Posts tagged singapore

So I guess I’ll be seeing THE Cesar Millan next week after all!

I was checking ticket prices for his actual talk at Marina Bay Sands and the cheapest tickets left were $120 a pop. Although I love Cesar and the Pack, $120 is a little too steep for me.

This morning I got a text from PLC announcing special Meet & Greet for their members. You just need to buy their $80 voucher pack which includes a ticket and a bunch of vouchers worth $100. This was too good to be true so I rushed to the nearest PLC and luckily they still had some left.

So.. see you next week Cesar! I really wish you could bring the pack especially Junior and Mr. President..

Mood right now:

We pass by the old Ford factory every time we run so it was high time we paid it a visit. 

The Old Ford Factory was the site of the historic surrender of Singapore to the Japanese during WWII.  After the war, it lay abandoned and forgotten until 2005 when a complete restoration was undertaken.

This is the old Ford factory today:

The sign by the roadside is hard to miss. Beside it is a newer-looking building, the National Archives of Singapore.

The Art Deco facade is the same as it was during the war.

The halls were quiet on a Saturday morning.

These patina-stained handles are a piece of history.

It was here at the old Ford Factory where Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival and Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita discussed the terms of the surrender of Singapore. (You’ll be surprised to know that Yamashita was bluffing his way through the whole thing and history could have been completely different had his bluff been called.)

The historic surrender. “YES or NO?!”

Bronze statues of Yamashita & Percival.

Beside the statue is the conference room where the surrender took place. It’s currently made to look exactly the same as that fateful day.

A wartime bicycle, a cookbook for POWs, and Japanese money.

There weren’t many people around because it was a Saturday so we could really take our time inspecting every single item and reading the stories. There was a family of 3 generations (grandma, dad and son) browsing around. I’m not really sure because I could barely hear them, but the grandma seemed to be telling them of a time where she used to sew her valuables inside her dresses. 

I wished I could listen to her more. It’s wonderful to hear history from people who were actually there.

Shortly after, we were called by the old uncle manning the counter and ushered into an AV room for a short film about the fall of Singapore. And because Uncle was a really good salesman who knew how to hawk his wares, I bought a nice souvenir notebook/postcard collection as remembrance:

The Old Ford Factory, a touching reminder of a war that our generation has been fortunate enough not to have experienced, but whose darkness still echoes in the words we have heard from our grandfathers.

For a mere $3, this museum experience is totally worth it. Go out and discover it now!

On our second run through Bukit Batok Nature Park, we trekked up the hill to the World War II Memorial know as Syonan Chureito.

According to the marker, it was constructed by Australian & British POWs for the Japanese fallen. The shrine is gone now, demolished at the end of the war.  A Mediacorp tower now stands at the top of the hill where it used to be.  What’s left are the concrete steps leading up to the shrine.

It’s one heck of a climb for someone who has just started running regularly again and I felt my knees get wobbly halfway up the road.  A little tip to those who want to attempt this: if you really want to work up a sweat, enter through Lor Sesuai because it’s really an uphill climb.

These are the concrete steps that lead to nowhere and the marker:

This is a closer view of the “book” which shows how the shrine used to look like:

And lastly, if you are still interested, you can see old photos of the shrine here.