Little Excursion Part Daylight

i like how picturesque this block looks with their lack of parapet walls and laundry everywhere. even better when dotted with people leaning over the railings (there is one uncle - third from top, fourth from left).



as our buildings scale higher and higher into the sky, this is like stepping into lilliput territory. but in a good way.



pale blue brick walls and details like that.



i've a thing for facades with alternate balconies.



old estates have lots of stray cats, something we don't have much of here.





this cat is funny.



it was doing this when i first saw it.



the lady in the swing started sobbing quietly into her hand as i approached. it was awkward. i mean, i couldn't possibly have gone away and i couldn't possibly have continued snapping. in the end i sat down nearby to reload film and she walked away. she came back a while later, smiling and chattering over the phone, and occupied her swing again.




i miss seats like that. i liked running my hands over the surface when sitting down. it feels really cool and smooth.



blurred, unfortunately




though it's clear i should not walk underneath this.



i liked hanging out wet laundry as a kid. draping them neatly over the bamboo poles, making sure they are lined exactly next to each other before pegging them down, discovering you can overlap them just a little to save pegs, reaching out to pitch them into the breeze and seeing them flutter.

i'm pretty sure that's the reason why i used to have dreams of myself going downstairs via the bamboo poles. not superhero style. more clutch to pole for dear life while slowly dropping off to the next pole. i lived on the tenth storey which was also the second highest storey. i guess that's why i had so far to go in my dreams. now that i'm thinking about those dreams again, i can still remember the tense knob of fear that i'll wake up with.




in my old home, i had two provision shops downstairs. one chinese and one indian. i liked going to the latter. the youngish uncle and aunty there were nicer to me. i saw the uncle once when i went back. he looks almost the same, just with grey temples.

there are two provision shops near my home now. one chinese and one indian. the chinese one is more like a vault - you know those windowless, cheerless excuses they call minimarts but is actually a bomb shelter you always find in newer hdb estates that have a normal door as opposed to a shopfront.

i hate the chinese one. because it's so ugly and claustrophobic and is staffed with this old, bitchy aunty and they sell stale, expired chocolate. gross. i HATE bitchy middle-aged women.

so i still go to the indian one, though that's seldom. i buy everything from the supermarket now. the romance with provision shops was over the moment i moved here almost a decade ago. it's not the same when it's not the ones you grew up with, you know?



ooh i like these. they're so much nicer than the ones we have now.



i think it's partly cos i like to see the rust peep through and i can then peel at the paint. as a kid, of course.









sometimes i miss the old estate where i used to stay. but i know it's just memories, nostalgia, childhood and all those rose-tinted things. i was really happy to move because i was sick of that place too and i like it here. i know it's really dramatic to say because it's just one part of the small island to another, but this is home now.