berlin wall, brandenburg & check-point charlie

i will not be blogging about all the shore excursions on the cruise because not all of them have made a lasting impression on me. other than st petersburg, the other stop that has left a lasting impression on me is berlin. some friends would ask: why go all the way to germany to see the wall when we have a section of it in singapore? true, but nothing beats seeing the wall at its original site. we had to travel 3 hours by coach from the port to the city. some took the train. it was worth all the 6 hours of travelling because berlin is not on the popular tourist circuit.

i was actually more excited at seeing brandenburg gate than the remains of the berlin wall. the most famous landmark in berlin was built as a monument to prussian power and it embodied german unity, which it still does. bandenburg gate is today the symbol of the reunification of germany.

the statue, known as quadriga, sits at the top of the gate. during the napoleanic wars in 1806, it was taken to paris as a war trophy. however, in 1814, the prussian army managed to wrest it back from the french.

another reminder of world war ii and the divided germany is check-point charlie. what you see today - which is a tourist draw - is a replica of the american guardhouse. the original check-point charlie was removed on june 22 1990. it is now housed in the allied museum.

the main function of check-point charlie was to register and inform members of the western forces before entering east berlin.

lovers' haunts and peeping toms

some blogger friends were reminiscing their courting days and they went on to name the lovers' haunts that they frequented. i have come up with a list of the places favoured by lovers in the past. actually, any place that is dark, quiet and secluded can be a lovers' choice. however, if a place is too secluded, you run the risk of being robbed or harmed.

most of the old timers mentioned macritchie reservoir park, king george v park, queen elizabeth walk (also referred to as the esplanade), katong park, changi beach and botanic gardens as their 'pak tor' places.

the other popular spots - some of which are still popular - included mt faber, fort canning park, lower peirce reservoir, upper seletar reservoir, marine parade, bedok and kallang park. some not so well known haunts were grace park and woodleigh park. a few, like east coast park, upper tanah merah and west coast park came onto the scene in the 80s.

i must state that i was never a 'pak tor king'. so, do not have the idea that i have been to all these places for any tight or steamy encounters. nevertheless, i hope the mention of certain places will evoke wonderful memories for some people.

in those days, while the lovers were deeply engaged in their love-making, there would be interested people lurking and prowling in the bushes. these people chose to refer to what they were doing as 'catching monkeys'. i sometimes wondered who the monkeys were. were the victims or the culprits, the monkeys? i suppose by saying that they were 'catching monkeys', they were trying to get acceptance for what they were doing, which was actually intruding into the privacy of the couples.

these 'uncover' voyeurs did not just work under the cover of darkness. as long as there were couples engaged in intimate activities, they would be around. although most couples wait to do their things at night, there were some who could not wait for the sun to set. so, this gave the peeping toms a chance to catch some actions in the day.

these peeping toms operated either alone or in a small group. to avoid detection, they would wear dark, usually black, clothing and they would move silently in the woods, hiding behind trees and crawling on the ground. regardless of whether alone or with accomplices, these 'pests' (as the lovers called them) were quite a cooperative lot.

if one of them came across some couples in compromising positions or when heavy actions were going on, he would signal or gesture to his fellow voyeurs to direct them to where the shows were taking place. some unsuspecting couples might not be aware of the kind of attention they were all getting.

generally, the peeping toms were either middle-age men or teenagers. some of the older men were married. among the younger ones, the teenagers, there were some who had girlfriends. i suspect they were not only doing it for just the excitement but also to pick up some tips (on lovemaking).

chun see, one of my blogger friends, talked about his experiences at macritchie reservoir park. no, he did not go there to catch monkeys; he went there to catch spiders.

does it mean that there is no more such 'catch monkey' activities these days? so long as there is 'monkey business' in the parks, there are bound to be 'monkey catchers'. but the number of people engaged in such spying activities is nowhere compared to that in the past.

the high-point of our cruise

the high-point of our cruise shore excursions has to be the visit to st petersburg in russia. we not only spent two days in this wonderful city, we also had a great local guide in victoria. a russian, educated in the united states. she was not only knowledgeable but also a very dedicated and responsible guide.

before the cruise, i had heard about st petersburg from a friend who has gone on more than 10 fly-cruises. he had painted a glorious picture of the place and i must say i have not been disappointed.

st petersburg, the cultural heart of modern day russia, was renamed petrograd in 1904. from 1924 to 1991, it was known by the name leningrad. the city, built on swampland, was founded by the russian tsar peter the great.

at the hermitage - the largest art museum in the world - we had time only for the highlights of the highlights. if you plan to spend time viewing each and every object in the hermitage, you will need a number of years to complete the task. even for those wonderful art pieces, we managed to see only some of the works done by the world's greats like rembrandt, leonardo da vinci and caravaggio.



the russians are mainly orthodox christians and the domes of their churches are usually in the shape of an onion. you can afford to miss all the other churches but not this one - the church of our saviour on the spilled blood. the church was built on the spot where emperor alexander ii was assassinated in 1881. it is claimed that this church uses more mosaics than any other church in the world.

