A tap-tap around

sSinaMy dear Poika haven't had a chance to explore the suburbs since he arrived here. So, with our camera and ezlink card in tow, we took a long train ride to explore the suburbs.


The ride started at Eunos and our first stop was at Toa Payoh, one of Singapore's oldest HDB estate. It was also where I grew up. There are now malls and new developments amongst the old HDBs, completely different from the '80s when the main entertainment center was a cinema.

We also stopped at a few other HDB suburb stations like Khatib and Yishun. The suburbs all mainly look about the same, most have a mall and surrounded by lots of HDB flats. It was possibly rather interesting for Poika, but somewhat boring for me. He was expecting drunk and homeless people on the streets, but of course was greatly disappointed. The people are not very different from the ones you see in the city as 80% of Singaporeans live in the Suburbs in HDBs. The only difference is people are a lot more dress down when they are near home.

The interesting stop for me, was at Kranji. The station for the Singapore Turf Club. I've always wanted to visit, but never seem to get round to doing it. We paid a small entrance fee and saw a side of Singapore that was not very common. It was crowded with old sketchy men (as expected). The ground was littered with crushed newspapers and betting tickets. There were more sights of disappointments than exhilarating wins.

We then moved on to our next stop at Bukit Gombak. At the west of Singapore, is home to a little surprise of nature. There is a granite rock sitting within a lake and we call this place the Xiao (small) Guilin because it has scenery that looks like Guilin in China. But of course, Singapore's version of Guilin has apartment blocks in the background!