Tampines

R.’s flat is conveniently located in Tampines. Tampines East to be exact.

As per Wikipedia:

………..Tampines (or Tampines New Town) is the largest residential area in the city-state of Singapore and is located in the East Region of the main island. The town is so named because in the 1900s a large forest of Tampines trees were located at the present site.

Here are a few shots of the area.

Notice how clean and well maintained the streets and the buildings. There is a small day care center nearby too, and the kids were playing at a small playground at the back of the buildings.

A few more steps and we were at the mall built beside the station. I did tell you that there’s a mall in every station, right?

We went straight to the ticketing office to ask a few questions and to have our money broken into smaller bills. After a few minutes of figuring out how to get tickets from the machine (which is much easier than figuring out how to get rid of blackheads on nose), we’re all set to visit our first stop.

This is me buying tickets. First, you select which station you’re going to. Then, you specify how many tickets you need. Then, the machine will show you how much it costs and will ask you deposit the amount. It then drops the tickets in the lower bin, followed by your change. Their LRT/MRT lines are interconnected so you don’t need to exit just to transfer to another line. I can’t help but compare how easy it is to commute via LRT/MRT in Singapore. So efficient!

Here’s an inside look at their MRT. Notice how spacious it is. And very clean too. The MRT/LRT system is used by a diverse group of diffrent races.

More on my next posts.