Fullerton Bay Hotel

Not to be confused with the Fullerton Hotel (which you can see in the background, on the right), this is a newer and smaller hotel. It's not as well known as some of the other luxury hotels, maybe because it is small and a bit hidden from the main road.

Opposite the hotel, across Marina Bay, is the Marina Bay Sands. A few hundred meters to the right is the Merlion, to the left is Shenton Way. You can see part of the old Clifford Pier on the right, the low building with the white arches.

Their website has lots of pretty pictures of the interior: http://www.fullertonbayhotel.com

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f2, 1/30 seconds, ISO 1600.
• Manual exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Straighten.

Chai Chee Secondary School

This is an old school by Singapore standards, over 40 years old. What you see here is probably the auditorium. The classrooms are behind, you can see a bit of them on the left. 

School motto is, Challenged to Excel. Website is
http://www.chaicheesec.moe.edu.sg/

• Nikon D7000, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6.
• At 34mm, f8, 1/250 seconds, ISO 100.
• Manual exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Auto contrast, crop, straighten, warmify, graduated tint fake blue sky.

Detective Agency Advertisement on Taxi Cab

Ummm, no comment.

• Nikon D7000, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6.
• At 75mm, f5.6, 1/750 seconds, ISO 400.
• Aperture priority, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Auto contrast, crop.

Kopi Tiam Food Court, Plaza by the Park

"Kopi tiam" is Chinese (Hokkien, I think) for coffee shop. This is a food court chain or franchise, called Kopi Tiam. A traditional coffee shop here is actually a mini food court.

"Kopi" is Malay for coffee (try asking for kopi in Hong Kong), so it's really a mix of Chinese and Malay. Lots of Malay words have slipped into the local dialects. Will probably confuse people from mainland China.

At center-left is a duck noodle stall called "Master Duck." Center right is the fruits stall (sometimes called "cut fruits"), which is part of the drinks stall on the right. Far left, near the door, is a Dim Sum stall. 

The walls are glass panels that are removed at about 9pm or 10pm, when the air-conditioning cuts out. This turns the whole place into an open-air restaurant. 

They usually have fierce "No Photography Allowed" signs inside, but my understanding is that photographing from outside is okay.

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f2.8, 1/60 seconds, ISO 400.
• Program exposure, auto ISO, center weighted metering, incandescent white balance.
• Picasa: Straighten, auto contrast, crop.

2012 update: The building is now called Manulife.

McDonald's Outdoor Booth, Shaw House

Also called Shaw Centre.

This is at the junction of Orchard and Scotts roads; opposite Tangs, Wheelock Place and ION. These outside booths aren't self-sufficient. The food is supplied by a regular McDonald's inside the building, with a kitchen and everything. There's an alfresco dining area on the left, with a hi-tech cantilevered tent roof and a raised wooden floor.

The "24" on the right means that this is a 24-hour branch. The T-shirt is advertising the new Mcdonald's Chicken McGrill. Haven't tried it yet.

I wasn't sneaky enough with the camera and the staff saw me photographing them. This is why you should try and hide the fact that you're taking a photograph - otherwise people will look at you and smile.

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f2, 1/60 seconds, ISO 400.
• Aperture priority, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Straighten, auto contrast.

Clementi Mall

• Nikon D7000, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6.
• At 18mm, f4.8, 1/4000 seconds, ISO 400. Should have gone down to ISO 100, forgot to check the shutter speed.
• Aperture priority, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, graduated tint fake purple sky.

This just opened, about half the shops are still under renovation. Not stopping the crowds, though. High rise apartments behind are connected to the mall. I tried to get to the top of the roof of the mall, where the orange disk is, but I couldn't find any access. Thought maybe there was a playground there. 

If I were a geek, I'd say that it looked like an R2D2 Cylon. But I'm not a geek.

Mall is built on top of what used to be the SBS bus interchange, if I remember correctly. Is now directly connected to the MRT via the existing covered pedestrian bridge. It's a great location.

The website is: http://www.theclementimall.com/ 

Old Shophouses Along Pagoda Street, Chinatown

•  Nikon D80, Sigma 20mm f1.8.
• At 20mm, f8, 1/30 seconds, ISO 100.
• Aperture priority, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light, warmify, graduated tint fake purple sky

This part of Chinatown is quite touristy and heavily renovated, but just walk down a bit and you can find some authentically run-down shops that cater to locals. The buildings that are not painted in bright colors, are the real thing. 

