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Sunday, June 07, 2015

Vague impressions of Marina Bay, Singapore

Up until my teens, Singapore was like a second home to me. Not only was I born there, due to my father's work, my family were visiting almost every other week, or at least once a month.

We used to live in the Mandarin Oriental, and from there, we could easily go to the Marina Square shopping mall, either for the food court, for the bookshops, for the video game shops, the cinemas and the like. My childhood memories of the place are quite vivid. My nostalgia is tinged with bittersweetness, not because I yearn for it again, but because I marvel at the child who was myself, who did not expect the many things that he would live through in the future.

Therefore, during these short days in Singapore, my father would usually drive from the Marina area to Orchard Road, to visit the places we liked, like the now-gone Borders bookshop, or HMV, or Ngee Ann city and its trustworthy Kinokuniya.

From the window of my hotel room, or within the car, I was very familiar with the skyline of Singapore. At that time, in my earliest recollection, the OUB Centre (now known as the One Raffles Place) and Westin Stamford Hotel (now known as SwissĂ´tel The Stamford) were the tallest buildings, towering over the rest. A few years later, it was joined by the OUB Plaza. These three tall buildings dominated my consciousness for a very long time, and had remained the Singapore skyline of my mind.



In the last ten years, my visits to Singapore became rarer. Thanks to starting his own company, my father had no need to go to Singapore every week, and I myself was spending more time in Perth and then Tokyo. From 2009 until now, I have only been to Singapore four times (including twice in the past month), and I was staying mostly at the East Coast, or the Bras Basah area, so I have never been to the Marina Bay area for almost a decade.

Going to Singapore again last week for my documentary shoot, and visiting the Marina Bay, I came to realize that many things have changed, the Marina Sands Bay, the additional skyscrapers etc. There had been tremendous changes in the past decade, and it was only now that I was trying to catch up.

Therefore I decided to take photos of this new Marina Bay that is replacing the old Marina Bay in my mind.

Birthplace.
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Felt as if this was a different planet.
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Singapore. Shifting of time.
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Thursday, June 4, 2015

Heading towards the Merlion
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Friday, June 5, 2015

Monk at the bay
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Saturday, June 6, 2015


Sharing some random time-lapse shots of Singapore that I rather liked.