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Another year in Singapore, another Thaipusam festival to witness.

This year I just went with my friends who are visiting. Between the jet lag and the heat factor (they arrived from Norway last night!) we didn’t go early and we didn’t stay long, so don’t have many pictures like last year.
Promise I’ll take more pictures next year…. but if you want to learn (or refresh your memory) about Thaipusan, you can check last year pictures here, here, here, here, here and here!

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There’s some new excitement in the horizon.

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Another Monday Murals:

Just around the corner (literally around the corner of the street in the back alley of Everton Road) from last week mural “Amah” and painted a month apart Yip Yew Chong painted “Barber”.

He explained on his blog that this mural was inspired by and painted based on fond memories of his own childhood in Chinatown. Even the date on the calendar for example is his birthday (12 July) and the year (1976) is when he entered primary school.

from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2rU6dF9

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See kids can survive a lunch without their phone 😉

Finally made it to Merci Marcel before the big rush of brunch goers. Their Croque Marcel was delicious and they even have Ravioles which is a pasta dish from my region in France!!

I’m so in love with the Tiong Bahru neighborhood.

from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2FlGhUI

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I’m going through a hippie phase (except for the flowery clothes, no bra, and no shower)…. I limited it to making my own oatmeal breakfast porridge.

Made a week worth (for 2 persons) of instant oatmeal package.
We don’t find the instant oatmeal different flavors individual packages so I decided to just make them.

C thought I was crazy and needed to stay off Pinterest… but she’s now on board. So easy to grab a bag, pour some hot water on it and boom breakfast. If I even plan ahead I can mix it with yoghurt the night before and just grab it from the fridge in the morning.
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We survived 2 weeks of IB mock exam.

Not sure how I am going to feel during the 3-week for the real exam in May 😱…. and I’m not even the one taking the tests (maybe it brings back nightmare of my own exams).

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Rochor Center

Photos taken in February 2017 on the void deck on the 4th story which acted as a communal space that cater to the residents’ recreational and social needs.

Most of the residents from the 567 households and 183 shops had left already and you couldn’t access most of the residential floors anymore.

from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2nbnbsG

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I’m grateful to friend who are willing to look for vantage point and follow me to obscure car park to take the photo I want.

Since 1st April 2017, Rochor Center is closed and cannot be visited. (I’ll post some pictures I took last year from the inside). It has been used recently by the police and army to trained their soldiers but it will be demolished soon and the landscape will be forever changed .

Rochor Centre was built and completed in 1977 to take in residents and businesses that was uprooted across the city. It’s what we call HDB (*). It has become a urban landscape of Singapore thanks to its bright colorful facades (only painted this way in 1994) just outside the center business district.

In November 2011, it was announced that the Rochor centre would be acquired by the government to make way for the new 21.5 km North-South Expressway (NSE) and the development of the Ophir-Rochor Corridor.

As of 1 April 2017, the entire building has been barricaded and the carpark permanently closed.

(*) The Housing & Development Board (HDB) is the statutory board of the Ministry of National Development responsible for public housing in Singapore. It is generally credited with clearing the squatters and slums of the 1960s and resettling residents into low-cost state-built housing. Today, as many as 82% of Singaporeans live in public housing provided by the HDB! (and owned their apartment might I add)

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Last week we visited the studio (& home) of Louise Hill Designs with the AWA (American Women Association) Art & Culture Group.

I first met Louise through our sons (her twins and my son are best friends) and I joked with her that I was glad I was finally seeing where my son spend so much of his time after school and on weekends. She loves him!!

They used to live in a beautiful Peranakan shophouse in Joo Chiat on the east part of town but moved last year in a Black & White House near the kids school (& incidentally closer to us too!).

She’s a graphic designer and has a very artistic family/background. Her pieces are beautiful and very intricate and need to be seen in real life to see all the different details. She told us that some of her designs can have between 50 and 200 layers. Looking at them is like trying to find Waldo, you’ll see little details she has scattered around the design especially on her We Love Hong Kong and We Love Singapore. I find new little gems every time I look at them.

www.louise-hill-design.com

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After Monday Walk posts and Monday Ceramics workshop post I present you with Monday Murals:

First we are going to visit the Murals of Yip Yew Chong which you can find in different neighborhoods of Singapore.
Since 2015 he paints impressive large-scale nostalgic Murals. He’s an accountant by day but he’s commissioned by small business and resident communities to bring life to their streets.

This is his first mural, painted in August 2015 and is at Everton Road. “Amah” depicts the rich Peranakan culture of the Blair Plain Conservation Area

www.yipyc.com
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