History Lesson, Part II

Let's go back to the Thursday before last, when I was taking a leisurely tour of some of Singapore's historical sites while David was at yoga.  Nothing was quite as impressive as the Civilians memorial I posted earlier, but there were a few things that may be of interest.

First, a shot of nothing that has anything to do with history.  Crossing the street isn't always easy here in Singapore.  Jaywalking is illegal (and has a hefty fine, of course), so in order to cross the busier streets, there are often pedestrian overpasses, or in this case, tunnels.  Here's a shot of what goes on in some of the tunnel...

Free entertainment from Singapore's Best Dance Crew!  This tunnel was right next to a Performing Arts Center, so I guess it wasn't too much of a surprise to see this, but they were pretty fun to watch.  Also, there were several other groups of performers, but most of them were sitting in circles singing, or weirdly - line dancing, which wasn't quite as riveting so I didn't try to take any pictures.

Next on the tour is the Tan Kim Seng Fountain, which "was constructed to commemorate Mr. Tam Kim Seng for his donation made on 18 November 1857 toward the cost of Singapore Water Works...'   Apparently at the time there was a lot of discussion about what to do about reliably getting water to Singapore, but no one was actually doing anything about it until rich Mr. Seng came around.  He threw some money at the problem and Got 'Er Done, as they say.  I did a little research and found a bit on Mr. Seng, but nothing about who actually designed this fountain.  I want one for my yard.

I don't quite get the Zeus Spitting Water part, but it must have had some signficiance back in the day.  As a side note, Singapore still does not have their own water supply - they get all their water piped in from Malaysia.  There is a 3 - 6 month supply on the island in case Singapore and Malaysia start fighting, but after that, they're pretty much SOL.

We finally make it to the Cenotaph, which commemorated soldiers that gave their lives in World War I and World War II.

Let's zoom in and see how much the boarders using the monument a skate ramp care about this piece of history.  Not much, it appears.

Though I do like how they didn't erect a whole new memorial for WWII, they simply added the new dates to the back:

There's enough for one more post, but it's late, so I'm going to take a break.  I'll leave you with this shot from the downtown skyline, which you can also see on the History Tour.