Old books for an old soul

Today is my 36th birthday!

For my birthday present, Tiak paid for a Carousell purchase of a bundle of four old books - a 1989 street directory, a Facts and Pictures of Singapore book from 1986, a Highway Code manual from 1984, and a Singapore Teleview (a defunct videotext service) guide, probably from the 1990s. Great buy!

Plenty of photos of an older Singapore in the Facts and Pictures book. Here’s the eastern stretch of Orchard Road with tall trees lining the boulevard; they have been replaced by malls such as 313 @ Somerset and Orchard Central:

Older models of buses and taxis plying the roads:

The Mass Rapid Transit system under construction. It opened the following year, in 1987.

Likewise, the Highway Code is a time capsule of traffic management systems and rules of the 1980s. There’s the Area Licensing Scheme, which was replaced by Electronic Road Pricing in 1998:

Signals given by police officers:

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Tiak made sumptuous meals for me - orh luak (oyster omelette) for lunch, and a huge pork burger with bacon for dinner. Yum!

Comics for coffee

For a previous blog post, I was searching for old newspaper articles of Maxwell House, when I stumbled upon prewar advertisements for Maxwell House Coffee, an American coffee brand. The first example below appeared in 1937, while the next three appeared in 1939, decorated with comics with an old-school feel:

We don’t get advertisements like these anymore!

A hidden milestone

As I was travelling along Upper Serangoon Road on a bus, I spotted this little piece of transport heritage:

The sign along Upper Serangoon Road (left).

This electrical substation (I assume it is one, please correct me if I am mistaken) between Jalan Naung and Jalan Payoh Lai in Hougang town is still named “UPP SERANGOON 7 MS”, referring to the former 7th Milestone of Upper Serangoon Road. This harks back to when Singapore used milestones, not kilometres, to measure road distances, a practice that ceased in the 1970s. I guess the substation was installed before then, and there was no incentive to rename it since.

The historic region of Au Kang - which later became Hougang, after it was pinyin-ised - used to be from the 5th to the 7th milestones of Upper Serangoon Road. I’m glad that this sign has survived as a humble marker of the original location of Au Kang. For now.