HDB

Cliff · July 1st, 2006, 03:21 PM

well, here is the 700th thread
got my cam soaked in curry because of this pic

Cliff · July 1st, 2006, 03:28 PM

Mr.ASAP · July 1st, 2006, 04:10 PM

The upgraded flats look great with their new colour coatings

@Cliff

EDIT ok read your other post

babystan03 · July 1st, 2006, 04:12 PM

Nice pictures.....

Pengui · July 2nd, 2006, 08:10 AM

Mr. ASAP's pic's really wacky ^ ^ cool ^ ^

hyacinthus · July 2nd, 2006, 03:02 PM

The quarter sun caught my eye. Nice.

I'll add a normal picture of a HDB flat.

shao_ye · July 2nd, 2006, 05:32 PM

Pinkerita · July 2nd, 2006, 06:23 PM

Hi everyone, I've been lurking around for the past 3 years

I've only recently mustered up enough courage to post my humble first on this forum and I would like to say.... how do you all do that?! All the photos in this forum is simply amazing, marvellous, beyond words!!

Hope I didn't disrupt the constant flow of beautiful photos here with my humble ugly contribution...

hyacinthus · July 3rd, 2006, 02:19 AM

Welcome to the forum, Pinkerita.

hmmm... I know why the forum is so slow when there's only a few of us posting... There are some many lurkers! hehe... just joking.

do contribute to the forum whenever you can.

It will provide us a different perspective. btw, where's the HDB flat which you took?

Happy Monday!

Quote:

Originally Posted by shao_ye

I like repeated patterns!

hyacinthus · July 3rd, 2006, 02:22 AM

@RafflesCity

Can you amend the thread title to "HDB flats" or something flowery if you like? Cos it's misleading to say "HDBs". There's only 1 Housing Development Board.

JoSin · July 3rd, 2006, 05:29 AM

Why not make it New Towns?

Pinkerita · July 3rd, 2006, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyacinthus

Welcome to the forum, Pinkerita.

hmmm... I know why the forum is so slow when there's only a few of us posting... There are some many lurkers! hehe... just joking.

do contribute to the forum whenever you can.

It will provide us a different perspective. btw, where's the HDB flat which you took?

Happy Monday!

Thanks for the welcome! I took that picture in Bukit Panjang (The older side).

heirloom · July 3rd, 2006, 06:43 AM

amazing photos! you've all managed to make the ugly, tacky, and childishly-coloured hdb flats look quite interesting

note:
despite all the negative words used, my praise for the photographers is genuine.

RafflesCity · July 3rd, 2006, 03:41 PM

Welcome Pinkerita...I hope you can post more pics too!

HDB flats look so artistically captured here...

@hya...I dunno...I suppose just HDB will do...gets the point across

hyacinthus · July 3rd, 2006, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RafflesCity

@hya...I dunno...I suppose just HDB will do...gets the point across

Technically, it is wrong and misleading. HDB is not HDB flat but a government agency.

JoSin · July 3rd, 2006, 05:03 PM

Clementi Town.

RafflesCity · July 4th, 2006, 04:44 PM

Tourists discover the heartland

2 Jul 06

A few tour operators and hostel owners are taking tourists to see the real Singapore

by June Cheong

AMERICAN Steven Lee gasped for breath after a generous spoonful of durian ice kacang.
German Marius Helten watched in fascination as a group of senior citizens practised line dancing on a basketball court.

Fellow German Christina Rhode discovered urine sensors in HDB lifts and contemplated the night sky from the top of an HDB block in Haig Road.

The trio were seeing Singapore in a way few other tourists get to - through a Singaporean's eyes.

And they forked out $20 each - into a pooled food and booze fund - for the pleasure.

Forget Sentosa and the usual sights. A handful of tour operators and hostel owners are meeting a small but increasing demand from foreigners for the local experience - seeing the HDB heartlands.

They are laying on tours ranging from free walks to more expensive excursions involving bus transport topping at $39 a person.

The tours attract mainly backpackers, along with some adventurous foreign retirees and young families.

How have HDB flats come to put themselves on the international tourist map, especially where backpackers are concerned?

'Backpackers are a different breed of tourists. They want authentic experiences interacting with locals and they're willing to sweat for it,' says Mr Tony Tan, owner of Betel Box Backpackers Hostel.

It was one of his weekly Thursday food walks that the tourist trio went on. They were already staying at his hostel, and went with him on a trawl through Joo Chiat and Katong.

A clearly impressed Helten says: 'Going on Tony's walk is like having a friend show you around. It's different from what I read in travel guidebooks.'

With 8.9 million visitor arrivals last year, a 7.4 per cent increase from 2004's figure of 8.3 million, and 223 hostels and hotels vying for their dollars, there is potential for such heartlands tours to take off. This is especially so today as tourists demand something different.

