Little India - Shophouses

After having my lunch at Tekka Centre, I walked from Little India MRT Station to the next MRT Station i.e. Farrer Park MRT Station. Although the weather is very hot, I get plenty of shades from walking along the shophouses.

You will find all kinds of interesting stuff sold in these shophouses.



These shophouses are dated very long ago and have very interesting stories behind them. As a child, I used to follow my mom to Little India to buy spices to cook curry. During those times, we dont have any kind of blender or grinder, so we would get the shop owner in Little India to grind some curry spices for us. They have very large machines to grind spices for traders and housewives.

Little India - Pawnshops

Spotted different pawnshops in Little India. Some are more recently set up and more modern in designs while there's some that are still the traditional designed pawnshops.

If spotted in a pawnshop during the early days, one might be embarrassed cause it was a sign of being poor but nowadays with the price of gold going up, chances are people are investing in gold and buying and selling gold in pawnshops.

Below photo is a traditional and old pawnshop.

My World Tuesday - Little India in Singapore - Tekka Market

Singapore is a multi racial country where the different ethnic group live together in harmony. We also have different ethnic towns for our people. For the Chinese we have the Chinatown, the Malays they have Geylang Serai, the Indians have Little India to represent them but we actually shop at any ethnic town regardless of race.
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Last weekend, I was at Little India to take some photos to put in my blog. It really looked like I am in India but not as big as India so we called it Little India. It is located in Serangoon Road.

Many tourists love visiting this place to take photos and to shop. It is very convenient to visit this place, just take the MRT and alight at Little India MRT Station.

You might like to visit Tekka Centre located just above the MRT Station. You can read from wikipedia how Tekka Centre got its name. The centre gone through several changes to its unique name.


An Indian Grocery Shop selling different types of spices and other groceries.


On the first floor of the Tekka Centre is the hawker centre and the wet market.





You can find different ethnic food in the hawker centre.


On the second floor of the Tekka Centre are more shops selling clothes, shoes, etc.








Looking down at the courtyard from the 2nd floor.


View of the wet market from the second floor. The wet market is rather big.




Please visit "That's my World" for other parts of the world.

Sesame Street Performance

It is the long school holiday in Singapore (28th May to 26th June 2011). Lots of activities for the kids at the mall. I happen to be in City Square Mall today and saw kids queueing to take photos with the characters of Sesame Street.

I was not there when the show was on, eitherwise I would take a short video of the show.

Parents with young kids might like to take the kids to watch the show. Please take note of the timing of the performance. The show will be on from 28th May to 26th June and from tuesday to friday the show will be at 7 pm and for weekend, the shows will be 1 pm, 4 pm and 7 pm.

Skywatch Friday - Land

Land for sale. Singapore is a very tiny country and you cant even see it on the world map. So buying a land in Singapore is a very expensive business.


I think it will be another condominium on this land. Already there are two malls near this piece of land.


Spot the difference in the above and below photos. The above photo is public housing and the below is private housing. It is not cheap to buy public housing in Singapore and definitely very expensive to buy private housing too. It costs at least 6 figures for a public flat and some private housing can cost 7 figures depending on the location. It will be more expensive if it is near a shopping mall or MRT station. Forget about getting a private housing in Orchard Road unless you are really very rich.

But it is really funny that some public flat can actually costs more than a million dollars but this is very rare. I wonder why people want to pay so much for a public flat. One reason is that they downgraded from a landed property and wanted a flat near amenities and they can afford to pay such prices for a good location.

Public housing in Singapore are very well designed and each town have their own amenities and transport system.

How do the average Singaporean afford such flat? Most get loans and have to pay in 20 or 30 or 40 years depending on the size of the flat. But on the bright side, if you get a flat direct from the Housing Development Board (HDB) with subsidies (for first and second purchases of flat only) you normally make a profit when you sell it in the open market after staying in the flat for a required number of years (I think is 5 years) and get another subsidised flat direct from HDB.

But proper calculations and homework have to be done before you decide to buy your second flat direct from HDB, you have to include the sales levy depending on the size of the flat and check if you actually can make a profit. Even though you make a profit, you have to remember the profit might be small and enough to pay for the renovation of the next flat. But there are some people that make more than enough profit. (This is not meant as a proper guide for anyone getting a flat in the near future

Even though we are discouraged from making a profit out of the HDB flat but if we can sell and recover our housing loans, why not. Dont think anyone want to be a slave to our flat.

Each Singaporean can apply a flat direct from the HDB twice only. HDB flats are not for sale to foreigners.


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