Posts for 2026

In recent years, I've been writing about my vacations in different parts of Malaysia to meet up with friends I made online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, I didn't leave Singapore at all. Instead, I still cleared my Annual Leave - but in Singapore. This was more than just me being a cheap bastard - I mean, I am a cheap bastard, but there's more at play here.

You see, back in 2019, one of my several uncles, David, died. He hadn't even turned sixty. I saw my Aunt Serene at the wake, in a wheelchair. For reasons we won't get into, Aunt Serene was only ten months older than me and we played together a lot as kids. This would be the last time I would see her alive, for she succumbed to a brain aneurysm just a year later. Then two years ago, the twin brother of one of my friends passed on from a heart attack. He was only a couple years older than me.


Now, granted, I would consider myself a significantly healthier and fitter specimen than any of the ones who've died, rest their souls. This, however, taught me not to take anything for granted. Around my age, anything can happen. I am going to celebrate the fact that I am alive and able to walk... by being alive and walking.

The past five years of working from home meant that I hadn't really needed to leave the neighborhood very often. I hadn't really seen how Singapore had changed post-pandemic.

Initially, I went through the places I hung out as a kid, but eventually, inevitably, this turned to revisiting old workplaces because my career took up so much of my life. And I've always had a soft spot for old malls compared to some of the more modern cookie-cutter fare out there. It's not that the old stuff is objectively better; there's just a certain charm about the old-fashioned double rectangular layouts that speaks to me.

Today, I want to go through some of the sights I saw in my wanderings as I revisited the places I used to work through my long and storied career. Bear in mind that I did not visit these places chronologically, but I will be recounting them in a certain order, for clarity.

Early to mid 2000s

My career began after graduating from University, amid an economic downturn around 2002. After months of temp work and putting myself out there, I landed a job as Desktop Support at a legal firm. The pay wasn't great, and the prospects sucked ass... but it was better than what I had currently, which was pretty much nothing.



The office was in Peninsula Plaza along North Bridge Road, a place mostly visited by the Burmese and Indians. Upon my visit during my vacation, the building seemed to now be inhabited by small Thai businesses from the collapse of Golden Mile Complex. It really seemed to be a case of seeing how many grocery shops and hair salons one could squeeze into four floors of an old-fashioned rectangular layout.

Aside from that, Peninsula Plaza didn't seem to have changed too much from twenty years ago.


Across the street was Funan, one of the places that my then-Manager often sent me to, to purchase tech supplies. The last time I ventured there was in 2018 (more on that later), and it had completely changed from the Funan I knew as a teenager, or even as a young adult. It had become all kinds of fancy. There was a hotel, and a rock-climbing wall. Upscale restaurants. The works. I don't begrudge evolution, but honestly I didn't want to rub my own face in it either. I had places that held memories that I could actually revisit.



Next door to Funan was Peninsula Shopping Complex (not to be confused with Peninsula Plaza) and Excelsior Shopping Center, which, if I'm being honest, are so old and decrepit and joined at the hip they might as well be one unit. The basement held all the stuff that enthralled me as a kid - I remember blowing much of my earliest paycheck on a belt and some rocker t-shirts. They still have this cool stuff down there, and it doesn't look like it's let up in the past three decades. If anyone's got a hankering to cosplay as some stereotypical badass biker, you could do worse than start here. Just for old times sake, I dropped a bunch of cash on some Iron Maiden t-shirts. Probably got ripped off, but whatevs, it's just money.



A little bit of exploration in Excelsior Shopping Center made me realize just how ghetto this place was. I'm all for it, but there were times it got a little creepy. Like this little stairway, for instance. Total horror movie vibes.

The dodgy-looking ladies at the upper floors rapping on the glass windows as I passed, certainly did nothing to make this experience less creepy.


The colorful building known as The Adelphi was another stop. They still sold vinyl records and CDs, imagine that. There was even a shop that dealt in vintage action figures. That took me way back. Now I've never ventured to The Adelphi much even when I was working nearby, but on this occasion I'm glad I stepped in.

Mid to end 2000s

After three years, the firm relocated to Beach Road. This was the more upscale end of Beach Road near to the Esplanade.


The Gateway was an acutely-shaped building where I spent another three years of my career.  The shelter between the towers, pictured below, wasn't there during my time.


The area in between the two glass towers was where I took my smoke breaks. I'd forgotten how beautiful the surroundings are.


Back in the day, I spent time around Shaw House along Beach Road. This is what Shaw House looks like now, being reconstructed, but back then it was my goto for horror movies. I distinctly remember watching Ringu here.


