Singapore MRT's Red Line
Living in Bishan, The Red Line in the MRT is suppose to be one of the things I am most familiar with about living in my country because Singapore is only so small and these places are quite close to my home. So, I've thought it would be a good idea to reminisce a little on my earlier, more prominent memories I have on each station. Of course, I'm not going to talk about all of them because that will be way too much, so I shall just go from Khatib to Dhoby Ghaut.

Khatib
I never had a reason to go to Khatib before but now it's one of the places I frequent the most. But let's not talk about that because that isn't really memories. Let's talk about that one time my friend, Afiq, and I went for a jog, at Khatib of all places even though it was kind of in the middle of nowhere for us.

Even though the stadium we were going to was walking distance from Khatib, he'd tricked me to meeting him at Yishun Station instead just so that he could take a bus to Yishun and then we had to then take a bus to Khatib. See, I remember and I hold this grudge and I will hold it forever. Anyhow, it was the first time I'd been to Khatib. That's kind of the point.

Yio Chu Kang
I had some pretty good memories of this place and one pretty annoying one. I shall not talk about the annoying one because that will risk offending a certain person who probably already forgot how he had offended me. Grudges grudges.

The first good memory is coming to YCK stadium for Guang Yang's sports day. It was a good memory because I was the anti-social guy in class when I was in secondary one but I made friends and I had a lot of fun waiting for sports day to start with my new friends. It's kind of interesting to think about it now.

Another good memory is going to one of my poly classmate, Chuan Ying's, house to celebrate her birthday. I believe that was the first few times we all hung out and it was surprisingly okay. It was even quite fun. I still remember how we were stuck inside the confines of the condo because Chuan Ying wasn't there yet to help us tap out when we were about to leave, so a few of my classmates just decided to climb over the fence.

This place is also where Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) is, and that is where a bunch of secondary school classmates and I had our Advanced Elective Module for our Food & Nutrition class. It was a good memory as well, just basking in the polytechnic atmosphere even though we were secondary school kids, being impressed with the fact that there's a Mac Donald's inside a school, not having to report to our own school and have morning assembly, and so on.

NYP was also a very prominent venue for the Scrum! shoot that I was involved in for my internship. It was the place where I started working in a production team. I still remember my first day as a PA, and my colleague, Pearlyn, was teaching me literally everything. She even taught me how to fold plastic bags into triangles because I didn't know how to.

Ang Mo Kio
There are way too much stuff to remember about this place: Hanging out with Man Kit and co, waiting for him for 30 minutes to one hour right below his house just for him to change his clothes (-_-), practicing playing certain arcade games with my siblings just so we could prove to our cousin he wasn't better than us, eating a lot of dinners with my family, working in NTUC, and so on.

What I really want to talk about is a memory I have when I was a kid. It's really fuzzy, but I remember two particular things. The first one is: As a kid, I was really bored of walking around and looking at things, and I kept asking my dad when we would be going home. Obviously, my brother didn't want to go home so quickly, so we had to compromise. I was so excited to return home to play a Rush Hour-esque toy that my parents bought for me. There was another time when I was angry (I was always angry) because my parents bought something for my brother because he wanted it, and there was nothing that I really wanted but I insisted that my parents get me something as well just to be fair. They refused, because it didn't make sense, so I threw a book from Popular across the aisle, in front of a shop assistant. My parents apologised to her and scolded me, but she said it was all right. With pride, I told my parents, "Even she said it was okay!"

Ang Mo Kio also housed my favourite Fish and Chips of all time. No other Fish and Chips that I've ate ever since it closed tasted as good. I loved it because it was nicely fried, there was always a layer of skin under the crisp, the tartar sauce was the best, there was always fruit salad, and it was presented on a white piece of paper on a tray instead of the usual plate. Although sometimes I pretend that I'll one day find Fish and Chips that is as good as this one, I know that it's never going to happen because the reason why it tasted so good is probably the context in which I ate it. Maybe it wasn't that good, but how I remember it, it cannot be rivalled.

Bishan
I live here. My secondary school was here. I can create an entire blog just to document my life in this place. But, let me just talk about a specific group of memories, involving someone I would consider my best friend, except that we do not consider each other best friends anymore because we've agreed that it's kind of weird to deem someone as the "best".

Jt and I used to hang out here a lot more, just chatting. We became friends when we were in secondary two, and we went to Japan together. We could chat for hours in the bus, we chatted for hours in the classroom, and even after all that, we became friends again towards the end of secondary four and we could chat for more than five hours, none stop, over bubble tea. I don't know how we could chat for so long, so often, we we did and we do. We'd named hangout spots: The cockroach place, the “还有两个” (still have two more) NTUC, the "hehehe girl" playground, and so on. It's kind of interesting. Some of them were inside jokes which would not be funny if I describe them, so I shall not try.

Fun fact: Before Bishan Park got a complete makeover, I never visited it although I lived so near. After its makeover, my parents had not visited it, even till now.

Bishan Park. This park itself holds so many good memories, but let's leave it for some other day. For that purpose, I have created a new tag in this blog, 'Places'.

Braddell
This post is getting really long, so I'll just stop at Braddell and continue next time. Before I met my friend, Guang Yi, I never had a reason to go to Braddell, because it's a very neighburhood place. But now, his house became one of our more common hangout spots. I remember the first time I came, it was to study with a bunch of Guang Yang friends, including Melvin, Syahindah, Ru Wen, Wai Min, and some others I cannot remember.

His house was also the place I first met my friends' girlfriends. One of the days, we were going to have steamboat for some reason, and they had invited Wei Jian's (then) new girlfriend, Jessica, along. It didn't feel like a very distant memory, so it's kind of hard to imagine years had passed since they got together. We also first met Han Hui, Joshua's girlfriend, in Guang Yi's house. I remember that day quite clearly because it was the first time I vomited because I drank too much.

There are a lot more times to remember about, but if I'm really going to do that, I would be writing about my entire life, which will be way too boring. I hope this post had not bored you, though.

Labels: places, reliving those days