Sir, I want to live in a country that cares for its people first and foremost, not a country that prioritises GDP growth for its own sake. I want to see a nation where Singaporeans are valued for everything that we are, not just the economic contribution we can make. I want to grow old in a state that places a higher premium on helping citizens, than on ensuring that there is no wastage. I want to be part of a generous society that helps its most vulnerable members, instead of counting the pennies and tightening the purse strings.
I do not think that I live in such a country yet. And that disheartens me. I sometimes question what it means to be a Singaporean, and I consider myself one of the lucky ones. This bodes ill for us in this era of global mobility, if other Singaporeans are similarly disenchanted. And those who leave, those who are able to leave, the 1000 Singaporeans who leave every year and never come back, are exactly the ones that we need to stay.
Sir, I hope one day, I can say that I do live in such a country. Maybe one day, I will see a Budget that reflects the principles and ideals that I have just spoken about. Until then, I can only continue to hope.
I took a taxi with a friend who live near Pasir Ris after my Unit Fitness Program, a program designed especially for people fail the IPPT like yours truly to have additional PT training (so far only 2 members have graduated from the program since it was founded around half a year ago or so). When I arrived at Pasir Ris my taxi was immediately snatched up by an adult who wanted to go to Airshow.
When I alighted I was overwhelmed by the sight that lays infront of me. People, were literally snaking around the MRT station and White Sands, forming a super long queue for the free shuttle bus. Taking taxi to the Airshow Venue is not an option though, as it encompasses an additional charge of $8 on top of the normal Taxi Fare. That is more than enough to deter people from even trying.
Of course, other then taxis and the “free” shuttle bus at Pasir Ris MRT, there are also shuttle buses catered at other venues, such as Expo. But those will set me back by another $5. Why pay?
So I joined in the queue. Its a nightmare. I have detailed the flow of the queue using the satellite image below.
Do note that this is the small little queue area set up by the organizing community:
Peanuts.
The news said that the huge jam and queue was due to insufficient bus. This is highly laughable. They can easily determine the kind of crowd that is going to turn up before 12.30 for the Air Performance through their outrageous ticket sales (which I highly suspect they sold as many as they want without regards to their catering capacity). Which means that they can easily calculate how much buses they need, and at what interval should they arrive. This is clearly an oversight on their part, or an attempt to get more people to pay an additional $5 for those special shuttles. They can’t even give the excuse that they didn’t know there will be so many people coming in the morning. There is only one Air Display slot per day. People all come to see that.
The 2 and a half hour queue that I endured was still OK, if not the fact that there were NO CROWD CONTROL IN PLACE until at least about 2hours in the queue when I see some uniformed police personnel appear and tried to maintain some order. Cutting of queues, something which Singaporeans were remarkably good at, were at its full display at White Sands today. I even shouted at a rude Indian Family to not cut the queue infront of me, and they did not even turn around. Perhaps they were not English educated, but I highly doubt so. And the man behind me kept getting too close to my girlfriend, that I almost wanted to PUNCH him. He’s a very skilled molester. Below are some snapshots that I took during the queue. They were, however, unable to exhibit the true nightmarish queue condition that me and my girlfriend endured.
People cutting queue
“Hi! You are an hour behind me in the queue!”
Even fire safety was compromised.
More people than bicycles
Boo!
Fresh visitors who have just alighted from the MRT shocked at what they saw.
Even the computer system was screwed up.
The Light at the end of the TUNNEL!
Chey, still got a long way off.
What should we do?
On the green pastures
Finally on the bus at 12.15 after queuing from 9.50. The Airshow Performance starts at 12.30.
All that for this Beautiful bus:
During the queue I even heard some foreigners mention that if this is the kind crowd control standard that Singapore has, how the hell are they going to handle Youth Olympics?
