Crawford Street

This happened 3 months after I was taught how to take the bus on my own, which is pretty late since I had been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have folks with cars to ferry me around when I was young. Back then we didn't have no kiddy seats. You sat there, or you lay down, and you were small enough that your whole body could be on the back seat, and there'd still be room. Then I could still stand up on the seat and breakdance when my mother (or my father) was weaving through traffic.

Actually never liked the cars very much, because my mother had a habit of turning the ferrying into extended nagging sessions. The first thing I noticed about the bus is that the bus driver never asked you continuously for 20 minutes why you were letting your homework slip, why you were not practicing piano enough, why you weren't doing extra work outside of class. So I think that's one more reason why I like buses so much.

OK, back to the main point: this incident happened 3 months after my first bus ride when I was in Primary 4, when I was 10. I memorised the list of buses that went to my home, and the list that went to my school. Then one day, I saw a bus come that was on both lists, and I thought, I'll take it, even though my parents told me before it wasn't the right bus to take.

I went up on the bus, and the scenery got less and less familiar, until the bus came to a stop next to a bridge at Crawford Street. The bus driver looked at me, this kid carrying a school bag half his size, and said, "this is the end. This is the terminal." I was thinking, what the - does that mean?

So I stepped out. I was well and truly lost. We didn't have any handphones in those days, and I had no bloody clue where Crawford Street was. The MRT hadn't been built yet so I couldn't just ask to go to the nearest one. So I thought, well, I got a bit of time, haven't I? Let's go for an adventure. I decided to walk back to school.

It was bloody foolhardy thing to do, but I remembered something I learnt about map reading a few weeks back: when you are lost, look for a big landmark. I knew a big landmark near my school, and it was as big a landmark as anything you could find in Singapore: the Westin Stamford. And I could always find the way back to the school from Westin Stamford.

So I walked and I walked and I walked. I saw strange places I had never seen. Probably walked through the Arab street area. Probably walked through some old shophouses I had never seen before, and would never see again because it would later be refurbished and turned into Bugis Junction. Walked down Beach Road which wasn't a beach anymore. Near a construction site that would one day be the Gateway. Walked past a Golden Mile shopping centre before it became Singapore's little Thailand, and when it was still hip enough to have a Metro department store in it. Walked and walked and walked. Probably walked for 2 hours.

This was before scouts, before NS, before topo. The first, and to date one of the few genuine adventures I had been on. Walked right back to the bus stop near my school, and this time took the right bus back home.

My mother screamed at me when I got home. I was supposed to have been home by 4, and it was nearly 7. Can't even get 2 hours off without having your head bitten off. What an idiot, she said, don't you know you could just cross the road and take the same bus back?

Well it didn't occur to me, or maybe I didn't want to think about it like that, maybe I just ended up doing what I always wanted to do. It was great, 2 hours to myself, no accountability at all, saw a lot of things I don't normally get to see. Of course it was a bitch carrying those schoolbooks and all, and I was sweating like nobody's business, but what an achievement! I, a 10 year old schoolkid, topo-ing my way across the Singapore landscape! It felt great.