Escalator in the middle leads down to Chinatown MRT Station. Pagoda Street branches off from Eu Tong Sen Street, which is just behind the camera.

Tried a few different angles from left to right but the simple centered perspective here looks the best.

ITE College Central (Bishan Campus)

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f6.7, 1/180 seconds, ISO 100.
• Program exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Auto contrast, crop, graduated tint fake blue sky.

Pretty cool, looks like a cowboy barn or something.

The Institute of Technical Education (ITE) has a few different campuses all over Singapore. It's the technical/vocational school system in Singapore. The Economist has a short profile on the ITE, to start off their article on the success of Singapore's system of governance.

The Bishan Campus web page is at http://central.ite.edu.sg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12&Itemid=8

JobsDB Advertisement on Double Decker SBS Bus

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At 35mm, f5.6, 1/125 seconds, ISO 100.
• Program exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast.

Advertisements on the double decker buses can be pretty spectacular. Large, bright and colorful. If it looks like this in a photo, imagine seeing a full-sized one in real life. 

The advertisers get exposure, the bus company gets revenue, and people like me are entertained. Everyone wins. Isn't capitalism wonderful?

The parts of the advertisement that cover the windows, don't block the view entirely, and actually provide shade from the sun. There are a matrix of holes punched through them, so you can still see out.

HDB Flats, Rochor

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At 35mm, f8, 1/250 seconds, ISO 100.
• Program exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, graduated tint fake blue sky.

These flats are probably 30 to 40 years old. A bit of bright paint makes a lot of difference. I don't know why they don't paint more HDB apartments this way.  

Rochor is the old, semi-preserved part of town. Close to Sim Lim Square (Singapore's Akihabara), Kampong Glam, Arab Street, Sultan Mosque and other touristy delights. Nearest MRT is Bugis.

Bishan Public Library

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At 35mm, f4.8, 1/90 seconds, ISO 100.
• Program exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Crop, straighten, brightness adjustment.

One of the fanciest libraries I've ever seen. Reasonably busy too. This is 5pm on a weekday, but during the school holidays. The government library system here is good. Facilities are well-run and often incorporate cafes. Book check-out and check-in are automated: no long queues.

Unfortunately, returning books on time is a problem for me, so I haven't borrowed any books for a while. Easier to read articles off the Internet.

Neon Sign, Karaoke and Night Clubs, Peace Centre, Singapore

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f4, 1/30 seconds, ISO 100. Couldn't get everything in, was already backed up all the way to the edge of the pavement. That's the problem with a prime (non zoom) lens, but it's 4x brighter than a normal zoom (2x brighter than a f2.8 professional zoom, and a lot cheaper and lighter), so I'm happy.
• Manual exposure (checked against LCD screen, best way to get a good exposure for neon), center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: No editing.

I didn't expect Karaoke clubs to last so long. They've been around since the 1980s? This is a combined sign for what looks like karaoke clubs and night clubs. I'm not a night life guy, so I really don't know. This is Peace Centre, Sophia Road.

They all seem to be sponsored by some kind of brandy or other (alcohol, not the singer). The signs are:

• DYNASTY CLASSIC KTV, MARTELL, CHIVAS REGAL 12, DANCING - LIVE PERFORMANCES - @ 2ND LEVEL REAR PODIUM
• Level 3, The Soprano, Exclusive Club, COURVOISIER
• Club Monte Carlo, LEVEL 4, CHIVAS REGAL
• MARTELL, Club Jade, Level 6
• Level 7, CHINA DOLL, Hennessy (this one is a flat screen TV, the picture keeps on changing)

Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School, Singapore

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f5.6, 1/125 seconds, ISO 100. 
• Program exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Straighten, crop, auto contrast, graduated tint fake blue sky.

The huge posters outside, are to highlight students who did well in exams. They go: Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary congratulates so-and-so of x-class for achieving x DISTINCTIONS in 2009 GCE 'O' Level Exam.

