Yesteryear's Glory

Queenstown was one of Singapore's very first satellite town. During the 60s and 70s, it was one of the most modern housing estate in Singapore. According to a friend's mother, the Queenstown Bowl, which houses and Bowling Alley and a Cinema, was the place to go to during her courtship days. After watching a movie or a bowling game, there is a hawker center nearby, selling lots of delicious local dishes, to fill the hungry stomach.

Today, the building looks weathered and rundown. Fungus started growing on part of the building's walls with some broken windows, sign-boards and rusted metal railings. The bowling balls no longer roll in the Bowling Alley and the Cinema no longer screen movies. Letter lies uncollected in the mailbox and a Pawn Shop with its shutter half closed.

In the fast changing pace of Singapore's landscape, many previously so called new or modern housing estate will one day share the same fate as Queenstown. Singapore government will continue to build new housing apartments and relocate the people from the old housing estate then tear down the old flats to make space for newer facilities. From a positive stand-point, this is upgrading. Unfortunately, for the older people, who was born and grew up in the old estate, their old housing estate will only be a memory of the years gone by.

Heaven and Earth

When I was in Switzerland, I went to the "Top of Europe", actually it is top of Jungfraujoch. The view on top is very spectacular! I stayed a night in a lodge in Grindelwald and took the train up the mountain the following morning.

When up in the observation station 11,333ft (3,454m), the mountain is covered in snow and it is very cold. There were strong winds and slight snow and it is quite painful when the strong winds blew the snow on my face but it is a very fantastic experience! Luckily for me, I did not get any mountain sickness. My two travel companions felt nausea and headaches when we were up in the mountain. One of them even required medical attention and were sent to sickbay to rest.

While waiting for my friend to recover, I visited the ice-palace, where you could see very nice ice sculptures. The floor is a bit slippery so have to be more careful when walking around. There's also cafeteria where you could order some warm food or drinks and sit by the windows to enjoy the snow-cap mountain view.

There are lots of photo opportunities and the scenes are very different from what we are accustomed to in the tropic. As the mountain air is very thin, be prepared for mountain sickness. Drink more water and don't run about in a hurry. Slow down your pace and enjoy the spectacular view!

A Brewing Storm

One day I was standing at my sister's bedroom windows, enjoying the view outside the windows, and the light breeze blowing gently on my face. As I looked up towards the sky, I noticed the dark clouds were building up overhead. In the distance horizon the sky is bright but I could see approching rain from the right.

The sky looks threatening from where I was standing. I quickly ran down to the living room, grab my camera and a wide angle lens, then ran back to my sister's room to take pictures of the threatening sky and approaching rain. I was hoping there would be lightning to enhance the picture but to my despair, there was no lightning that day!

I used the wide angle lens to exaggerate the sky, to make it looks even more threatening than it already is. After snapping a few shots, it started raining heavily and I have to close the windows and end the photo session.

After I finished writing this blog, I realised I have coincidently written a similar topic for my 2010 first blog. The only different is, the pictures in my 2010 first blog were taken from the kitchen of my flat.