Soft lock-down day minus 3

For my foreign readers, in these hard times, up to the 3rd of April,  not a lot have changed in Singaporean’s lives. Obvious places of mingling, like bars and discos, had been closed a few weeks back and we were encouraged to work from home when possible and apply social distancing, controls were put at the border and a quarantine system was put in place.

Quarantined Buddha

Things changed Friday when the prime minister announced a “soft lock down”, basically we are going to be on lock-down like a big part of the human kind. Nearly all public places will be closed, but for the soft part, we will still be allowed to walk out.

Panic buy

So Friday saw a moderate panic buy (including massive queues at Victoria Secret, LuluLemon  and Louis Vuitton, more reassuring of the human race people were also queuing in the Japanese library Kinokuniya.

Our Community Center, during free mask distribution

Restaurants will close next Tuesday night, so after what looked like a dreadful Friday night, a lot of places where pretty full, Saturday and Sunday, of course respecting  mandatory social distancing. We also visited some friend’s restaurant Saturday, as we fell the need to support the businesses and share a bit of love and friendship in these hard time.

Wat Ananda Metyarama Thai Buddhist temple

I did not really dig in the details of the soft lock down, but just in case I started the Sunday by a 37 Km ride with my son. And in the afternoon we had a long walk to our Community Center and back to collect our free reusable masks (Thanks guys). These shots were done along the way with the Leica M262 and the Summaron 35mmF3.5 LTM.

Wat Ananda Metyarama Thai Buddhist

First stop, a few clicks down the Community center, was the Wat Ananda Metyarama a Thai Buddhist temple, a very nice Thai temple (surprise !), an at the back are more buildings. Including one for nuns or monks.

The mice

Birds and gods

I don’t know what this building is. A king of shrine, with drying laundry, birds in cages and gods effigies.

Polis

I want to shoot this little police hut for a while (Polis is Police in Malay), geographically  it looks like it was commanding the entrance of the Malaysian enclave that was containing the railway station and the railway tracks up to Malaysia. But I am not 100% sure.

ST MATTHEW’S CHURCH – NEIL ROAD

St Matthew’s Church is now all wrapped up, you can check my post about it here. I cannot really give any information about the new development there.

Social distancing

Shake Shack Mural

Social distancing v2

Or dance steps.

Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple

As part of earlier measures places of worship are now closed, but devotees congregate (in small numbers) in front of temples.

The odd guy

That’s it for today! Keep safe, follow the rules, and read many posts ever after.

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Alms ceremony at Wat Palelai – Singapore

Someone at the photo lab tipped me that Saturday that the next day, there will be an alms ceremony at Wat Palelai, a Thai Buddhist Temple located in Bedok, in the east of Singapore.

Devotees stood around the yard of the temple and gave their offerings to the monks who made a procession around the yard.

Later the monks gathered at their dining room.

There was 30 to 50 monks for the ceremony but I think only 5 are permanently staying  at the temple. Others are going through a temporary monk-hood.

This day was the fiftieth Singapore National Day, happy birthday Singapore. The ceremony was interrupted by the singing of the national anthem at 9am.

It was very nice to discover this temple and be able to attend this ceremony. I also met two people who always hang around the photo lab, so we could have coffee and chit chat a moment after the ceremony was over.

All black and white pics with Leica M6 and either 35mmF2.8 or 50mmF1.4. Film is Rollei RPX 400ISO. Scanned at home with Epson v500.

Color pics with the old faithful Nikon D700 with either the 85mm F1.8 or the 17-35 F2.8.