One of the many way-overdue posts.
Not too long after I got back from exchange in June, I headed down to Bukit Brown Cemetery to snap some pictures with jm and I'm just going to share some of my 'spoils' here.
A quick overview of the place:
Bukit Brown Cemetery is also known as Kopi Sua (or Coffee Hill), and is a Chinese cemetery that was established in the early 20th century but has been closed for burials since the 1970s; there are around 80 000 tombstones within the compound (source: ST). It is undeniably one of the oldest cemeteries in Singapore.
Just recently, the URA has made an announcement that the area has been gazetted for future development... and I think that was the buzz that landed us there.
Bukit Brown Cemetery is somewhere not-too-conveniently located between Lornie Road and Mount Pleasant Road.
#1 Entrance
#2 Overgrown grass
#3 Tomb covered in undergrowth
I must admit that I was pretty nervous when we first stepped into the cemetery grounds. I couldn't help but wonder if I was being disrespectful by coming into a burial ground and taking pictures of random graves (having been brought up in a somewhat traditional Chinese family) and I was also slightly worried that we would end up with some out-of-this-world encounters.
What if something unusual shows up in our pictures?
Jm was perpetually trying to make me think otherwise, and I was really thankful for that haha. The walking did seem a lot more enjoyable once I got my mind off the supernatural stuff.
#4 Guardian
#5 Chinese stone lion
#6 Fairy tomb-watcher
#7 A newer-looking lion
The cemetery served the Chinese community back then so most of the tombs had stone decorations that are related to Chinese myths.
#8 Old, rusty gate
The place was much larger than what I'd expected; there were a number of paths leading to different areas and one particular area had a low gate that signalled an entrance of some sort. We sort of spent more time than planned, not that we had much of a plan anyway.
Somewhere along the way, we spotted some white-collared kingfishers which were absolutely lovely. There was quite a number of them too, and that kinda made my day.
#9 Three white-collars sitting on a branch...
#10 One flew off and two were left
#11 Lucky sighting
#12 More old tombs
According to what I've been reading off the net, instead of the usual Chinese stone statues as decoration, the tombs of the more prominent Chinese characters back then have colourful Sikh-guard statues standing watch over them.
#13 Left guard
#14 Right guard
#15 Puppy at the foot of the right guard
#16 Someone's got fresh flowers; it's quite a rare sight for the mossy tombs to have fresh flowers placed upon them.
#17
#18 They never got a chance to finish burning
#19 One last tomb
Other than the kingfishers, ginormous ants, mosquitoes and swallows that we met there, we also came across two beautiful moths (as concluded from their furry bodies) as we were about to leave the cemetery:
#20 What big eyes you have...
#21 Cool fellow perched on the car bonnet; looks like it's wearing shades
We left the place in a piece (though we lost quite a lot of blood to the resident commando mosquitoes that were constantly buzzing around us), there were no supernatural encounters of any sort but it was an eye-opener for me since I've never stepped foot into any cemeteries in Singapore and we did have a good experience.
Just a quick word of caution though, I wasn't joking about the mosquitoes, they're deadly! Remember to bring some insect repellent if you're ever heading there anytime soon.
#22 Post-treat
#22 Cheery-looking flowers
Dropped by Dempsey a quick round of dessert and my warm Sticky Date Pudding with vanilla ice-cream was oh-so-gooooood.
No comments:
Post a Comment