"Oh no, not another walk" I hear you say!
But you know walking is good for you, keeps the joints moving and you get to experience new things every single day!
So come on, join me on this short walk to the 24 hour Pasir Panjang Market, it won't take long at all and think of the benefits of the walk as well as the fresh fruits and vegetables!
I had heard about the market not long after arriving here, but never 'got around' to visiting, then last year my friend Andrea blogged about her visit and that spurred me on!
Her comment about her 'precious find' was like striking oil and as she says .....
I found this place on a tour that I went on and it was like striking oil. That is a very Texan thing to say, ain’t it? Say it with a Texan accent and it would sound like “strikin’ erl” or “strikin’ oiyal”. You can say oil with one syllable or two depending on which part of Texas you come from.
Click HERE to read about Andrea's visit.
For those that do not know where the market is located within Singapore ..... have marked it with an A on the following map:
and have marked our 'short walk' with the red markers on the following map, from where we start at the red A thru to the Pasir Panjang Market.
As you can see in the above map, we turn right (from where I live) on Pasir Panjang Road and walk towards the Singapore Science Park ....
It is safer to cross the main road at the traffic lights!
now we have reached the entrance to the market ..... but before we continue our 'walk' let me tell you a little bit about the market that I have located via google.
The market was opened in 1983, and the 7-ha wholesale centre encompasses vegetable, fruits and dried foods wholesalers, and cold storage facilities. The vegetable importers' belt, which takes up blocks 6 to 13, spans 0.5km.
The auction hall, which is 430m-long, is able to house 300 wholesale merchants at once.
Drawing its core crowd of wet market hawkers and restaurant owners, the wholesale centre is operational 24 hours a day, closing only on the first day of Chinese New Year. In the day, people arrive to buy and sell fruits in bulk. Night market vendors arrive to set up their stalls from 7pm onwards, but the busiest window is from 2am to 4am when it is auction time!
.... and did you know that Singapore imported over 467,937 tonnes of vegetables last year?
Vegetables from Malaysia and Thailand account for about half of the imports.
But before I continue, lets have a walk along the outside of the market area....
Did you know that the original wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Singapore was the Clyde Terrace Market? It was built in 1872, Clyde Terrace Market was situated on Beach Road near the junction with Rochore Road. It was one of the two largest public markets in the 1960s in Singapore.
An unsavoury side to the Clyde Terrace Market was its role as a base for secret society bullies who extorted money from hardworking hawkers. Clyde Terrace was itself a squatter settlement on the seaward side of Bach Road, rife with gangsters. In pre-war Singapore, the gangsters were China-born immigrants but a new tougher local-born breed took over after the war, skyrocketing the price of protection.
When the stallholders moved to the Pasir Panjang market in June 1983, they worked closely with the authorities through the Vegetable Wholesalers Association to create a peaceful environment for the hawkers.
In 1977, the government announced that it would build a central market for fruit and vegetables at Pasir Panjang to replace the Clyde Terrace Market and other wholesale centres in the city affected by redevelopment. In 1981, Singapore Land unveiled its plan to build a futuristic 37-storey twin tower that would partly occupy the site where the Clyde Terrace Market was. When the stallholders were relocated in June 1983, the (old) market was demolished.
and here are a couple of images to give you a glimpse of what goes on inside the market area:
the next blog posting will be of the fresh fruits, vegetables and dried goods that are available at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Market.
In the meantime you can see below how the 'baskets' are made to transport the fruit and vegetables to the stores and supermarkets.
I think I need to go back again - very soon - to watch how this is done in greater detail!!
Stay tuned for the blog posting on "a walk around the stalls of the market" and click HERE for another excellent blog posting on the market that I recently came across.
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a few of the blog posts in my "walk series" are as follows:
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2 comments:
Andrea told me about this market too. It really is like "strikin' erl'". You are so lucky to live so close.
haha! I had forgotten that I wrote that. :) I love that place!! I'm so jealous that you can walk there!
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