Two tour operators, SH Tours and Tour East, have jumped into the fray and taken tourists to estates like Toa Payoh and Tampines.

SH Tours takes tourists to Changi Chapel and Museum as well as Tampines New Town on its Eastern Heartlands tour which runs every day except Mondays and public holidays.

It also visits Toa Payoh on its daily Journey To Heartlands tour.

Tour East conducts two similar heartlands tours, namely East Coast & Changi and Uniquely Singapore Shop & Eat Heartlands Trail, with the former visiting Tampines New Town and the latter visiting Toa Payoh and Holland Village.

The Heartlands Trail trips run three times a week. Developed with the Singapore Tourism Board in 2004, the tour attracts mostly retired couples from Britain and Australia.

Tourists are ferried from their hotels in town to Toa Payoh Central where they imbibe BreadTalk's success story as well as its pork floss buns and drink hand-brewed ginseng tea from Hock Hua Ginseng Birdnest.

They are then taken to Holland Village where they sample laksa and are given time to shop.

Australian Alana Teua, 24, who was on the tour with her boyfriend Drew Burkitt, says: 'It's our first day in Singapore and it's nice to get out of the city. I'm surprised to find that even the new towns are so clean and organised.'

Australian tourist Narelle Dowse, 59, adds: 'I wanted to see how people here live. You don't see much by yourself as you don't know where to go or what to do.'

Betel Box's Mr Tan certainly shows his guests how people live, work and play here on his hostel's six weekly tours, which he prefers to call 'guided experiences'.

Every Thursday evening, for example, he conducts a food walk involving a host of activities from sampling Nonya delicacies to visiting a Buddhist temple to traipsing around an HDB estate.

Since opening his hostel in 2003, Mr Tan, now a familiar figure to Joo Chiat residents and shop-owners, has sussed out every nook and cranny of the area.

He aims to show guests a Singapore 'beyond marble floors and shopping centres'.

Another hostel owner who conducts such tours is Mr Tan Yang Kuang, the man behind Singapore's first hostel in the HDB heartlands, Hostel One66.

As his hostel is in Woodlands, he takes his guests to nearby Marsiling to sample otak-otak and chicken rice as well as to visit the 'void deck cobbler' at Block 165 on Woodlands Street 13.

He says: 'There is more to Singapore than just Orchard Road. My guests are amused to see the laundry bamboo poles sticking out of the flats and they're impressed with the quality of our HDB estates.'

Still, the path off the beaten track is a small fraction of a typical tourist's experience of Singapore.

Tour operator RMG Tours, for example, had to scrap its daily heartlands tour to Toa Payoh due to 'poor response'. Such a tour generally requires a minimum of four people.

Meanwhile, Singaporeans, too, are set to have a chance to see more of their own backyard when community heritage trails through neighbourhoods of historic interest are launched later this month.

The National Heritage Board (NHB), together with the Central Singapore Community Development Council, will launch Singapore's first community heritage trails on July 22. They will cover parts of Jalan Besar and central Singapore districts.

Ms Thangamma Karthigesu, director for public education at NHB, says: 'Social history is not usually documented in Singapore but the heartlands carry so much historical significance and social memory.'

The community trails will be incorporated into a treasure hunt, Fun On Foot, Heartlands Singapore! as part of the upcoming HeritageFest.

German tourist Rhode sums up the impact of such heartlands tours: 'It's not just about the food. It's also learning about Singaporean culture with other curious people.'

Fun On Foot, Heartlands Singapore! starts off from Jalan Besar Stadium carpark on July 22. Registration is $20 for a team of four. Registration forms are available from educational institutions, community centres, NHB museums and online at www.heritagefest.org.sg. Registration closes on July 15.

----------------------

Heartland Journeys

SH Tours
Tel: 6734-9923
Eastern Heartlands Tour ($30 per adult, $16 per child) visits places like Changi Chapel and Museum as well as Tampines New Town. Runs every day except Mondays and public holidays.

Journey To Heartlands tour, which runs daily, takes you on a trip to Toa Payoh ($33 per adult, $18 per child).

Tour East
Tel: 6735-1221
East Coast & Changi tour ($30 per adult, $16 per child), running daily, visits Tampines New Town

Uniquely Singapore Shop & Eat Heartlands Trail ($39 per adult, $19 per child), running every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, goes to Toa Payoh and Holland Village.

Pinkerita · July 7th, 2006, 05:44 PM

Thanks for the welcome, RafflesCity!

I have three more ugly pieces...

Singapor3 · July 7th, 2006, 06:26 PM

Cliff · July 8th, 2006, 03:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoSin

If you didn't tell me, I would have insisted that that was Ang Mo Kio.

btw, welcome pinkerita!!!!