Probably looks strange to people in other countries, but perfectly normal here. The names of top scoring students in national exams, are reported on television news broadcasts. There are "No Studying" signs in some places, like Changi Airport, because school students go there after school to study and jam up the place. In Singapore, geeks are cool. Remember Tiger Mom Amy Chua? Now imagine an entire society like her. Maybe not as extreme, but thinking along the same lines.

That's a football (soccer) field in front of the school. You can tell from the goal posts in the center. The tall fence isn't for security. It's to keep the balls in. Singapore is football crazy. Mainly over English Premier League. Even some girls get the fever.

School's website is:
http://www.kcpss.moe.edu.sg/

Singapore Parliament House

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At 35mm, f2, 1/30 seconds, ISO 800. 
• Manual exposure, center weighted metering, incandescent white balance.
• Picasa: Straighten.

The Parliament House is the short building behind the palm trees, with the illuminated brown roof. Pretty small by international standards, and not particularly imposing. Could pass off as a museum, embassy or government ministry.

When Parliament is in session, you can see policemen patrolling along the outside of the building. Highlights of the proceedings are broadcast over Mediacorp Channel 5, after the 9:30pm news. I sometimes catch bits of it when I switch on the TV for the 10pm movie.

Skyscrapers behind are on Boat Quay and Shenton Way, the financial district. The Singapore River is between the Parliament and skyscrapers. The skyscraper on the right is UOB Plaza One (United Overseas Bank), which together with the OUB Centre (Overseas Union Bank, now merged with UOB) and Republic Plaza, are the tallest buildings in Singapore.

Canal Near Kranji, Singapore

• Nikon D7000, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6
• At 18mm, f4.8, 1/1000 seconds, ISO 100. 
• Aperture priority, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Auto contrast.

This is about as good as it gets in Singapore. I prefer it to the Singapore River, less built-up, trees on the side. I thought it was a river, but the map says it's an unnamed canal. 

Buildings on the left are light industrial.

Taken from an MRT train. Color is real, nothing added with a photo editor. Just to be clear: most of Singapore doesn't look like this. 

Wall's Ice Cream Street Vendor

This is along Orchard Road, heart of the shopping district. Behind the camera is Ngee Ann City. The black building on the right, the Grand Park Orchard, is too new to be a landmark. I think it was the Crown Prince Hotel, that used to be there, with a round Swensen's restaurant in the front.

There are two main ice cream brands in Singapore: Wall's (Unilever) and Magnolia (Fraser & Neave). I'm guessing that Magnolia has ice cream cart vendors too, but I haven't been paying attention. Nestle is here, but their web page says that they started selling ice cream here in 1994, too late for me to feel nostalgic about them. Maybe they'll have more of an impact on the young generation.

If the heart logo doesn't look familiar to you, that's because Unilever decided to mess with your childhood memories. They used to use a logo with red vertical stripes and a blue circle.

Note the large brown packet between the lady vendor in the striped blouse, and her motorcycle helmet. That's bread. A popular way to serve up ice cream is in a bread sandwich. I never was into that. I'm a cone guy, less drippy. You can bite the bottom tip off, then suck the ice cream down through the cone, to get the ice cream nicely distributed throughout the cone.

All sorts of interesting details in the photo. There's a spare umbrella, rolled up on the left. There's also a folding chair. You can see that she sells canned drinks and bottled water too. Black blob next to her head looks like a large transistor radio.

I'm not certain, but I remember the government banning street hawkers a few decades back, for hygiene reasons. They later allowed the ice cream vendors back, to add local color or something. But the guys who ladled home-made soya bean and grass jelly (chin chow) drinks out of plastic containers, never returned.

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f2.8, 1/60 seconds, ISO 100. 
• Aperture priority, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Cropped. 

Aerial View, Petir Road

A normal road, in a normal housing estate. All the buildings that you see here are HDB public housing. There's a lot of variation in design, but the old ones all have the same dreary look that is easy to spot.

Private condominiums look a lot better from the outside, but they can be much smaller indoors. A lot of the condos that I've visited have been like that, so don't be fooled by appearances. 

Road looks impressive from this high up, from a HDB flat. But down there the tree-lined boulevard looks pretty normal, at least to me. I once asked a visiting Japanese lady, about her impression of Singapore. She said that she was surprised to see so much greenery, trees everywhere. And she wasn't standing at the top of a HDB flat.

