Nostalgia....Sweet memories, silly school girl notes about boring teachers and dumb boys, about what to do after school and during recess, birthday cards with the cutest decorations, christmas cards dating back to 1980s, autograph books with "roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, but not as sweet as you..... all gone...... Most of you will be surprised that its gone only now....Truth is, i had space to store them all until now.... hahaha
Buses
Thats why I have so many things...like bus tickets.... remember those days where a man comes to you after you have just sat down and asks where you are going, gives you a quote then you pay him some money, then he clips this ticket and hands it over to you. Not long after, if you are "lucky" a bus conductor will come on board and check your ticket, if you underpaid, off you go.... those tickets underwent an evolution from an ordinary paper type to a better quality paper.
Then, a few years later, they replaced the ticket uncle with a machine. So they placed a money bin next to the driver, you put the money in to roughly where you wanna go, he gives you a ticket and you sit in the bus happily till an Man in White comes up and you realise its too late to leave the bus cos you were sleeping and have paid a little less than what the bus company deserves....
Then another few years later they invented a little flimsy plastic card where instead of paying the driver, who has to waste time giving you some change, you store some monetary value in it, and shove it into a machine next to the driver, which will then give you a couple of choices of values of which to deduct, you are supposed to make a wise and honest decision and press the correct value. Grab a seat(or not) and pray that the Man in White doesnt come up before your destination. If he finds that you have underpaid.... you'd thank the lucky stars that you were caught just that once of out the 77 times you took the bus.
Then another few technological years later, they replaced that card with an EZlink card where there are two machines. One near the driver and another at the exit of the bus. When you board the bus, you tap the card, then you alight you are supposed to tap the card..... only when you alight.... BUT.... due to the goodness of the education system or the streetsmart upbringing due to good parenting, as soon as you board the bus, you tap the card again at the next stop but pretend not to alight(somehow) , thus paying for a cheap fare again......So now, after much research and money well spent to prevent such petty theft which causes losses in billions of dollars, they invented a system where you cant tap the card unless you want to alight, under the very watchful eye of the bus driver. ( honestly, i'm sure you have seen it before, there are still ppl who tap the card way before their destination)
I've taken the buses which are rickety and noisy as those buses from Malaysia when I was young. Those non airconditioned buses were like compulsory, no such thing as air con.... even the taxis were non aircon. Then slowly things changed when the introduced the air conditioned buses, ppl who wanted to save money would wait for the non aircon buses. Really, I know of some who did that. Then eventually all the buses became air conditioned, then the taxis were too. Later on the MRT started with just a couple of stations, one of them was Ang Mo Kio I think. I had my first ride when I was about 9 years old. Now it blossomed to a huge spiderweb stretching from Changi Airport to Joo Koon, whereever that is, with loops here and there, with circle lines of various colours. No wonder Singapore is under going such a major renovation. More shops, more malls, more condos, more flats, more buildings, more people, more parking lots, more of everything except space.
Taxi
Didnt really take many taxis growing up.... no, didnt have a car, it was mainly trishaws and buses.I still remember those mini buses.... and car pooling where you had to have 4 ppl to enter the city so there will be a queue near Marine Parade CC for ppl to queue up, if you needed extra ppl to fill up your car, thats where you need to go.... and near the highway towards the city, there was a sort of mini shelter where policemen/women would be to count the heads in the car, i remember cos I had to sit up right so my head could be counted... so funny... but the state of taxis have evolved. For as long as I can remember there could only be certain brands of cars that could be taxis, the Toyota Crown for one and there were like only 2 cab companies. To me, it was the black and the yellow. Now, there are so many types with the mercedes benz, the london cabs, the minivans, with all sorts of colors, red, green, silver, white, etc. Its mind boggling... and the prices of the taxis.... I dunt wanna go there but I dare say, if i were working, I'd rather slog to keep my car than pay for the cab fare.
Why did all these come up from finding a couple of bus tickets (which to my family's relief, I threw away), cos so many things have changed in just a short span of time. Its not all bad i must add, its actually good for the country and efficiency. Its just different. Everything here changes so quickly. So fast.
SO
With all those physical reminders gone, here's to my good ole friends who were in school with me and all those times we've shared. I pray that I'll always remember those days with boring teachers and naughty things and we'll meet up and we'll try to remember the best times of our lives!
A tribute! (Mainly to those who read this blog)
TYY- all those late nights, bowling, (roller) skating, eating chestnuts on the bus while studying for the O levels, playing netball, cycling, walking ard barefooted and those troublesome irritating boys!
Azzie- our cooking sprees, our gazillion notes and letters, our gossips, our home econs club, going to your house and demolishing all of your mothers good cooking and all those troublesome and irritating boys!
Des-the late nite talking, the notes and letters, written and posted, the three way calls with Gordy, those cute guides you fancy ( haha... I remember who....) all the growing up woes and ideas....
Who else reads my blog that I know since way back?
7 months ago
