HeritageFest 2016: Former Command House @ Kheam Hock Road

One year after SG50, heritage events feel so muted that they are becoming like a non-event, in contrast with the myraid of activities rolled out to celebrate Singapore's jubilee in 2015. By coincidence I chanced upon the HeritageFest 2016 festival guide at the branch library, picked a copy expecting to find mass free admission to our museums and disappointed when there is none, glanced through the rest of the booklet and found out the open house event for "Former Command House". It was a rare opportunity, one too good to pass up.

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2nd Shot: Yu Shan Teng at Holland Road

Chun See's comment - "I also remember seeing Lor Makam and an old temple there in the late 80s when I jogged and drove along (old) Holland Rd" - in his blog on Lorong Panchar reminds me of a second shot taken in late 2011 when I was exploring the area mentioned.

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Secret of the Attic at Kingsmead Road

I stumbled onto this NHB heritage marker at Kingsmead Road one day while wandering in Bukit Timah. This came as a surprise, as I did not expect to find one in the middle of this posh landed housing estate. Even more puzzling was the fact that the blue marker supposedly commemorates an artist, whose fence wall at his former residence the marker now adorns.

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How I Had Dim Sum at the Turf Club

I never felt so eager to visit the Turf Club. I don't mean the one at Kranji swarmed by punters on weekends but the former Turf Club at Bukit Timah - now rebranded Turf City. This was a heritage landmark in no hurry for me. I had this impression tucked inside a forested part of Bukit Timah and invisible from Dunearn Rd, it was inaccessible (I think cars enter via Turf Club Rd) and whatever scant knowledge I had of it did not interest me as much. My reasons for procrastinating are therefore, quite valid.

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A Private Burial Ground at Bukit Timah

Thanks to Raymond Goh who blogged about it, who in turn knew its existence from his tour participants, we now know of a surviving private burial ground in Bukit Timah. Unlike the one at Fifth Avenue which I just blogged, this one at Sian Tuan Ave actually has the tomb still intact!

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2nd Shot: A Cemetery at Bukit Timah Fifth Avenue

With the recent public surge of interest in Bukit Brown, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit some of the old cemeteries here in Singapore. Like old buildings, they are fast disappearing sights to make way for land development; because land is scarce, the younger generation - me included - did not have the chance to see the more traditional cemeteries where, unlike those at Choa Chu Kang, these graves had good fengshui and not located cheek by jowl with one another. One such example is an (ex)-cemetery at the upper-class district of Bukit Timah. Boy, you don't know how much I had to "climb" to reach this one!

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2nd Shot: The Bloodied Tracks of Our Railway History

My last act on the railway line on the 31st July - the last day before the rail corridor was closed to public access - was to revisit the site where one of the most tragic and gruesome railway accident in recent history happened almost exactly 2 years ago. On Aug 8, 2009, Republic Polytechnic students Goh Sheng Yao and Clara Lee Jing Yu were on the track near Rail Mall when they were knocked down by a train around 5am. They were killed on the spot. How did that happen?

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Countdown to 30 June - How to Chiong Five Crossings and Two Bridges for $1.21

With only 10 days before the sun sets on Tanjong Pagar Railway Station ending 108 years of railway operations in Singapore, how would you spend your time capturing the railway's last days and be part of history in the making? After the death knell was sounded last year, there has been a surge of interest in things railway-related: government bodies and interest groups conducted station tours and railway corridor walks; folks snapped up train tickets for a last ride; shutterbugs swarmed the stations at Tanjong Pagar and Bukit Timah; the media put their spotlight on the event. We know time is running out.

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