By the time I arrived on the site after an hour long journey due to heavy congestion (inconsiderate Singaporeans had parked their cars along the road to view the Air Display, and the amount of taxis is overwhelming), it was 1.15. The A380 was already making its final rounds around the sky, and the Air Display was about to end.
I started queuing at 9.50. I thought I could reach there early and walk around and see some exhibitions first before the Air Display starts. But by the time I reached there, the Display was already ending. I wonder how many fellow Singaporeans had paid the $20 and was not able to see any flying plane (except those passengers plane taking off from Changi Airport). Most Singaporeans bought the ticket to watch the Air Display. They ended up spending $20 per person to sweat in a 2~3 hours long queue under the sun, stand in a bus for 1hour, and arrive there too late for the Air Display. The organisation should offer some form of compensation for these people. It is very irresponsible to just tell the media, “Eh… today’s problem is because of insufficient bus. We will increase the number of buses tomorrow.”. What about those who went today? Those who gave you their hard earnt cash and endured through the grueling queue and got to see nothing?
If you, my fellow reader, think that even if those people missed the Air Display, they will still get to see some static exhibitions, think again.
Below is a panorama shot I did from the place where I alighted from the bus. Click on it to see a larger picture. (Its slightly disjointed at the center because my angle was slightly off)
Or to zoom in, these.
Look at how far the building is away from me, and how crowded that bridge is. Not only that, I believe you have to queue up at the Registration Gateway before you can even enter and go near the bridge.
It is also interesting to note, that despite trying to increase tourism, we still managed to make ourselves a laughing stock.
WTF is a charted bus?
Despite all the negative comments that I have to say about the Airshow, I remain impressed by the security procedures put in place. I mean, there are even guards guarding the Lan Gao (drain)!
Needless to say, I did not bother to spend another few hours to queue for the static displays (I estimate the queue to be around 3~4 hours long, while the Airshow closes in 3 hour’s time.) I left quickly ahead of the crowd.
So after queuing under the hot sun for 2 and a half hours, I spent around 30mins at the Airshow venue and left. It was lucky that I left early. All hell broke lose after I left. Click here for more information about what happened after I left the venue.
All because of the terrible crowd control, and ridiculously large turn up that is no doubt due to overselling (in my opinion) of tickets in order to milk as much cash out us as possible.
If you are a victim, like me, or worst than me, who had gotten the ticket, endured the nightmarish queue, and ended up not viewing the Air Display or the exhibitions, please speak up. Comment away.
Update:
Below are videos of the final segment of the Air Display that I was able to capture during my short span there. View if you are so inclined.
I also found a very nice video clip of the Black Knight’s Performance on Youtube:
Notice the love symbol it forms at the end? Simply ROCKS!
Too bad, the 2 and a half hour queue didn’t entitle me to see all that.
Update:
Was rather surprised to see the very sketchy outline of the queue I had to endured on Saturday for the Airshow making its round around the internet.
MrBrown even quoted my blog posting an displayed that aerial view of the queue on his blog.
Do you often sympathies with the bicycle owner if you see a bicycle ended up like this?
I do.
Bicycle (or bicycle parts) thief in Singapore is very common and pretty much uncontrolled… why would the police want to help you hunt down a few missing bicycle tires when they have much more important things to do? However, seeing such a notice comes as a complete shock to me:
The owners of this bicycle are required to remove the bicycles from the bicycle stand immediately.
Failing which the Town Council have no other alternative but to arrange worker and remove them accordingly.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Imagine if the owner of the bicycle went overseas. He came back a saw the bicycle missing. He will never ever suspect that his Town Council had stolen it.
Luckily, the Town Council is not inhuman. The notice was put up a few weeks ago and both the notice and the bicycle is still there.
Had fun with my dear today. As a form of valentine gift I was prepared to fork out $50 to let my dear have fun at the arcade, more specifically the machine with a rotating canal of sweets where you have to use the digger to dig up the sweet, place it on a moving platform that pushes the sweets to drop them in a chute. And if any of the sweets strike the Checker tab while falling, the player gets a chance at getting the Jackpot prize. Most of the time however, the player will get 1 or 2 or 3 pts, which will accumulate and the Jackpot prize will also payout when the player accumulates a total of 25 pts.
