With the sun shining, clouds suitably fluffy and temperature at a lovely 27 degrees celsius, Shi Teng does a sit up, got off bed, and sets off on a lone adventure to a less explored neighbourhood named Kranji.
Now, I wasn’t really sure if the temperature was 27 degrees celsius but the weather did seem pretty fine when I finally got outside.
Pre-exploration, I did two rounds of research.
The first round being a really basic one and this is what Wikipedia taught me:
- Kranji was named after a tree (which is now close to extinction)
- It is in the Northwest of Singapore
- It’s an industrial area with lots of standalone properties
Some history
- It used to have the railway
- And a military camp
- Now it has a war memorial
Some Highlights
- Kranji Racecourse
- Kranji Resevoir
- Kranji Marshes
- Bollywood Veggies
- Kranji Countryside association
I guess Kranji has quite a lot to offer! Definitely more than what I knew.
Through a secondary round of more in-depth research, I classified Kranji into a few main areas, namely:
- Kranji Turfclub
- Kranji Countryside (Farms)
- Kranji War Memorial (Military Barracks, WWII Landing Sites)
- Kranji Resevoir & Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
and after exploring, why not add in… - Kranji Industrial area and heavy vehicles
because that’s really one of the things Kranji has to offer.1. Kranji Turfclub
This was reasonably interesting. I thought this was an activity that was something different to do in Singapore. The tickets were cheap and the Grandstand seemed to have quite a bit to offer, like four different venues to watch the race.I was so ready to go down and catch a live race myself (and maybe even place a few bets), after all it’s something that I’ve never done and probably never will, until this project! Buttttt… First unfortunately, races are only held on selected Fridays, Sundays and public holidays (It was a Thursday when I explored Kranji). Second unfortunately, I found a Trip Advisor page, which had quite a fair bit of reviews, including a few bad ones that discouraged me from visiting the site alone.
(I mean… it makes it even more exciting and interesting to visit right but Joy said not to engage ourselves in dubious activities so I shalt not.)
One day, one day, I will catch some horse races.
Other related websites:
https://www.stc-ridingcentre.com/2. Kranji Countryside
I was really quite intrigued by all the information online about the farms. There was a whole website called Kranji Countryside and a few Straits Times articles, one of which that mentioned Kranji Farms getting recognised as a tourist spot. I thought that was really cool, it was something special, something that was about the heritage of Singapore that was not about the bustling city life or trips to the museum. There was also an article that mentioned the uncertainty of Kranji farmland’s future as many of the farmland leases are ending soon.I was really looking forward to attend some tours that would bring me around the Kranji farms. Unfortunately, tours are mostly catered to groups and visits would require an advanced booking.
Or maybe I haven’t looked hard enough, because I came across this character called Uncle William, the official tour guide to Kranji Farms and was quite bent on attending one of his tours. It wasn’t difficult to look harder as there were several mentions of him, eventually I came across the Farmart website which included a detailed PDF of his farm tour program, and unfortunately he only hosted group tours.
Here’s a video about Uncle William by MICHELIN Guide Singapore:
I emailed him yesterday and only got an invite to the upcoming Farmers’ Market where he was giving a talk about Chickens and Eggs. He’s probably the man who has the answer to the question, “Did the chicken or egg come first?”
I’ve heard about the Farmers’ Market pre-project 2 but unfortunately, according to their Facebook page, the next one will be held on 11th March, which is a week after our research due date.
And apparently, there is a sgfarming wordpress (which I haven’t explored much) which has an article about the 2014 Farmers’ Market.
On the Kranji Countryside webpage, I also read about the Kranji Heritage Trail and decided that maybe I could base my exploration mainly on this trail. I thought about doing the entire trail, but was worried that I probably won’t have enough time or balls to do it alone.
I also found a Kranji Express Bus Schedule that would help other Kranji explorers.
My initial plan was to take the Kranji Express Bus and see how much I could explore, and possibly document the time and journey. But not all plans work out… Reading a few other blogs, they did suggest that personal transport would be better. Also, there wouldn’t be enough time for me to fully explore along the catered bus by the time I left for Kranji.
3. Kranji War Series
I read some blogs that told me more about these areas of Kranji. In this particular blog, there were a lot of pictures about the Kranji barracks. They looked creepy and not like a place I was going to visit alone. I am also unsure if access to the public was allowed.
(I also read somewhere that the en-bloc-ed Neo Tiew estate became a training area for SAF but lost the link. On a second search, the pictures on http://joyloh.com/blog/?p=3342 ; https://remembersingapore.org/neo-tiew-estate/ makes it seem like an interesting place to visit, with friends!)
But I knew I was going to the Kranji War Memorial. A friend also told me pre-visit that SAF once brought him on a field trip there.
Disclaimer: Being the uncultured 22 year old girl that I am, I don’t remember much or have much knowledge about the war.
I arrived and had to stop to take a picture because it already looked so beautiful!
Was quite surprised that this was an actual thing you could open and there were actual books inside for visitors, but eventually realised that it made sense.
Some vandalism, or maybe a correction. Not sure if it was a typo, or was if Mr Boucher was really a baby then.
There was also a visitor’s book where visitors from all over the world signed and left messages.
^ Information that could be helpful if I was going to do my infographic on the war.