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f4, 1/180 seconds, ISO 100. 
• Aperture priority, center weighted metering, auto white balance.
• Picasa: Auto contrast, graduated tint fake purple sky. Trust me, you don't want to see it with the original gray sky.

Greenridge Primary School, Singapore

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f11, 1/250 seconds, ISO 100. 
• Program exposure, center weighted metering, auto white balance. If there's enough light and the light is even, you can go full auto, no problem. 
• Picasa: Straightened, auto contrast. The auto contrast did a good job, made the photo glow.

Americans would call this a grade school or elementary school. Children study here for 6 years, from age 7 to 12. First grade is called Primary One (Malaysians call it Standard One). There's a major standardized national exam at the end of Primary Six, called PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination).

The building is one long block, but from this angle, looking from the canal, you can't see the rest of the building. New schools such as this, look pretty fancy. And this is just an average neighborhood school.

It's 9am on a Saturday morning, bright sunshine. I got lucky with the sky. I didn't add any color, honest. And note how effective the splash of green on the left, is. Try and imagine the photo without it.

There are some messy tree branches at the bottom of the photo. I didn't want to crop them out because I didn't want to cut off too much of the building. You wouldn't have noticed the trees anyway, if I hadn't pointed them out.

Of course, the school has a website:
http://www.greenridgepri.moe.edu.sg/

Singapore Film Society Screening, China Square Central

• Nikon D80, Sigma 20mm f1.8.
• At 20mm, f2, 1/15 seconds, ISO 1600. 
• Manual exposure, center weighted metering.
• Picasa: Increased fill light one stop.

This is from 2010. The Singapore Film Society used to screen outdoor movies every month, free. This year, they've moved indoors, to the Library at Esplanade. They screen local Singaporean and Asian movies, and often have the director or actors for a Q&A after the movie. 

Movie hasn't started yet, in case you're wondering why the screen is blank. Movie is Muallaf (The Convert), directed by the late Yasmin Ahmad. Lead actress Sharifah Amani came from Malaysia, for the Q&A. Thoughtful, atmospheric movie, lots of dialog (a bit like Before Sunrise in that way, though it's a different kind of movie), not preachy (a lot of local movies are). Definitely a cut above the average.

It's 7:35 pm, bright enough for some color in the sky. Blue ring in the middle is a fountain, I think. China Square Central is a group of retail buildings in the middle of Chinatown, built around the open space that you see in the photo. Lots of restaurants. Building immediately behind is South Bridge Court. Buildings behind that are HDB public housing, yes they're everywhere.

Pearlbank Apartments, Singapore

• Nikon D80, Sigma 20mm f1.8.
• At 20mm, f5.6, 1/250 seconds, ISO 100. 
• Aperture priority, auto white balance, center weighted metering.
• Picasa: Straightened. It's difficult to get the building perfectly straight, how ever you adjust it, one side looks slanted.

Unusual design, it's like a doughnut with a bite taken out of it. I had an uncle who stayed there, many years ago. I remember a strong breeze blowing the whole day. The direction of the breeze would change, depending on whether it was day or night.  

This is a view from the Outram MRT station. I walked down the path and took a few photos, with different patterns of branches over the scene, then chose the best one later. It's 6pm in the evening, still bright.

It has its own website, with a dedicated group of residents fighting to stop the apartments from being sold and torn down.

http://www.pearlbankapartments.com/directory.htm

Pearlbank is now more than 40 years old, being the oldest 99 yr leasehold high rise in Singapore. Pearlbank has gone through many phases in its' history > From Singapore's highest and largest single residential complex in 1972 to a dubious reputation as a 'red-light' building in the 1980's, to housing foreign workers in the 90's.

With the introduction of this web site in 2001 - we are working to eradicate the listings of our building under 'short-term rentals' and 'cheap accommodation' by zealous real estate agents.

With the introduction of 'rental guidelines' for Subsidiary Proprietors in 2002, all these problems are now behind us.

Ministry of Education Building, Singapore

Trains everywhere, even in front of the Ministry of Education. Buona Vista MRT station is on the right, just out of the frame.

This isn't the city center, it's more like a science or industrial park in the middle of a residential area. This one is called the Biopolis. Singapore government wants to make it a hub for genetic research. They seem to be succeeding.

The two black cars are both Mercedes Benz. Don't ask me why, they just are.

