after we walked along Petain Road and saw the beautifully restored Shop Houses, we turned right into Jalan Besar, as seen on the following map in red .....
we continued our walk SW along Jalan Besar till we reached Kitchener Road. Along the way we noticed a few older Shop Houses that were badly in need of some care. You only need to look closely to see branches growing out of the roof line and weeds in the water spouting and growing out from amongst the tiles!
sad to see these in such a state of disrepair and they certainly stood out after our walk along Petain Road and viewing the restored homes there!
On reaching Kitchener Road we turned right as seen in the above map.
as in many area's around Singapore you see these typical Chinese Street Shrine's.The shrine is colored in the typical lucky color red with Chinese calligraphy. Devotees make regular offerings of food and burn joss stick/paper in memory of those who have passed away
at the intersection of Kitchener and Verdun Roads is the City Square shopping centre.
From here we turned left into Verdun Road....
and at the intersection of Verdun Road and Sam Leong Road, we turned left again.
The following is a 'google map' of the intersection (Verdun and Sam Leong) where there is a coffee shop on the right hand side (where the red van is situated here) we went there for a kopi and noodles.... we got the kopi just fine, but the man "shooed" John away every time he asked for noodles, we can only assume he didn't understand or speak English!! But he certainly understood enough to ask for the dollar for the kopi ..... but he was not a happy man at all ... we watched him for quite sometime and he was very grumpy ... oh well, we are all entitled to a 'bad day'.
after our kopi we wandered down Sam Leong Road, it has some nice "5 foot ways' here.
and some nice tiled pathways too.....
we were very interested in the actual Shop Houses along here .... some were renovated with very bright colours, perhaps one could even say "gaudily painted", while others are still very much in their 'natural state', but it was rather nice to see the "Sam Leong Rd Shop Houses" which are a little different to ones we have seen recently....
we did notice something rather unique at number 100 .... apart from the tiles as seen here, above the door way the wording: Home of Happiness ..... you need to look high above the door to see it and am grateful that John saw it so he could point it out to me!
we turned to go back towards Verdun Road, along Sam Leong Road ... turned left and headed towards Mustafa's store as seen below where the 'pedestrian overpass' is in the following 'google map' images ....
we did a little shopping at Mustafa's before heading off back home .... hope you enjoyed the walk from Petain Road to Mustafa's. It is a little overloaded with images, but there were so many buildings (especially the Shop Houses!) and I wanted to share it all with you ...
but do hope you enjoyed the walk!
a few of the blog posts in my "walk series" are as follows:
I love the shop houses in Singapore... I never find them 'gaudy'... in concert, they just make the whole street vibrant.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I also love the Shop Houses .... be awesome to live in one too!!
ReplyDeleteI just found the ones along Sam Leong Road a little 'gaudier' than others I have seen.
Perhaps I should have said "more colourful" ??
Each street or area, has their own 'style' I think too.
Lovely photos of Little India. I was there last weekend walking too. :) Walked from Tekka Centre to City Square Mall.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned above "The shrine is colored in the typical lucky color red with Chinese calligraphy. Devotees make regular offerings of food and burn joss stick/paper in memory of those who have passed away"....
ReplyDeleteIt is in fact for preying to the heavenly god (the one hanging), the one at the ground/floor is for the earth god.
The shrine for the person who pass away are often on altar table with the person photo and are usually in the house (not at the front door outside)...
Thank you Khongsha .... your help is very much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI had asked what they were for before publishing, and the answer I rec'd I added to the blog (as above) obviously not everyone knows the correct answer then!
Once again, thanks for your message.
My pleasure Leone. I really enjoy reading your blog. I don't think many Singaporean appreciate our own heritage that much anymore. we sometime take it for granted. I was thinking yesterday after commenting your blog about the "Shrine", my son who is 10yrs old might not know about this as we don't prey & setup any altar preying table at home. I think I will have to tell him all these one day...:)
ReplyDelete