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Before I spent more than an hour watching the really fascinating Javanese “horse trance” dance performance I chanced upon in Joo Chiat, I had been on a self-initiated photowalk down Joo Chiat Road. As a long-time Katong/Joo Chiat resident, I was walking a route I already knew well, but had rarely bothered to photograph.
If you’re from this part of town as well, I hope my photos will reflect what you know and love about our neighbourhood. And if you’re not familiar with it, I hope you’ll like what you see in my photos and come visit!
I got off the bus opposite Holy Family Church on East Coast Road and walked back towards Joo Chiat Road. Although I usually charge straight into the Santa Grand Hotel to stuff my face at Peramakan, today I took a moment to enjoy the five-foot-way tiling outside their doors.
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Next, I took a short detour, crossing East Coast Road soon after the Santa Grand Hotel to visit one of my favourite streets in the area, a little cul-de-sac so seemingly insignificant that it doesn’t even have its own street name (look for the road between Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital and Yong’s Teochew Kueh). Although I was only able to admire its beautiful old terrace houses from the outside this time, the visit brought back happy memories from when my friend Jacob used to live there.
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Retracing my steps towards the main road, I glanced to my left to see I12 from an unexpected perspective.
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Some bits of this part of town may have gotten a bit glitzy, but at least its back streets haven’t changed much.
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Back on the main road, I headed left to the junction, crossed and started walking up Joo Chiat Road. Outside Casa Bom Vento, even the roadside power box had been decorated with a Peranakan motif.
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Trendyish places come and go on Joo Chiat Road, but there are plenty of other shops which look as if they’ve been there a long time.
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I hope it is still a place where long-time residents feel comfortable.
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Of course, no photowalk of Joo Chiat Road is worth its salt without some time also spent on Koon Seng Road.
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Back on Joo Chiat Road, at the junction with Dunman Road there is a shop which sells nothing but commercial freezers and food display cases.
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If you keep walking up Joo Chiat Road from here, you get into what could be described as its sleazy stretch, though things are a little more balanced there now, and there’s still plenty of charm to be spotted. Like the sort of little no-frills greengrocers which abound in the back streets of Little India.
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And gorgeous architectural details above the rows of neon signs.
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As the sun set, Joo Chiat’s bars opened and its girls came out to play. But the real heart of all the action was this spot on the pavement outside a Vietnamese eatery, where three children had made themselves a train out of chairs.
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By now, I could hear the music in the distance for the “horse trance” dance I would soon witness, and that is where my photowalk continued, and ended. It was one of those days when I felt lucky to live where I live.
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