The Merlion 머라이언, 鱼尾狮 Revisited

The Merlion was moved on 23 April 2002 from its site at the Anderson Bridge.

The new site is 120 metre away on a newly built promontory.

The Merlion was lifted onto a barge and sailed to the edgw of the new Esplanade Bridge where it will be again lifted over the bridge onto the barge which had sailed under the bridge.

The move begin...

photo credit - C. K. Pek

As the Merlion is 8.6 metre tall, it was impossible for the barge and cargo to sail under the bridge.

The relocation was carefully planned with help from 2 Demag 500 tons cranes, and a team of 20 engineers and workers.

After the move...

 

See the difference ? Yes there is no Marina Bay Sands in 2002. Sands opened in 2010. 

Know Your Right

Left can become right in an instant        

The Iconic Beetle

Iconic brands are instantly recognizable.

now

Mercedes-Benz is arguably the most iconic car in the world.

then

The humble Volkswagon Beetle scores in that department as well.

There are mostly old Volkswagen Beetle taxis at the holiday town of Acapulco.



Most taxis in Mexico are green Volkswagen Beetles which accounted for almost half of all taxis in Mexico City, with about 50,000 cruising the streets.

But the city's famous Beetle taxis will be taken off the streets soon.



The last of the Beetles will have their cab licences expired by end of this year.

Changi Airport

Getting to and from Changi Airport is a breeze.




A taxi coordinator at Changi Airport signaled to a waiting cab to the next available lot where a pair of male visitors from China were waiting.

Indian Cabby: Where are you going ?
Visitor: Jia Dong
IC : Where ?
V: Jia Dong




The flustered cabby called the coordinator to hail the next taxi because he could not understand the destination the china visitors wanted to go.

The not so flexible coordinator made a quick translation service with the visitors and discovered that they wanted to go to Katong. He then insisted that the cabby drive on with the allocated passengers.

"But Katong is a damn big place" the cabby protested.

After a little dose of fiery exchanges, a kind local passenger offered to exchange his allocated taxi driven by a chinese cabby. Problem solved.

MRT Trains Disruption

There are ways to end one's life.

Jumping off a high rise building.

Jumping into the sea or river.

Or the most common, as shown in the movies, swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills.

In Singapore it has now become a tradition jumping off the MRT track.

One headline read:

SINGAPORE: Eastbound train services between Queenstown and Outram Park MRT stations were disrupted for about 45 minutes Tuesday morning when a passenger was hit by a train at Redhill MRT Station.



And each time a suicide happens, 5000 commuters will be left stranded.



And buses will be deployed to ferry them to the next unaffected stations.

Subway System

The construction of the Sydney Metro rail system was supposed to start this year but Premier Kristina Keneally cancelled the project in February.

Sydney is now the only major city in the Asia Pacific without a metro subway system.

On the other hand, Mumbai with a population of 13 million, will have a subway system running in the later part of the year.



The trains will be supplied by CSR Nanjing Puzhen Rolling Stock company which signed a deal in to supply 18 trains for the new subway system. The deal is worth about $100 million.

The trains are China's first-ever export of A-type subway rails with automatic driving systems and maximum speed of 80 km per hour.

Left, or Right Hand Drive

Who invented the driving directions ? Well nobody can say exactly. Before the automobile was invented, horses were common mode of transport. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him. Furthermore, a right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse.

About a quarter of the world drives on the left, and the countries that do are mostly old British colonies. Some of these left lane drive countries are:

Australia Bahamas Bangladesh Bermuda
Brunei Cayman Islands Christmas Is Grenada
Hong Kong India Indonesia Ireland Jamaica
Japan Macau Malaysia Maldives
Malta Mauritius New Zealand Pakistan
Papua New Guinea Seychelles Singapore South Africa
Sri Lanka Thailand United Kingdom Zimbabwe

Right Hand Drive

But during the 1700s France and the United States began using wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. These wagons had no driver's seat so the driver sat on the left rear horse, so he could keep his right arm free to lash the team. Therefore he kept to the right side of the road.

Countries with right lane drive system:

Afghanistan Argentina Armenia Austria
Bahrain Belgium Belize Brazil
Bulgaria Cambodia Cameroon Canada
Chile China Costa Rica Croatia
Czech Rep Denmark Ecuador Egypt
Finland France Germany Gibraltar
Greece Guam Hungary Iceland
Iran Iraq Israel Italy
Jordan Korea North Korea South Kuwait
Lebanon Luxembourg Mexico Mongolia
Myanmar Netherlands Nigeria Norway
Panama Philippines Poland Portugal
Puerto Rico Qatar Russian Spain
Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Arab Emirates
USA Uruguay Vietnam

Left Hand Drive

The trend among nations over the years has been toward driving on the right, but Britain has done its best to stave off global pressure.
Left-hand driving was made mandatory in Britain in 1835. An exception is Egypt, which had been conquered by Napoleon before becoming a British dependency.

Although Japan was never part of the British Empire, its traffic also goes to the left. The year 1872 when Japan’s first railway was built with technical aid from the British, it took another half century till in 1924 left-side driving was clearly written in a law.

When the Dutch arrived in Indonesia in 1596, they brought along their habit of driving on the left. Napoleon conquered the Netherlands that the Dutch started driving on the right as did Indonesia. But the brief occupation by the British eventually change the direction again.

After the Second World War, left-driving Sweden, the odd one out in mainland Europe passed a law on the conversion to right-hand driving in 1963. Finally, the change took place on Sunday, the 3rd of September 1967.


As Michael Jackson once sung, it doesn't matter if you're left or right, just drive safely.