The surrounding areas have also evolved. Tan Quee Lan Street and Liang Seah Street appear to have undergone the most changes, with regards to the shops and businesses open. These days it's a lot of Chinese restaurants.


Another stop I made was at junction of Victoria Street and Ophir Road, where the decaying sight of Golden Landmark Shopping Complex stood. I can't believe that dump is still around; I used to go in to get my hair cut.

2008

In 2008, I ended my Desktop Support career and moved into web development. This was at a little company inside Bylands Building along Middle Road, just a couple streets away from my previous company. Now, if there's ever a timeless spot, it's the entire area around Middle Road. 



On the other side of Middle Road was the Four-face Buddha and Fu Lu Shou Complex. This remains a classic. It looked like this almost twenty years ago, and looks the same now when I visited it last month. Really took me back to the evenings spent wandering this area while I ruminated on why my code was failing.



Just a bit further pas this was Bugis Night Market, and to my everlasting joy, it was going strong! There's a certain charm about it that rivals Kuala Lumpur's Petaling. that since this is Singapore where space is a premium, things were a lot more claustrophobic.


At the ass-end of Middle Road, I took a few minutes to go through Parklane Shopping Mall. Back in the day, as teenagers, my buddies and I came here for pool and gaming. It was still going during my professional years, but that day when I visited, it was like a morgue - cold, lifeless and dull. Damn, this is sad.

The next part of my little vacation in Singapore was spent revisiting offices I worked in from 2009, up to a few years after. I was at the stage where I was finding my feet as a web developer, and struggling to break through that SGD 3,000 monthly wage ceiling.

2009

It was a weird point in my career, as my company in Middle Road moved operations to a little basement office in Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium, around Havelock Road. I remember spending countless nights in the office slaving away writing code. The air-conditioning was on twenty-four hours a day, it being a hotel and all. When I went back to visit it during my leave, that office had been replaced by some nightclub. Beside it, you can see the stairs I used to descend from the lobby to the office.




Wandering around the basement led me to Concorde Shopping Center. The provision shop I used to frequent was gone. Around it were suspicious-looking women in individual shops badgering me to go in for a "massage". One of them even pulled open her labcoat and flashed me. Ten years ago, I probably would have found this interesting. Now it was just... weird AF.



There would be nights when I wandered the area aimlessly to take a break from the screen. During those times, I would go as far as Great World City, which was this huge-ass mall up along Zion Road. Now, I rarely actually went inside, as it was usually closed by the time I passed by. It was significantly more convenient to get there now, since the Havelock and Great World MRT stations are currently in existence.



No, the place I actually hung out at more often wasn't Great World City, but the block of shops just across the road. There was Zion Riverside Food Center (it may not have been called that at the time) and some bars, just by the Singapore River.

In fact, when I visited during my vacation, it struck me that this was the first time I'd seen the Singapore  River from this exact vantage point during the day. Amazing.

2010 to 2011

At that point, I had spent most of my career in the general vicinity of Bugis Street. This was soon to change as I landed a job further up, to the other, less glamorous, end of Beach Road. It wasn't that far away, but the vibes were markedly different. This was the year I spent in Golden Mile Complex, which was under reconstruction works when I visited it recently.


It was just a year, but what a year. I pulled twelve-hour days as was my wont. I saw things like barfights, sexual predators in toilets and the sordid nightlife that characterized life in Golden Mile Complex, colloquially known as Little Thailand. After sundown, Golden Mile Complex just turned into a completely different animal.

Golden Mile Complex, Golden Mile Tower and Golden Mile Food Center formed what I liked to call "the Golden Triangle".




Golden Mile Tower was further up Beach Road, and Golden Mile Food Center was on the other side of the road, housing the Beach Road Army Market. Shopping there is a habit I picked up from National Service, one that I never quite managed to break. Working nearby in Golden Mile certainly didn't help! The shops were still there when I visited. The food looked largely the same. Ah, nostalgia.

Nearby were the ultra-retro complexes known as Jalan Sultan Textile Center and Sultan Plaza.
Behind Sultan Plaza, was a little playground where I spent several evenings with my then-girlfriend, or drinking in seedy bars with my buddies. There were a ton of them in these parts. I've gone almost completely dry in the intervening years, but it was still fun to reminisce.



And then there was the Textile Center, the sister to the ancient creaking Sultan Plaza.



