Yesterday I attended a full day conference at the Suntec Convention Centre – the 2011 Business Excellence Sharing organised by Spring Singapore. I decided to take a bus instead of driving to save on the cost and the hassle. I took SBS 174 which brought me through Orchard Road, Bras Basah Road and alighted at North Bridge Road near St Andrews Cathedral. I took the opportunity to take a good hard look at the new buildings along the route. I must tell you, I felt like I was in a foreign country. The two places that looked totally alien to me was Orchard Road where so many new buildings have come up since the mid-1980’s when my office was at the National Productivity Board in Cuppage Centre, and Bras Basah Road where the Singapore Management University campus is located. When I alighted opposite the former Capitol Theatre, I was disoriented for a few seconds and thought that I got off at the wrong bus stop. Expecting to see an open field and the St Andrew’s Cathedral, I was staring at a modern building with a glass façade instead.
Currently, I am reading Simon Tay’s City of Small Blessings, and I am beginning to understand why he managed to connect with many older Singaporeans. The notes at the back cover says that the book is about a Singaporean retiree who migrates and then returns to a Singapore he barely recognizes.
I am not a retiree and have not been out of Singapore for longer than a couple of weeks in the past two decades; and yet the scene captured on my mobile phone camera below made me feel like I was “on the fringe of a city I barely recognize”.
Testing new post
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1. Anyone who wants to follow Jesus must be prepared to declare
like the Indian villager behind the song “I have decided to follow Jesus”
(I ...