Monday mornings are usually a pain, especially when you have to drag yourself through a harrowing commute to work when you are recovering from the excesses of the weekend...
But this morning was a bit different!
We headed to Downtown to participate in a walking tour of the colonial district. At City Hall MRT, we were met by the guide, Hem Lata.
While Hem Lata waited for other participants to arrive, we sauntered around a bit. Then I spotted something that seemed exciting. A Malay lady was hawking at the MRT exit, typical eat 'n' go kind of stuff, curry puffs. I had seen people here in Singapore eating this stuff. We bought a couple of curry puffs, I took a fish puff and Neeti took a vegetable puff. I was a bit disappointed as I had expected something exotic - the filling was rather bland.
As the long wait for the walk to begin endured, we walked around in the gardens of the St Andrew's Cathedral. The slight breeze made the wait tolerable, as it was a typical muggy morning - I swear, the weather here is quite intolerable, probably the only thing in Singapore that really sucks!
St Andrew's Cathedral, named after the patron saint of Scotland, is the oldest Anglican house of worship in Singapore. The cathedral was designed by Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald MacPherson, and the construction carried out by Indian convict labourers, the cheapest labour available in Singapore at that time.
The cathedral was gazetted as a national monument in 1973.
It was nice watching fish in the pond, as we waited for the tour to start....
The location of the cathedral selected by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1823, as part of the Raffles Plan, which delineated the city plan for Singapore and demarcated community specific areas, which led to the founding of Chinatown, Little India and Downtown, which was earmarked for the British. This location falls in the colonial area.
The first cathedral was designed in the Palladian style by George Drumgoole Coleman, an architect who designed many buildings of early colonial Singapore. The second cathedral designed by John Turnbull Thomson had a tower and spire. Rumours of unhappy spirits in the building and damage caused by two lightning strikes in 1845 and 1849 resulted in the closure of the cathedral in 1852 and subsequent demolition in 1855.
I dread the rain here... and I see clouds coming in!
Hope it doesn't rain today... at least during the walking tour...
The cathedral we see today was consecrated in 1861, after the second cathedral was demolished. Constructed in a Neo-Gothic architectural style, the cathedral was finished with Madras chunam - a mixture made from shell lime, egg white, coarse sugar, and water in which coconut husks had been steeped. After drying, the plastered walls and columns were polished with rock crystal or rounded stones and dusted with fine soapstone powder, giving the building a distinctive white exterior so hard that even nails have difficulty penetrating it.
It is believed that Lieutenant-Colonel MacPherson drew inspiration for this design from Netley Abbey, a ruined thirteenth century church in Hampshire, England.
Wikipedia tells me that Netley Abbey is "a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for Roman Catholic monks of the austere Cistercian order."
It is said that the piers of the nave of Saint Andrew's closely resemble the surviving piers at Netley.
And we kept waiting, with the fish in the pond giving us company, and the lone lotus in full bloom....
The crossroads - intersecting paths in the gardens of the cathedral fascinated me...
The thought that came to my mind was life is indeed a series of crossroads...
The choices we make, deciding the path to take is not easy on the mind, that is what we think...
But wouldn't it be easier if we look at crossroads as opportunities, and as one crossroad in life leads to another, we are in a sense blessed with infinite opportunities in life...
After a while, the group assembled, mostly Australians with one Indian girl from Delhi, and we were led into the cathedral by Hem Lata, who described the history of this place...
The cathedral from inside was quite impressive. Both Neeti and I quite loved the stained glass panels behind the alter...
Three stained glass windows are dedicated to Sir Stamford Raffles, John Crawfurd, the first Major Resident of Singapore and Major General William Butterworth, Governor of the Straits Settlements
The stained glass cross was dedicated to the architect, Lieutenant-Colonel MacPherson
The cathedral also served as an emergency hospital during the Second World War. Casualties of the frequent bombings were sent to the cathedral to be treated. Services in the cathedral resumed after the Japanese surrendered in 1945
Plaques, dedicated to people who exemplified service to the nation and society, were all over the Cathedral...
One plaque particularly stood out - it was dedicated to 47 British soldiers and civilians who died in the Singapore Mutiny of 1915. Indian sepoys (Pathans and Baluchis, to be specific) of the 5th Native Light Infantry, nearly 850 of them, mutinied against the British in Singapore.
The British had declared war against Mehmed V, the Sultan of Turkey, during the First World War. These soldiers were incited by a local businessman and a religious preacher that they will be forced to fight against Turkey, which was untrue - the regiment was being sent to defend Hong Kong, and that it was their religious duty to fight the British...
The mutiny lasted nearly a week and resulted in the deaths of 47 British soldiers and local civilians, before it was finally quelled by British forces and Allied naval detachments from France and Russia.
The mutineers were later publicly executed
A view of the Singapore Cricket Club, from the gardens of the cathedral...
As we completed the tour of the cathedral, the weather had opened up a bit, with a few clouds merrily floating around...
As we walked towards the Supreme Court of Singapore, we walked past the old Supreme Court Building (the one with the with the green dome in the photo above).
The magnificent building was built in the 1930s and Wikipedia tells me that "On 1 April 1937, the original foundation stone of the Old Supreme Court Building, (then the biggest foundation stone in the whole of Malaya) was laid by the Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Shenton Whitelegge Thomas. Buried beneath the stone, is a time capsule containing six Singaporean newspapers dated 31 March 1937, and a handful of coins of the Straits Settlements. The capsule is not due to be retrieved until the year 3000."
It was a bit disappointing that Hem Lata chose not to mention this interesting trivia...
The building along with the adjacent City Hall building is being converted into the National Gallery of Singapore, which is scheduled to open in 2015. The Gallery will house artwork and exhibits of cultural significance
We were led to the new Supreme Court building, a fascinating structure of glass and marble (translucent sheets of Portuguese rosa aurora marble), completed in 2007.
Cameras were not allowed in the premises. After a thorough security check, our group was taken up to the 8th level, a disc shaped viewing gallery with a breathtaking view of the Central Business District, Singapore River, Marina Bay Area and the Esplanade. From here we got a bird's eye view of the colonial heritage of the city - the old Supreme Court and City Hall, the Parliament House etc. Sadly, we couldn't capture the fascinating view on camera, but rules have to be respected.
Hem Lata described that the disc-shaped structure that is a modern interpretation of the Old Supreme Court Building's dome and is intended to represent the impartiality of justice. She also described how from the gallery one can in a moment observe Singapore's transformation into modernity. She described how Singapore is striving to be a self-sufficient - the nation depends on Malaysia for water supplies and the water supply pact expires in 2061 - by then Singapore hopes to have sufficient desalination capacity to take care of its requirements. The lack of space in Singapore has necessitated an efficient garbage treatment system involving treatment, incineration and recycling.
At this stage, Hem Lata very offensively singled out Mumbai - she said Singapore was much unlike Mumbai, where you see heaps of garbage all over. She knew are from Mumbai, then why offend guests? To be even and balanced, why didn't she talk of Australia being built by convicts when she described how colonial Singapore was built by convicts from India? Was she trying to endear herself to the white skin, or rather racist? I don't know....
What I know for sure is in all journeys in Singapore, I have met very friendly, respectful and helpful people who had never brought out these differences but this lousy experience with Hem Lata will always stick out, hopefully as an aberration. Needless to say, Neeti and I will post a candid feedback about her on TripAdvisor
The rest of what she said, she was indeed quite knowledgeable about the history of the place, frankly I didn't bother to care... if she can't respect her guests, she doesn't deserve my attention, and actually she didn't realise she was discrediting her nation by talking like this...
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