This little park behind the Textile Center may look like just like any other, but it holds special meaning for me. In 2017 or so, when I could finally afford to take another then-girlfriend (who's now Mrs TeochewThunder) out somewhere nice, it was to the classic Nan Hua Chang Fish Head Steamboat Restaurant just a street away, and we came here for a post-meal snuggle later.

I know, this makes it sound like I really got around, but it was just those two ladies. Around these parts, anyway.
Another day of my vacation was spent covering the locations I hung out at from the entire year of 2012 and onwards. In the next few years, I would shuttle from company to company, never staying more than a couple years at each one.

2012 to 2013

These were the first years I spent away from the Beach Road / North Bridge Road area.


In 2012, I found a job in Goldhill Plaza, in the Novena area. Goldhill Plaza looked pretty much the same when I visited. It's still the color of salmon, shaped like a giant penis reaching up to the sky. I got a kick out of taking a walk around the base of the "shaft" to soak in the vibes of where I used to take my smoke breaks.



In the vicinity, Velocity was as fancy as ever. I never bothered much with that place, or with United Square, though I had a soft spot for the Katong Laksa outlet there. It seems that post-pandemic, prices have risen alarmingly. It's now seven bucks for a small bowl. You know what, at my age I think I could stand to eat less laksa.


A short walk away, Balestier Road beckoned. The entire stretch, when I last hung out there in 2013, was a throwback to an age long gone. That was where I met my buddies for supper and drinks after a long day in the office. When I last left it, modernity had started to creep in, in places such as Zhongshan Park, which, to be fair, is really pretty.



However, a lot of the old stuff is still there. Balestier Plaza is one such example. When I visited, I had a rollicking good time wandering its cold empty halls and soaking in the retro vibes. Aside from that, the entire area has a lot of old architecture. It seems to be one of the areas that the Singapore Government has never been able to fully get its mitts into.

This was the final part of my tour for revisiting former offices in this area. This next part was set solidly in the east. Interestingly, it was all around the Tai Seng and MacPherson area up till the year 2017.

2013 to 2014

During this year, I ended up at this grand-looking building known as Starhub Green. It was pretty modern and upscale - glass walls, glossy foyer, hipster cafes. I remember ending up here and thinking, rather naively, "I've made it!"


Honestly, I didn't hang out at this area any longer than I really needed to. This was merely another stop on my quest to ascend the pay scale.

2015 to 2016

The next company was at Tai Seng, at least until they folded. We were at this building, and visually it was a pretty big downgrade. LHK2 is a long oblong on the map, and pretty easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for.


It sure was nice to see their smoking point again, though. What fond memories I have.


The surroundings were more ghetto than the last one, but I expect this was just a matter of what the company could afford. I didn't hang out here; this was the year I was studying for my Specialist Diploma in Mobile Apps Development and I just didn't have the time. At the time I was working there, most of the surroundings were under construction - that day in December when I visited, places like Tai Seng Point had sprung up.

The tragedy was that I had been planning on serving my time with this company until the time came to move on. It was one of those ruthless business decisions where I use a company as a springboard to bigger and better things. Unfortunately for me, they crashed and burned before I could pull the trigger. Kind of like your spouse dying and turning you into a widow/widower even though you already planned on a divorce.

2017

Next I was at Vertex. It looked just the same as ever in 2025, as it did back in 2017. It's a huge building that houses numerous showrooms at the ground level, and tons of smaller company offices squirreled away in its upper floors. And one of those companies was a startup I worked in.


This was the company I actually had more of a soft spot for, as opposed to the last two. This one was at a tech startup where I was finally working alongside people who knew as much as me, or more. I was here less than a year, but this was where I stepped up the intensity back to 12-hour days, almost 7 days a week, because I enjoyed the work and I enjoyed my co-workers.

After 2017, I ended up back in Bugis area, where I hung out with my new colleagues at the new Funan and sometimes ate at Peninsula Plaza together. And thus I spent another three years until COVID-19 hit the world.

2020 to now

I've spent it mostly working from home and hanging out around my neighborhood, as stated at the beginning. Which was why I wanted to go get to know my island again.

I visited other places from my past during my vacation, of course. My old schools were I spent my formative years, my late grandfather's old estate, my late grandmother's neighborhood... all of these held delightful memories as new  developments were juxtaposed among the old (and some ancient) ones.

In conclusion!

This wasn't just a vacation in Singapore. This was a retreading of old stomping grounds, making contact with my past and taking the time to appreciate how I got here.

In these days, I relived the career struggles I experienced, and marvelled at the obstacles I had to overcome. Sometimes we all need that moment of introspection. To remind ourselves that if we've come this far, we can totally do this.