• Nikon D7000, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6.
• At 38mm, f4.2, 1/250 seconds, ISO 100.
• Aperture priority, auto white balance, center weighted metering.
• Picasa: cropped, graduated tint fake blue sky.

Neighborhood McDonald's, Singapore

In case anyone was wondering what a McDonald's in Singapore looks like. I would guess pretty much the same as anywhere else in the world.

Nobody paid any attention to the camera because I didn't lift it up to my eye. I held it in my hands and shot blind. I realize now that I could have switched on the live view, but I'm not used to using it and didn't think of it at the time.

Note the green Iced Milo drinks machine in the middle. Maybe that's unique. Milo is Nestle's chocolate drink, equivalent to Ovaltine and Swiss Miss. Has been the dominant chocolate drink here (and in Malaysia) since when the British were in charge. You can order a cup at any local coffee shop.

This is 6:30am, breakfast. You can see the sign for the $4.00 Sausage McMuffin With Egg Meal, at the top. They recently started this special, where you get the breakfast meals for 2/3 the normal price ($4.00 for Sausage McMuffin With Egg Meal, usual price $5.85) between 6am and 9am.

The red tag with the yellow arrow over the cash register, says "Order Here." When the cash register is closed, they flip the tag around and it becomes yellow, can't remember the words. "Next Counter Please" or something. Rightmost cash register doesn't have a tag. I think it's permanently closed.

This is a small McDonald's, only three cash registers, with two operational. It's in the middle of a HDB public housing estate. McDonald's used to be in the city center only, but they decided to blanket Singapore with branches, about 20 years ago. They started going 24-hours on some branches, a few years back. This is one of them.

The illuminated signs at the top are easily changed to the lunch/dinner menu. They rotate, so you just turn them. I remember when the flat panels had to be manually swapped out.

First McDonald's in Singapore opened in Liat Towers, along Orchard Road, in the 1970s. My sisters and I were fascinated by their straws. They were the thickest straws that we had ever seen, because they had to deal with the thick McDonald's milkshakes. We took the straws home, washed them, and played with them.

McDonald's discontinued milkshakes here a few years ago, but they're back now. 

I read their corporate hagiography many years ago, John Love's McDonald's: Behind the Arches. Fascinating stuff. Total soap opera.

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At f4, 1/60 seconds, ISO 200.
• Aperture priority, auto white balance, center weighted metering, auto ISO.
• Picasa: Cropped, boosted fill light 3 stops (metering was thrown off by the bright signs, didn't catch it on the LCD because the D7000's display is quite bright, ISO 200 so could boost it a lot without adding too much noise).

Singapore Mosque: Masjid Al-Iman

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At f2.8, 1/4000 seconds, ISO 100. Should have stopped down a bit, 1/4000 seconds for a building is ridiculous. 
• Aperture priority, auto white balance, center weighted metering.
• Picasa: Auto contract fix.

This is a new mosque, opened in 2003. Between Pending and Bangkit LRT stations. Mosques in Singapore are overseen by MUIS (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura: Islamic Religious Council of Singapore):

http://www.muis.gov.sg/cms/services/Mosques.aspx?id=498

"In Singapore, where Muslims constitute a minority living in a society undergoing far reaching changes, the mosque stands as an important bulwark of Muslim identity and community integrity. Mosques have not just played a vital and meaningful role as the focus of religious activities, but also as centres for Islamic Learning and Social Development.

"Mosques in Singapore are currently managed by volunteers, refered to as Mosque Management Board (MMB). There are specific units within Muis which oversees the administration of Singapore Mosques in general."

"Masjid" means mosque in Malay and Arabic.The strange thing about studying Malay, is that you end up learning some Arabic too. And Malay is about 90 percent the same as Indonesian. When I was staying in the south of Singapore, I could pick up Indonesian TV. I could understand the news broadcasts, but the colloquial language was barely decipherable. Within formal Indonesian, there were some strange and not so strange differences. In Malaysia, the government is called "kerajaan," which literally means "kingly" but just means "government." In Indonesia, they refer to the government as "pemerintah," which means "ruler."

This is a surprisingly difficult photo to take. Too many other buildings and distractions, hard to get a clean shot. Move in too close, and there's a mess of cars parked along the road outside. Move too far away and you get a HDB apartment block looming over it. 

