OK so its technically not just a street but more of a suburb, however I was drawn to Sembawang yesterday as my family has a history in the Navy, and various family members have headed up to the area on the train in search of the old Naval dockyard over the last several years.
Approaching Yishun Station the MRT glides past the Lower Seletar Reservoir on elevated tracks, a few stops later the train pulls in at Sembawang, now a major new town with HDB apartment blocks everywhere:
Across the road from the station the 882 bus takes off to Sembawang Park, along roads including Canberra Link, Montreal Drive and Wellington Circuit - a monarchist's dream. This is a much quieter part of Singapore, and once past the built up areas of Sembawang town there's not as much traffic on the single lane roads lined with mostly single story dwellings, and the bus flies around the corners at an alarming pace.
Before long it does the loop at Sembawang Park, before embarking on the trip back to the station. I took this as a good time to jump off (almost literally the way he took off). The park is a lovely open space, largely deserted when I was there, albeit the hottest time of a stinking hot weekday:
Next to the park in Singapore's last remaining stretch of natural sandy beach, Sembawang Beach. It looks welcoming enough, with the view across the Johor Strait to Johor Bahru, but the view to the west is very intimidating, as the Sembcorp Marine dockyard is impossible to miss and some of the ships in there are absolutely gigantic:
A jetty had a few construction workers out fishing for that night's meal, and offers a better view into the old Naval dockyard, now very much under new ownership:
Even by Singapore standards, it was a stinking hot day so I decided to get a move on, but made my way back to town via some of the local streets where what looked like Officers houses remain, in their original black and white form. Here's a particularly impressive one:
And further along, another example on Auckland Road:
With the dockyard largely fenced off and out of view, it feels like a leafy and breezy part of town, and has me wondering if the commute into the city would be an issue if you could come home to that much space.
A different bus back took me along what must be an old sailor's path into Singapore, along Sembawang Road, then onto Upper Thomson and Thomson Roads, and Balestier Road (which I visited earlier today). What must have at one time been dirt tracks led to Serangoon Road, and linked to the old nightlife area at Bugis along with the civic and commercial districts at City Hall and Raffles Place. And in that sense, while walking around the old Naval base streets at Sembawang, I felt an unusual sense of history while walking around Singapore.
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