exploring waterloo street and queen street area
today, we took bus service 960 from bukit panjang and stopped along victoria street, just opposite the smu admin building and near the national library. no, we (three retirees) were not there to visit the library; we were there to explore the waterloo and queen streets area. victor samuel is familiar with the area because he once lived at bras basah road and jason ong used to live at waterloo street.
the first building that caught our attention was the victoria hotel. we all remember it being there even before allson hotel came up. there have been a bit of structural changes to the facade of the building but you can tell that it has been around for quite sometime.
we took a side lane and emerged at queen street where the first building to get our attention was the church of st peter and st paul. victor also pointed out to me the refurbished building on the left. according to him, it is the former catholic high school. i was not very convinced because i remembered the school as being on the same side as the church. i think this must be the annexe building.
the 19th century st peter and st paul catholic church, where the worshippers are mainly chinese, has very beautiful stained glasses. coming out of the church, we saw an old four-storey building on the right. it was the sino-english catholic school. i think this is the original catholic high school. the place looks like it has been sealed off for many years.
we moved on to waterloo street. there we could just observe the maghain aboth synagogue from the outside. it seems - i think for security reasons - no visitors are welcome into the building. next to it is another imposing building called the jacob ballas centre. it is also not open to visitors.
we walked towards middle road. just before middle road, on our right we could see the st joseph's church. according to victor, it is a portuguese church. i know it as an eurasian church because i have been inside to listen to the music provided by a band of eurasian musicians. there used to be a tall building, facing the church, housing the merchantile bank.
at the corner of waterloo street and middle road is a building which used to house one of the oldest methodist churches in singapore. ordinary guy calls this the middle road church and he blogged about this church last year. according to victor and jason, for many years, it used to be a motor vehicles workshop. next to it is the ketapang gallery. the two buildings form what is known as sculpture square.
we crossed middle road to get to krishnan temple, one of the few hindu temples where i always see a substantial number of chinese praying outside. it is also the only hindu temple i know which does no allow visitors into the temple grounds. there is an urn for joss-sticks placed outside the hindu temple.
before we adjourned to have our lunch at the food court in sim lim square, we visited the kwan yin thong hood cho temple. jason believes it to be the richest chinese temple in singapore. i am inclined to believe too, seeing the hordes of devotees in the temple on an ordinary weekday.
there were many vendors selling flowers, mainly lotus, and other prayer paraphernalia outside the temple. today, i did not see any vagrant or beggar outside the temple. the area outside the temple - which used to be a road - is a pedestrian mall. i remember how difficult it was to drive through this area in the past.
apart from vendors selling flowers, joss sticks and incense papers, quite a number of fortune tellers have also set up stalls at the pedestrian mall.
i thought it would have been more appropriate for this indian pair to be stationed outside the krishnan temple but instead they were at where human traffic was more, outside the kwan yin temple.
altogether, it was a satisfying and an enriching walk around one of our heritage areas. the impression i get after today's tour is that the waterloo and queen streets area has a concentration of catholic establishments.