July 1st, 2006, 03:21 PM	#1
Cliff Tan Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Singapore Posts: 4,164	HDB well, here is the 700th thread got my cam soaked in curry because of this pic __________________ www.clifftan.com cliffsuss.blogspot.com

July 1st, 2006, 03:28 PM	#2
Cliff Tan Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Singapore Posts: 4,164	__________________ www.clifftan.com cliffsuss.blogspot.com

July 1st, 2006, 04:10 PM	#3
Mr.ASAP HaVe a niCe DaY ! Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Singapore Posts: 409	The upgraded flats look great with their new colour coatings @Cliff EDIT ok read your other post __________________ have a nice day

July 2nd, 2006, 03:02 PM	#6
hyacinthus Success and Happiness Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Singapore Posts: 6,764	The quarter sun caught my eye. Nice. I'll add a normal picture of a HDB flat. __________________ http://hyacinthus.wordpress.com

July 3rd, 2006, 02:22 AM	#10
hyacinthus Success and Happiness Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Singapore Posts: 6,764	@RafflesCity Can you amend the thread title to "HDB flats" or something flowery if you like? Cos it's misleading to say "HDBs". There's only 1 Housing Development Board. __________________ http://hyacinthus.wordpress.com

July 1st, 2006, 04:12 PM	#4
babystan03 More excitment ahead!!! Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Singapore Posts: 17,754	Nice pictures.....

July 2nd, 2006, 08:10 AM	#5
Pengui Tallest on his iceberg Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Singapore / Paris Posts: 3,614	Mr. ASAP's pic's really wacky ^ ^ cool ^ ^

July 2nd, 2006, 05:32 PM	#7
shao_ye Registered User Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 676

July 2nd, 2006, 06:23 PM	#8
Pinkerita Registered User Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 8	Hi everyone, I've been lurking around for the past 3 years I've only recently mustered up enough courage to post my humble first on this forum and I would like to say.... how do you all do that?! All the photos in this forum is simply amazing, marvellous, beyond words!! Hope I didn't disrupt the constant flow of beautiful photos here with my humble ugly contribution...

July 3rd, 2006, 05:29 AM	#11
JoSin \Attituded\ Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: S i n g a p o r e Posts: 1,768	Why not make it New Towns? __________________ A small country can do great wonders. S.I.N.G.A.P.O.R.E

July 3rd, 2006, 06:43 AM	#13
heirloom Registered User Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 6,064	amazing photos! you've all managed to make the ugly, tacky, and childishly-coloured hdb flats look quite interesting note: despite all the negative words used, my praise for the photographers is genuine. __________________ I LOVE VILLA-LOBOS

July 3rd, 2006, 03:41 PM	#14
RafflesCity By Spirit Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: S I N G A P O R E Posts: 26,100	Welcome Pinkerita...I hope you can post more pics too! HDB flats look so artistically captured here... @hya...I dunno...I suppose just HDB will do...gets the point across __________________ The new downtown at Marina Bay VIDEO CLIP

July 3rd, 2006, 05:03 PM	#16
JoSin \Attituded\ Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: S i n g a p o r e Posts: 1,768	Clementi Town. __________________ A small country can do great wonders. S.I.N.G.A.P.O.R.E

