Yesterday, I brought my family to the coffee shop at serangoon gardens, where I have my regular weekend breakfast, for the last time.The coffee shop will make way for new development. A Shop-and-Save grocery will take its place. Across the road, what used to be a 3-storey building housing the NTUC Fairprice supermarket, the coffeebean, DBS Bank and the mama-shop has also disappeared. We are told there will be more exciting development in its place, but I am unexcited by all these changes.
Serangoon Garden is one of the last frontier in Singapore where busyness is still confined to small shop houses in a kind of homely environment. My estate at Seletar Hills is yet another.
Every weekend, when I turned up at the coffee shop with my wife and order my usual Mee Kia and Kopi-C, the hectic pace of life seems to slow down, the worries fade and there is a sense of taking in the private moments amidst the other patrons. Most of the other people at the coffee shop are familiar faces - one who always brings his Straits Times and faces the road, an old man who collects old cardboard boxes will rest at his usual corner, the coffee lady will shout out the order often prefaced with a "Lai" (come in chinese)... At the same familiar table where I sat, I remembered sharing with my wife the good news when I was first appointed as CEO of Jurong General Hospital.
There is so much about the silly coffee shop that mean so much to me.
My job now is to find another coffee shop somewhere, where the same feelings will beckon...
1 comment:
Jug, I don't think you will be able to find a place to match the standard at the old noodle shop. You have captured the memory of the smell and taste of your precious bowl of mee kia in your brain. You will be able to recall and "eat" when you feel the nostalgia.
Doreen
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