Suburbs, Asian style

In almost ten months in Singapore, I haven't had many occasions to visit what the locals call "the heartland." That's basically the northern half of the island, far enough from downtown that it almost feels rural in some places, but never too far from an MRT stop. Before this weekend, I'd been through the heartland on the MRT once, at night, so I couldn't see much of it because it was dark outside. The fact that I've only had that one trip through and I was only passing through speaks for itself, I think.

Yesterday, I finally visited it for real. The reason why is fairly odd (visiting a branch of the health club I joined to see if we could identify the branch from a picture in a contest set up by the club...yes, really), but I did look forward to seeing a corner of Singapore that had up to now held some mystique in the form of spots on the MRT mapp that I had never ventured very near.

Wow. I thought I had seen cookie-cutter housing back in the DC suburbs. I hadn't seen anything! Block after block after block of square apartment buildings all over the place, and construction of a few new ones here and there, and a shopping center at nearly every stop, looking more or less the same as the other ones, which look more or less the same as the one at my stop. But I'm glad I got to see it. As things continue to look promising for our company, I'm beginning to give some thought to where I want my next apartment to be once I can afford to choose a place rather than having it choose me. Up to now, I thought there might be a trove of lovely and cheap places out in the heartland that I hadn't even seen yet. There are a few that I could see from the train, but nothing to measure up to what's available downtown (and will probably be in my price range if current trends continue - prices are dropping everywhere). So at least I can mark a lot of places off my list now.

The health club branch wasn't the one we were looking for, by the way.