Saturday, June 03, 2006
A view from the daily bus ride
Lenovo charters some buses that fetch its staff to work every morning.
So every morning, I will board the Bedok bus, and then embark on the slow journey to work.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Good evening, gentlemen."
"Good evening, Sir!"
"Now, I shall read out the RO to you guys."
"Reville.. 0650!"
"0650!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alarm beeps..
Ah Boy is slowly regains his consiousness.. "Ah so fast?!?!?!? It feels like I've just slept!"
Meanwhile, the alarm gets louder and louder... "beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep!!!!!!""
*gRoAnS*
Snooze activated. Snooze cancelled. Alarm off.
Ah boy sleeps again..
The struggles start.
"Oei wake up leh!!! Wake up earlier got more time to prepare! Come oN!!!!!"
" Don't want la, tired leh.. Let me sleep more lah.."
zZzZzZzzzzzZzzZZz..
Suddenly, Ah Boy wakes up, shocked.
"What time already!?!?!??!"
7.15. Phew.
He proceeds to perform his well-practiced drills.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every morning, I will board the bus in front of Giant at 8.05am, when we are supposed to reach my office in Lorong Chuan (Serangoon) at
9am.
Sian.
Then I will embark on a tour around the estates in the East, places which I'm so familiar with.
To most people, it could just be a simple ride.. Just look at the sceneries, and you'll reach the destination.
But to me, I tend to think a lot when I travel along the places.
People who know me will notice I tend to look intensively around at buildings, the people, the types of architecture when I go to new places, or when I engage on a bus ride.
I love to make observations about places and try to remember the differences in the 'almost everywhere is similiar' Singapore.
The ride starts.
The bus will travel somehow along the MRT line towards the East.
AHS bustop with bus no. 9, 31, 24 etc
--- Can't help but think of the days as an AHS student, when we would take bus from this bus stop when we want to go to Tampines, our favourite hangout. The familiar surroundings made me think back of the AHS days.
Then, the bus will pick up more staff from the Tanah Merah MRT bus stop, and travel to Simei.
Simei MRT bustop
-- First impression of the place is the numerous times we come here for lunch during our work in IBM building.. The images of our colleagues queuing up at the Sweet-talk bubble tea store suddenly comes in front of me.
-- Hmm, remembered that Yihao stays here, and Zhiqing as well... some random and vague memories of going to their houses came to my mind
-- Remembered once me, yingwei, mindy and some more people from 2A come here to sell tickets for some walk, something like the Simei-something walk... again vague memories.
-- Remembered once I came here to sell flags in one of our LEO saturdays, and I forgot which guy i came with.. is it Guoyuan?
Travelling along the Simei estate, I can't help but see how 'new' the place looks. It is very well-maintained, and the whole place is decorated with nice-looking plants amongst the blocks of flats. It looks a very cosy neighbourhood. Hats off to the PAP town councils, which mangaged the place pretty well.
Next, the bus will travel along the road in front of Yujia's house.
--- Some memories of 08/02's mahjong and gathering sessions come into mind
Then, it will travel up some expressway (i think it's the TPE) to Pasir Ris.
The flyover will pass by James' house
-- some memories of going to James' house come into mind.. dunno what we did there b4 though.
Upon entering Pasir Ris out of the expressway, a group of blue-coloured flats welcomes the bus. It looks rather familiar.. Is it where Jennifer's house is? I'm not totally sure, but I think it is.
-- remembered once we went her house.. (ONLY FOUR GUYS!) to do some project.. i only remember kianheng was there.. and chian rui perhaps..? My memory is failing me, rrgh.
Touring Pasir Ris, the flats are of a different structure. Here, I noticed the flats are smaller, more rigidly and 'squarely' aligned against one another, making the estates look cramped.. Same as Simei was the nice flora amongst the block of flats... the place has a very new and cosy feel as well.
-- I was wondering, where are the houses of lihui and wenyan? They are the few people I know to live in Pasir Ris
The bus then picks up the last group of staff at the Pasir MRT bus stop, and it turns into the TPE to go to the North-East.
Usually I doze off at this point, as the bus will be travelling smoothly to the destination.
However, nowadays the driver seems to prefer to go to Lorong Chuan via Hougang.
The bus will exit through the 'Hougang New Town' exit, and go right along Old Tampines road
-- suddenly I remember the time I took bus 72 with ben ng and weijian to go to ben ng's old house in hougang
Then, the bus will reach Hougang near Hougang CC, and the contrast between the two sides was rather clear. To my right were the blocks of flats carrying the yellow and red block plates, and to my left, the nicely furbished flats and the estate with nice plants decorating it.
-- the memory of me crazy enough to walk alone at night to see what's really like in the WP-held hougang makes me laugh
--can't help but feel a sense of sympathy for the residents of hougang, as the place is not as nice as what I saw in Simei and Pasir Ris.
Next, the bus will travel passby Kovan MRT station
-- i remembered the numerous times we came here to eat after our sessions of mahjong at Rayner's house
-- Hmm, Rayner, Weichern, thu huong and me at the Thai Express there. what was the occassion?
The bus will then go down to Serangoon, and and it passes by the Serangoon stadium.
-- Looking at the empty stadium, I can't help but remember the super duper large crowd in the WP's last rally there
-- The scenes of the crowd filling the whole stadium and the perimeter of it came alive again
-- The deafening roar of the crowd suddenly filled the stadium
Finally, it reaches the office and I'm ready to start work again.
What's the point of this post?
I dunno haha.
lowtide blogged @
9:06 pm
