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.