbor, which brought Japan into war with Britain and USA, and the landing on and attack down Malaya which finally culminated in the Fall of Singapore, the greatest military defeat in British history. For most people, the commemoration ends on Feb 15, though some may still visit the museums (free admission to Bukit Chandu, Ford Factory and History Gallery at NMS from 13 to 19 Feb) and the Four Days in Feb exhibition at the National Library. For the folks in February 1942, however, this was only the beginning, of the 3 years 8 months living under Japanese rule on Syonan-to. For many, it would be a nightmare.

Feb 11, 2012

Soft Launch of Good Morning Yesterday @ Peranakan Museum

Congrats Chun See!

After "many many hours of disciplined hard work", the baby is finally out of the oven. For Chun See, with the publishing of Good Morning Yesterday the blog into Good Morning Yesterday the book, all those hours toiling in front of the computer to write and rewrite the chapters must have been worth it. Congratulations to Chun See for achieving the next milestone in his heritage blogging career!

Feb 5, 2012

Big BiblioAsia Ang Pow from NLB


As I blogged before, NLB very kindly put me in the subscription list for BiblioAsia, their "news journal to promote collection services and programmes of the new National Library". This is frankly misleading and an understatement as it carries very good and scholarly articles on history and heritage. They have it up online. With no complimentary BiblioAsia in my letterbox for months, I thought they had struck me off the list during their annual review, so I did myself a favour by self-servicing a copy off their shelf when I went to the National Library for the street exhibition open house.