That's part of the fun of photography. It's not just a matter of snapping anything that comes into sight. It takes some effort, judgment, and luck. 

Note again, how important the tree at the corner is. Take that away and the photo becomes more plain.

Singapore Canal, Night

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At f2, 1/4 seconds, ISO 800. Managed to rest the camera on a railing, so I could go down to 1/4 seconds and not have to boost the ISO too much.
• Manual exposure (because of uneven lighting), auto white balance, center weighted metering (but exposure was based mainly on feedback from the LCD).
• Picasa: Cropped.

Canals are normally this dry. They are mainly to handle runoff from rain. They are basically large drains. No boats on them.

This is about 9pm at night. You can see two ladies walking along the canal, at the bottom left. Singapore is quite safe, even at night. 

The trees make a big difference. Newer areas with shorter trees, don't look as good. Buildings are all HDB public housing. Actual scene is 4 to 8 times darker than what the photo shows.

Singapore Post Centre

Singapore Post Centre

• Nikon D7000, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6
• At f6.7, 1/750 seconds, ISO 100.
• Program mode, auto white balance, center weighted metering.
• Picasa: no editing.

Just thought that it looked cool, retro Art Deco. Like many buildings in Singapore, it's part shopping centre and part office building. Right next to Paya Lebar ("wide swamp") MRT station.The radiator in the middle, is the top of two external glass lifts (elevators). You can see the two tracks on the wall.

Singapore Post is the name of the mail service here, so the name of the building can be understood as "Singapore Post, Centre," not "Singapore, Post Centre."

Singapore is supposed to follow UK English, but with so much US media here, everyone gets mixed up. The names of places are still quite consistently spelt (spelled) in UK English: "centre" instead of "center." I've been trying to standardise (standardize) my own spelling to US, but of course I can't change the spelling of names of places.

Singapore Canal

• Nikon D7000, 18-200mm f3.5-5.6
• At f4.8, 1/2000 seconds, ISO 1600. ISO is too high for day use, but I was testing the D7000's high ISO noise. 
• Aperture priority, auto white balance, center weighted metering.
• Picasa: straighten, boosted fill light one stop, graduated tint for fake blue sky.

Doesn't look like Singapore, but it is. The walls of the canal are grimy by Singapore standards, which is why I thought it would make an interesting photo, especially when balanced by the lush green grass on the right. Took the photo from a bridge on a reasonably major road. Didn't have to sneak around some back alley to find this. 

The whole scene reminds me of a shot from the movie Entrapment (Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones), where they used special effects to combine a shot of the Malacca river or something, with the Petronas twin towers skyscrapers in the background, making it look like squalor existed side by side with modernity in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysians were quite upset with that. 

Water level is way down. It can go up a few feet after a few hours of heavy rain. You can see the small channel that runs down the center of the canal, that handles low flow days like this, at the bottom left of the photo. Occasionally, you get newspaper reports of kids trying to swim in the canal after the rain, then getting swept away and drowning.

Most of the rivers in Singapore are now concrete canals like this. If you follow the Singapore river up to its source, you eventually hit a canal like this. But then even the mouth of the river is now all concrete anyway.

Apartment Block Next to Jungle, Singapore

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At f5.6, 1/500 seconds, ISO 100.
• Center weighted metering, aperture priority, auto white balance.
• Picasa: auto contrast fix. Main problem with shooting through glass windows (took this from the train) is loss of contrast. You get a milky film over the image. Luckily it's easy to fix in the editor. 

I see this all the time, on the way to Jurong East to switch trains from the North-South line to the East-West line. I always look forward to seeing it, something peaceful about this particular scene. It's between Choa Chu Kang and Bukit Gombak MRT stations. That's real jungle, old-growth for all I know. Still lots of patches of it all over Singapore.

It's probably less of a problem for established areas, but I've heard stories of snakes being found in buildings, on newly developed land that's next to jungle. The police get called, and don't know what to do, and sometimes suggest shooting it. The police now have an understanding with ACRES, the local wildlife rescue charity. Police standard operating procedure is now to call ACRES if there are any reports of snakes or other wild animals.ACRES will capture the animal and release it somewhere else.

You can call the ACRES 24 hour wildlife rescue hotline listed at http://www.acres.org.sg/wildliferescue/hotline.html.