We were lucky, and managed to get those 25pts with 25 bucks. Along with the big bag of sweets we inevitably get, and a dragon ball figurine, there are also various coupons which allows us to play various UFO Catchers for free. We had a total of 6 credits, and with that we caught a Stitch and a Pooh Bear soft toy.
So in short, for $25, we got all these:
I feel that it is well worth the money. Don’t you?
Although this prize is quite useless:
Then we took a walk from Suntec City to AngBao River and saw a horrendous wire sculpture of what was supposed to be rabbit but looked like a pig with rabbit ears that had recently escaped out of a highly classified Genetics Research Lab.
We also witness how the War Memorial and the 2 durians (Esplanade) form a weird shape..
And that having such a fun boating game for kids is definitely a very good idea. They won’t have to worry about drowning.
I’ve also noticed that they position the God Of Wealth, Cai Sheng at the same position every year. Now I know why.
(The photo above was slightly digitally modified to make the Maybank building larger)
Still, I feel it rather weird that the fun stuffs are position side by side with places of sorrow. You know how the Chinese avoid funerals and deaths during New Year.
Below are 2 pictures where they obviously did not respect our glorious dead, or heel their cultural traditions.
Have fun everyone, and a late Happy Chinese New Year to all!
We get fined for almost everything
Drivers won’t ‘give chance’ when you want to ‘change lane’
The indoors are cold, the outdoors are hot;
And the humid air, it wrecks my hair
Those answering machines always make you hold
Only to hang up on you
When a pregnant lady gets on the train
Everyone pretends to be asleep
I’m stuck with my parents till I’m 35
Cause I can’t apply for HDB
We don’t recycle any plastic bags
But we purify our pee
What’s wrong with Singapore?
Losing always makes me feel so sore
Cause if you’re not the best
Then you’re just one of the rest
My oh my Singapore
What exactly are we voting for?
What’s not expressly permitted
is prohibited
“Ooh”
When I’m hungry at the food court, I see
People ‘chope’ seats with their tissue paper
To the aunty staying upstairs:
Your laundry’s dripping on my bed sheets
Please don’t squat on the toilet seats
And don’t clip your nails on MRT
Stray cats get into noisy affairs
At night my neighbor makes weird animal sounds
People put on fake accents to sound posh
And queue up 3 hours for donuts
Will I ever live till eighty five
to collect my CPF?
Singaporeans too kiasu! (so scared to lose)
Singaporeans too kiasi! (so scared o die)
Singaporeans too kiabor!(scared of their wives)
Maybe we’re just too stressed out! (even the kids)
“Ooh”
Old National Library was replaced by an ugly tunnel
Singaporean men can’t take independent women
People blow their nose into the swimming pool
And fall asleep on my shoulder in the train
Singapore’s national bird is the crane (the one with yellow steel girders)
Real estate agents’ leaflets clogging up my mailbox (en bloc, en bloc; en bloc, en bloc)
Why can’t we be buried when we die?
No one wants to climb Bukit Timah with me
“Ooh”
There are not enough public holidays
My neighbor sings KTV all night
Wedding dinners never start on time
My hair is always cut shorter than I want
Channel 5 commercials are way too long
Why do men turn bald?
At first it was to speak more mandarin
Then it was to speak proper English
What’s wrong with my powderful Singlish?
People sit down during rock concerts
We have to pay for tap water at restaurants
ERP gantries are everywhere
But I can still see traffic jams on the road
All the bus stops have tilted benches to keep you off balance
Too bad, fellow readers, you won’t get to see them perform outside. Because… well.. they are banned by Media “Development” Authority because of the presence of foreigners within the choir..
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