July 4th, 2006, 04:44 PM	#17
RafflesCity By Spirit Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: S I N G A P O R E Posts: 26,100	Tourists discover the heartland 2 Jul 06 A few tour operators and hostel owners are taking tourists to see the real Singapore by June Cheong AMERICAN Steven Lee gasped for breath after a generous spoonful of durian ice kacang. German Marius Helten watched in fascination as a group of senior citizens practised line dancing on a basketball court. Fellow German Christina Rhode discovered urine sensors in HDB lifts and contemplated the night sky from the top of an HDB block in Haig Road. The trio were seeing Singapore in a way few other tourists get to - through a Singaporean's eyes. And they forked out $20 each - into a pooled food and booze fund - for the pleasure. Forget Sentosa and the usual sights. A handful of tour operators and hostel owners are meeting a small but increasing demand from foreigners for the local experience - seeing the HDB heartlands. They are laying on tours ranging from free walks to more expensive excursions involving bus transport topping at $39 a person. The tours attract mainly backpackers, along with some adventurous foreign retirees and young families. How have HDB flats come to put themselves on the international tourist map, especially where backpackers are concerned? 'Backpackers are a different breed of tourists. They want authentic experiences interacting with locals and they're willing to sweat for it,' says Mr Tony Tan, owner of Betel Box Backpackers Hostel. It was one of his weekly Thursday food walks that the tourist trio went on. They were already staying at his hostel, and went with him on a trawl through Joo Chiat and Katong. A clearly impressed Helten says: 'Going on Tony's walk is like having a friend show you around. It's different from what I read in travel guidebooks.' With 8.9 million visitor arrivals last year, a 7.4 per cent increase from 2004's figure of 8.3 million, and 223 hostels and hotels vying for their dollars, there is potential for such heartlands tours to take off. This is especially so today as tourists demand something different. Two tour operators, SH Tours and Tour East, have jumped into the fray and taken tourists to estates like Toa Payoh and Tampines. SH Tours takes tourists to Changi Chapel and Museum as well as Tampines New Town on its Eastern Heartlands tour which runs every day except Mondays and public holidays. It also visits Toa Payoh on its daily Journey To Heartlands tour. Tour East conducts two similar heartlands tours, namely East Coast & Changi and Uniquely Singapore Shop & Eat Heartlands Trail, with the former visiting Tampines New Town and the latter visiting Toa Payoh and Holland Village. The Heartlands Trail trips run three times a week. Developed with the Singapore Tourism Board in 2004, the tour attracts mostly retired couples from Britain and Australia. Tourists are ferried from their hotels in town to Toa Payoh Central where they imbibe BreadTalk's success story as well as its pork floss buns and drink hand-brewed ginseng tea from Hock Hua Ginseng Birdnest. They are then taken to Holland Village where they sample laksa and are given time to shop. Australian Alana Teua, 24, who was on the tour with her boyfriend Drew Burkitt, says: 'It's our first day in Singapore and it's nice to get out of the city. I'm surprised to find that even the new towns are so clean and organised.' Australian tourist Narelle Dowse, 59, adds: 'I wanted to see how people here live. You don't see much by yourself as you don't know where to go or what to do.' Betel Box's Mr Tan certainly shows his guests how people live, work and play here on his hostel's six weekly tours, which he prefers to call 'guided experiences'. Every Thursday evening, for example, he conducts a food walk involving a host of activities from sampling Nonya delicacies to visiting a Buddhist temple to traipsing around an HDB estate. Since opening his hostel in 2003, Mr Tan, now a familiar figure to Joo Chiat residents and shop-owners, has sussed out every nook and cranny of the area. He aims to show guests a Singapore 'beyond marble floors and shopping centres'. Another hostel owner who conducts such tours is Mr Tan Yang Kuang, the man behind Singapore's first hostel in the HDB heartlands, Hostel One66. As his hostel is in Woodlands, he takes his guests to nearby Marsiling to sample otak-otak and chicken rice as well as to visit the 'void deck cobbler' at Block 165 on Woodlands Street 13. He says: 'There is more to Singapore than just Orchard Road. My guests are amused to see the laundry bamboo poles sticking out of the flats and they're impressed with the quality of our HDB estates.' Still, the path off the beaten track is a small fraction of a typical tourist's experience of Singapore. Tour operator RMG Tours, for example, had to scrap its daily heartlands tour to Toa Payoh due to 'poor response'. Such a tour generally requires a minimum of four people. Meanwhile, Singaporeans, too, are set to have a chance to see more of their own backyard when community heritage trails through neighbourhoods of historic interest are launched later this month. The National Heritage Board (NHB), together with the Central Singapore Community Development Council, will launch Singapore's first community heritage trails on July 22. They will cover parts of Jalan Besar and central Singapore districts. Ms Thangamma Karthigesu, director for public education at NHB, says: 'Social history is not usually documented in Singapore but the heartlands carry so much historical significance and social memory.' The community trails will be incorporated into a treasure hunt, Fun On Foot, Heartlands Singapore! as part of the upcoming HeritageFest. German tourist Rhode sums up the impact of such heartlands tours: 'It's not just about the food. It's also learning about Singaporean culture with other curious people.' Fun On Foot, Heartlands Singapore! starts off from Jalan Besar Stadium carpark on July 22. Registration is $20 for a team of four. Registration forms are available from educational institutions, community centres, NHB museums and online at www.heritagefest.org.sg. Registration closes on July 15. ---------------------- Heartland Journeys SH Tours Tel: 6734-9923 Eastern Heartlands Tour ($30 per adult, $16 per child) visits places like Changi Chapel and Museum as well as Tampines New Town. Runs every day except Mondays and public holidays. Journey To Heartlands tour, which runs daily, takes you on a trip to Toa Payoh ($33 per adult, $18 per child). Tour East Tel: 6735-1221 East Coast & Changi tour ($30 per adult, $16 per child), running daily, visits Tampines New Town Uniquely Singapore Shop & Eat Heartlands Trail ($39 per adult, $19 per child), running every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, goes to Toa Payoh and Holland Village. __________________ The new downtown at Marina Bay VIDEO CLIP

July 7th, 2006, 05:44 PM	#18
Pinkerita Registered User Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 8	Thanks for the welcome, RafflesCity! I have three more ugly pieces...

July 7th, 2006, 06:26 PM	#19
Singapor3 Asia's Only Global City Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Singapore Posts: 1,028	Last edited by Singapor3; July 7th, 2006 at 06:37 PM.

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