Road to nowhere

Join exchange student John P. Gamboa, he ventures into unfamiliar territories on random bus trips around the island

I randomly picked bus service 174 at Boon Lay interchange and hopped on, eager to see parts of the island I had yet to venture into. Thus far, most of my experiences with the public bus transport system had been journeys to and fro the city centre.

One of the most prominent sights of the skyline here is the housing towers. On the bus, I got the impression that most of the city’s housing towers were designed by a single government contractor or company.

It was hard to figure out where I was because these towers had no distinct features for me to distinguish the districts.

Midway, I got off to explore a building that looked like a market. This one seemed different from others I have seen because it resembled a Spanish plaza, with surrounding flats enclosing a hawker centre, a soya bean vendor and a couple of electronics dealers. The architecture looked identical to everything I had seen on the island so far, but the square’s enclosed layout made it felt as if the rest of the island had disappeared, and that I was in my own little city.

After grabbing a drink, I hopped onto bus service 945, and dropped off at Bukit Batok Park.

My first glimpse of the park was its granite face which was anchored by a pond. The sight was a stark contrast to the businesses, housing flats and hawker centres that populate the island.

In this beautiful park, Singaporeans were fishing and having picnics away from the hustle and bustle of city life, and the dichotomy between nature and the man-made structures was amazing. It almost made me forget that I was in a cosmopolitan city with a 4.5 million population.

After wandering around the lake watching families fish and relax, I knew that this was a place I would very much like to stumble upon again. My assumption of the island being just a concrete jungle was definitely a little shaken by this experience.

This article was originally published in Vol. 15 No. 8 of the Nanyang Chronicle