MRT, MTR or Metro

It has been more than 20 years since the first MRT train started running along the 65 km route. Then, a MRT study team from Harvard weighed the pro and con of an all-bus sytem and a railbased network before presenting the findings to the government.

In 1982 the government announced the go ahead. Construction works commenced in 1984 and the first phase of the system running from Yio Chu Kang to Toa Payoh opened for service in 1987.

The successful completion of the rail network involved 13 Japanese contractors, namely Takenaka, Kajima, Shimizu, Obayashi, Sato Kogyo and Nishimatsu.

In the early days of construction, Raffle Place station used to be the biggest and deepest, followed by the Dhoby Ghaut in 2003.


The Hongkong MRT system began construction in 1975 and the first train service start in 1979.


The construction of the Bangkok Metro line, known as MRT began in 1996. The first line was opened in 2004.


The Kuala Lumpur Metro began construction in 1993 and opened 1996.


Construction started on September 16, 1997 for the Manila MRTC and began operational in 1999.


Ho Chi Minh City Metro works are due to begin in 2009. Completion of Line 1, which have 11 surface and three sub-surface stations, also related bus stations, is expected in 2014.


Jakarta planned to start the construction of their MRT system in 2010 and operational in 2016.


Sydney is in the world's top 50 urban cities by GDP and yet it is without a metro system.
Construction will start in 2010, with the first metro train running between Castle Hill and Epping in 2015, and the entire line to be fully functional two years later.
Premier Morris Iemma told reporters in 2008 "It will happen because the city needs it,"

Update February 2010:
New premier Kristina Keneally axed the 9km long CBD Metro scheme even though the government had already spent more than A$330 million on the project. Keneally ousted Rees as New South Wales premier in December 2009. Keneally said the metro scheme failed to address Sydney’s real transport needs.

The scrapping of the Metro is a setback to Sydney's bid to become an Asia-Pacific financial hub.

Taxi Woes

Taxi drivers are both the demon and the angel. While most are in this line to make a decent living, quite a handful want the money to flow in fast in the shortest time.




I wonder how many of you with durians cargo, hail a cab and was turn away by kiasu drivers ? There is no who's right or wrong this instance because the fruit indeed can cause a stink long after a pax got off. Those who got rejected because of the durians cannot complain to the taxi company as the fruits are banned from public transport.
But as time are bad for cabbies, many are accepting pax with durians.
Some drivers request to turn off the aircon and wind down the windows as it greatly help to reduce the odour which the angmo tourists would have jump from a moving cab to get away !




Another matter of contention is a passenger hails a cab and may want to stop at a mid-destination to fetch someone or something and ask the cabby to wait for a short while. Some drivers who has been warned of past experiences by fellow cabbies about passengers getting off without ever returning, is reluctant to agree to the arrangement so they either want to terminate the trip, or ask the pax to put a "deposit" such as $10.

Stories abound of cabbies being offered "services" by female pax as an excuse for not having enough money to pay the fare. Whether the offers were taken, the cabbies are not saying.

Packed MRT Trains

It is now well known that MRT trains are packed to the brim during peak hours. Complaints and comments are fast and furious about younger people not giving up seats to people who neat it.



There was an incident few days ago on a working day peak six something at the Tiong Bahru Station.
When the train stop, a station staff squeeze into the carriage, go to the mid section and unceremoniously gestured a young twenty something guy to stand up. He then go into the next carriage and guide a pregnant lady to the vacated seat.



While this is good service on the part of MRT, but somehow it leave the matter in a bad taste. How do the young man know there is a lady in need of a seat ? And the manner he was asked to give up his seat in full view of the packed train.

Taxi Tales

Taxis are called Ilban in Korean and referred to as Grey Taxis by expats, are usually silver with a white or blue line. Fares start 2,400 won (S$3.00)
Deluxe Taxies, called "mobeom" taxis in Korean, are black with a yellow sign on the top and the words "Deluxe Taxi" written on the side. Fares start 4,500 won (S$5.50)

Left: Grey cab, Right: Mobeom cab

Seoul launched Haechi taxi in May 2009. The Haechi cab is expected to replace Seoul's current fleet of taxi within the next 4 to 5 years. The fare is the same as that of the grey taxis.

Haechi Cab

Tokyo can boast of having the most colourful taxi fleet in the world. They can also safely claim the most type of taxi signs, not seen anywhere else on earth which stand corrected, of course.

Colourful fleet -Tokyo

Some of the taxi signs

And Bangkok is not about to be runner up in the colour race.

Bangkok Taxis, top/below

And yes, purple cabs too...

Taxi Tale

The word "taxi " comes from the word "tax." Every year you have to pay the government money for taxes. The amount of money you give the government is based on how much money you make. Riding in a taxi is very similar because the amount of money you pay the driver is based on how far he or she takes you. The drivers "tax" you, so their cars are called taxis.

Singapore taxis are from 8 operators each with their own choice of colours.

Comfort, blue

CityCab, yellow
SMRT, white
TransCab, red
Premier, silver
SMART, green
Prime, copper
Yellow-Top, black

Right: Taxis @Singapore


Taiwan taxis all yellow color. Women passengers are advised to call a taxi company for pick-up for safety reasons.
The first yellow taxis appeared in New York around 1907. A man there was buying taxis from France to use in the city. He found out that yellow is the easiest color to see from far away, so he painted all of his taxis yellow. Ever since then, yellow has been a popular color for taxis.

Taipei Taxis

Hongkong cabs are in 3 colours but mainly red ones features.

Red taxis serve Hong Kong Island and Kowloon; green ones in the New Territories and blue taxis on Lantau Island

By law, all of Hong Kong's taxis can only run on LPG now.

Hongkong taxis

So we have red, yellow, blue...but wait, a purple cab ?

Taxi @ KL