Okay, from this point onwards, I wasn’t sure if it was disrespectful to blatantly take pictures, especially because there were a lot of ang mohs around and I didn’t want to be an uncultured Singaporean brat. So I refrained from taking pictures, but took some anyway!
A faraway juxtaposition of the serene graves vs bustling city life.
The graves were indeed really very well maintained and nicely engraved and there were so many pretty flowers along them.
Fresh flowers I later found out was because of Total Defence day, it all made sense.
The flowers came from everywhere, from visitors, SAF, and some overseas government. I’ve noticed flowers placed on specific graves too.
I found these numbers below and realised they were counting columns.
In total, there were 472 columns.
Another juxtapositions. There were several walls like these which had words that described the soldier’s death, such as in captivity or in fire, or if they were transferred graves. It made sense that they were doing their best to really honour and name each and every soldier.
The site is part of the Kranji Heritage trail.
I was about to leave when I spotted these two information plagues around the carpark.
^ Some information to read.
When I went to take these pictures, I also happened to see an isolated grave on the opposite side of the carpark. It turned out to be the grave of former Singapore president (1971 – 1981), Benjamin Henry Sheares.
It was really quite an experience for me to visit this site alone. I had the time to breath in the peace, and was able to take my time to walk around and hear the birds chirp. It was a really beautiful and serene hill tucked away in the city, an aptly landscaped ground to honour the brave souls and their families.
I’ve read somewhere before my visit that the memorial was maintained by 5 foreign workers. Upon my visit, I saw some sheds and a gardening area with pots of plants. Also, around the area seemed to be some landed housing estates – but I am not really sure what they are.
It was quite emotional to think about the scale of the war and how much it affected the lives of the people then, and the people now. I was quite surprised that there were so many countries, nationalities and religions involved. Some of them I noticed were names of Singhs, there were also notably soldiers from Hong Kong, New Zealand etc.
The war also notably affected the lives of the people around the soldiers, there were assigned areas for the graves of the families. These graves were more customised. I’ve also realised a set of different graves and from the inscriptions, found out that they belonged to the Gurkhas. The graves were of a darker tint and were more rugged looking.
When I was there, most of the visitors were westerners, maybe it was because most of the names on the graves belonged to westerners too? A pair of old couple particularly caught my attention as they stayed on the same spot for a really long time. They were there before I reached and when I left, they were still there. Perhaps they were looking for a name? I didn’t speak to them at all (because I am a shy wuss) and I didn’t want to disturb their peace. Despite knowing how nice foreigners can be about small talk, it just didn’t seem like a place nor occasion to talk to them.
I also wondered if it was right for me to know so little about the war.
4. Kranji Reservoir and Sugei Buloh Wetland Reserve
Next, I headed to Kranji Reservoir. I got lost for a bit because I probably entered the wrong address the first time, but through my detour I noticed the amount of industrial areas around and thought that it was a possibility to do an infographic about all of them, (if it wasn’t boring).
Never knew there were “Fishing Grounds” in Singapore in an area not along the beach. All I’ve encountered were “no fishing” signs.
Not sure why the water looked like this….
Why did Shi Teng cross the road? To get to the Kranji Battle site! It was just like a really small, unkempt park.
But wait, what?! FORREALLLL???? But no worries, thanks to this signboard, I ain’t fear no crocodile encounters! Unfortunately I didn’t get to encounter during my short stay that came to feel a bit eerie. There was also a random uncle sleeping by the crocodile sign board so I left after the pictures as there seemed to be nothing much anyway.
(Also came to my mind that I could do infographics on the strange animal spottings in Singapore. Like crocodiles)
I was about to leave, again, when I saw this really strange out-of-nowhere bus stop in the carpark. And there were quite a bit of ‘normal’ citizens there. They weren’t random uncles, truck drivers, or construction workers. They were people who wouldn’t be (or weren’t dressed to be) in an industrial area like this. I was wondering where they came from until I found out that the Sungei Buloh visitor centre was a 2 minutes walk away from the carpark I was at.
Mystery solved. I guess it was also like an interchange for bus 925?
I proceeded to cross the road, this time to get to the Wetland Reserve’s visitor centre! Idk why but OSS uploaded my pictures in reverse chronological order.
So we start off with some photos of wild puppers and gloomy skies.
And as we can see, when I entered, it was sunny and slightly hot.
And yes, when the cicadas kept quiet, it was slightly late. I guess I learnt that they kept quiet only right before it rained. Or maybe the rain clouds came too fast.
At the visitor center, were a few labs that I guessed were for things like student visits. There was also some galleries around. There were a bunch of information trials and basically, the whole reserve was information overload.
There were some information I considered I could do, like about barnacles (which i only knew as a curse word used in Spongebob), or about the migration of birds and how the stars guided them. With a shiny title like “May the stars guide you home”.
But then again, these information were so readily available in the marshes and it would be so much cooler for people to visit it themselves.
There’s also a rather informative NPark website about the marshes. Once again, I unfortunately would miss all the guided tours. #nofate
Concluding this post, I have decided to do my infographic on either the Kranji War series or Kranji Countryside.
Am currently leaning towards the countryside but it’s unfortunate that I haven’t visited the area! Similarly, I haven’t visited the military barracks / WWII landing site for the war series.
Hopefully I will get to visit the farms sometime soon!