in the words of our tour guide: if you think the exterior is beautiful, wait till you see the inside. that increased our anticipation. however, although we find the interior breathtaking, many of us prefer the stunning outside view.


another must visit place in st petersburg is catherine palace. this palace was not built by catherine the great. it was actually named after catherine i, the wife of peter the great. our tour guide mentioned that the russians wasted a lot of gold. after our visit to peterhof and to this palace, we were inclined to agree. about 100kg of gold was used to decorate the exterior of this palace during the reign of elizabeth (catherine's daughter).



this place, peterhof, was literally glittering and glistening in gold, the metal. the buildings and the many statues in the park were plastered with gold. we had taken the hovercraft on the neva river to get to peterhof, which is located just outside st petersburg. most tourists arrive there in time, just before 11 a.m., to witness the spectacular fountain display, especially that of the grand cascade.

peterhof is well-known not just for its gardens and parks but also for its wide variety of fountains. apart from the grand cascade, there are others like the samson fountain and the chessboard cascade. there is even a trick fountain; many an unsuspecting visitor have been sprayed with jets of water when they stepped on a certain stone along a foot path. we were told by our guide that no mechanical pump was used to operate any of the fountains in peterhof.

another place of visit you should not miss when you are in st petersburg is the peter and paul fortress. inside the cathedral are the royal tombs of all the russian tsars from peter the great to nicholas ii.

from copenhagen to malmo

in between our baby-sitting duties in melbourne - to take care of our first grandchild - we joined a fly-cruise to the baltic region. we had booked this trip to scandinavia a year before with a travel agency in kuching, sarawak. the final group comprised 29 from kuching, 6 from perth, 3 from miri, 2 from singapore and 1 from sydney.

from our respective departing points, we all rendezvoused in bangkok. it was an 11-hour flight from bangkok to copenhagen, where we would embark on our 11-day cruise. however, we did not spend our first night in copenhagen. instead, we crossed the oresund bridge, that links denmark to sweden, to malmo, the third largest city in sweden.

the 7845m oresund bridge, opened in july 2000, is the longest road and rail bridge in europe. there are toll booths but we did not have to get down from the coach for any customs or immigration clearance. in fact, during the entire trip, the only place where we had to carry our passport and have it stamped was in st petersburg, in russia.

in malmo, we stayed at the master johan hotel, right in the heart of the old town. the stone-cobbled streets and the many bicycles would be our constant reminders that we were in a scandinavian country. the cobbled streets inconvenienced those who are wheel-chair bound; there were three in our group and they found it bumpy, uncomfortable and tiring trying to navigate the uneven surface. i also saw some gadgets found on the bicycles in malmo, like the dynamo and the push lock, which have not been seen in singapore for quite sometime.

as is my practice, whenever i visit a foreign country, i wake up very early to explore the place when most of the locals (as well as visitors) are still in bed. as it was a sunday morning, there was hardly any traffic or people on the road. the central train station, which i had visited the day before, was closed. however, the hundreds of bicycles parked outside the station were still there.

i walked until i reached this church before making my way back to the hotel. i found out that this church - st petri kyrka or st peter's church - is the oldest building in the city. it was built in the 14th century.

our hotel, for which we were quite pleased with the service - there was free flow of coffee and internet connection was also free - was about 200 metre from this square known as the lilla torg. it seemed like a fun place. in the evenings, lots of locals visit the restaurants and cafes in this area. the old buildings were mostly built between 1600 and 1800. it was interesting to see the local people riding their bicycles to wine and dine at the sqaure. although most of them were casually dressed, some ladies came togged in dresses and high-heel shoes and some of the men were in business suits.

unprecedented collapse of a 6-storey building

many young singaporeans - especially, those below 30 years of age - who drive or walk past this hotel and the many foreign visitors who stay in fortuna hotel are likely to be unaware of the tragedy that struck at this site on 15 march 1986. each time i go past this place, i will think of the event that took place some 25 years ago.

that saturday i was in school for some extra-curricular activity duty when i heard the shocking news from my colleague. the then prime minister lee kuan yew described this very tragic incident as 'an unprecedented building collapse'. it was something that could or would have happened in china, india or some undeveloped country. for it to happen here was 'truly unprecedented'.







this was what i saw when i reached serangoon road that afternoon. the whole area was cordoned off and we could just watch from across the road at serangoon plaza. at that time mustafa samsuddin had just taken over the serangoon plaza place from some russian company. the huge crowd watching the rescue operation was not noisy or rowdy. we just stood in awe watching the rumble and prayed silently that those entombed in that mess of rubble would be safe.

that evening and the evening after, i went back again to helplessly watch as rescue operation was carried on around the clock. i had not been into that building but i remembered there was a bank on the ground level. the name of the bank was icb - the industrial and commercial bank. i heard a lot of things while in the crowd - that a number of motorists and their passengers were trapped in the basement car-park and i also heard that mrt engineers were roped in to help with the rescue.

initially, many had imagined that there were hundreds of people trapped under the debris. rescue operation was called off eight days later, on 23 march. by then, the tally showed that 50 people had been trapped when the building collapsed. 17 people were rescued and 33 were killed. of the 33 who died, 23 were singaporeans and the rest, foreigners.