ICA

Went to the ICA building again. It was to renew my passport and change my IC.

Anyway, here's a list of countries that that passport has been to:

US of A
Canada
UK
France
Holland
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Slovak Republic
Germany
Spain
Portugal
Italy / Vatican
Malaysia
Thailand
Indonesia (actually the Riau Islands, so in a way it's like the part of Singapore which belongs to Indonesia but don't tell anybody I said that.)

Not that impressive - ppl I know have been to Vietnam, China (tibet), Nepal, Taiwan, Argentina, South Africa, Mozambique, Eritrea, Yemen, Syria, Romania, Laos, Hungary, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Argentina, Peru, Egypt, Austria.

I last applied for a passport 10 years ago. I was still serving NS at that time so they put the expiry date of my passport as 6 months (it would be changed to 10 years, but every time I had to use the passport I had to point the addendum to the customs officer.)

I still remember the last time I paid a visit to this building. I had just finished NS, and that was a big eye opener - it showed me a side of Singapore that I didn't really care for, or want to see. So when I went there I was getting a ticket out of the country for a few years. I thought it was interesting. Just how interesting I couldn't imagine. It was like the last scene in "400 Blows", where you have the kid, after all his trials and tribulations, running down to the beach and seeing the sea for the first time - that was me 10 years ago.

Next 4 years probably the most interesting times (although everything's relative. Absolutely speaking it was not that interesting.) Then after that, the next 6 years were also sorda interesting in the sense that I did learn new stuff I never knew before. (I could have learnt more though...)

Used my passport more often during the first 4 years than the next 6. Wonder if it's underused.

The ICA building was brand new when I last went there, so it's 10 years old now. I remember that the passport place used to be at the South Bridge Road centre which has since been demolished, and rebuilt as some funky glass building. I wondered a little why they needed a whole new building for ICA but I think Singapore has let in a lot more immigrants since 10 years ago so maybe that was a turning point. Now they have a lot of security personnel there, I wonder if it's because they're scared somebody can steal some documents which magically make you into a citizen even it you're not?

So ICA is not just ICA. It's the building that's magically changed Singapore into something else.

Anyway I thought about NS because for us guys it's what we had to do in order to earn our citizenship. So you're always wondering if it was worth it.

They had a couple of cars over there, and I didn't think they were having car sales in that region. Turns out that they probably confiscated the cars from Malaysians who were trying to use them to smuggle illegal immigrants in. So they used them as props to illustrate how people hid people in secret compartments, or how they smuggled contraband cigarettes in under the engine hood.

I'm just wondering if this nice little security exhibition would not probably give people some ideas. But well who cares.

This would be the last time I would need a mandatory change in IC. Definitely not a kid anymore. My last photo looked more sweet and innocent than this one. While it was "tra la la I'm such a harmless kid" in the old photo this photo is "gor gor is watching you." Last time the IC used to have 1 hologram showing your ic number. Now it has another hologram showing a smaller version of your portrait. It was a bit like having a "mini me".

Popped over to Arab Street after that and ended up having a drink there. It's interesting what book I read in all these funny places. When I was at Brussels Sprouts, I was reading about King Leopold II and his tyranny of the Congo. Now I'm in Arab Street, I'm reading about the French Algerian war, and the other book in the bag is about the Yom Kippur war. I went to a ribs restaurant reading a book about Hurricane Katrina, and I went to a small French bistro reading about Proust.

It's a cool and interesting place, that little square in front of the Sultan mosque. And there was this chill out place where a few shirtless angmoh tourists were lounging around, and a scantily clad fat woman with big tits. I did try not to look.