Answers to Old Singapore Quiz (7):
1. What is the name of this place in Singapore?
A: Toa Payoh Town Park
2. What was its old name?
A: Toa Payoh Town Garden
3. What was it popularly used for in the 1970s?
A: Outdoor wedding photography
4. What is the name of the eatery located there?
A: The Oasis
5. Where was the eatery formerly located?
A: Kallang Basin
The following paragraph was extracted from Wikipedia:
"Toa Payoh Town Garden was partially closed in 1999 to make way for a temporary bus interchange. After the new Toa Payoh Bus Interchange at the HDB Hub was completed in June 2002, the temporary bus interchange was converted to a landscaped park. Toa Payoh Town Garden was subsequently renamed as Toa Payoh Town Park."
So it looks like the garden had been rebuilt.
Toa Payoh Town Garden was one of the earliest public parks to be built in an HDB new town. According to this blog, the beautifully landscaped Toa Payoh Town Garden was completed in September 1973 for the SEAP Games. (In comparison, the Chinese Garden was completed in 1975.)
Toa Payoh Town Garden was a very popular venue for outdoor photography shoots with wedding couples at that time. My brother did just that in 1976:
The photos are a bit faded. My brother's suit was maroon, a favourite colour of choice for bridegrooms at that time. (The masks are not part of the wedding attire though. They are something I made my brother and sister-in-law wear to protect their identities. But frankly, I doubt anyone can recognise them 33 years later even if they are unmasked. :p)
Note: You can see the restaurant building in the background in the right photo above. The building has been renovated and it is now occupied by The Oasis restaurant which serves Taiwanese porridge:
Previously (before May 2008), the restaurant was at Kallang Basin (in the round structures in the photo below). As correctly pointed out by Polestar, the left portion of the restaurant in the photo below was also a popular place to hold Chinese wedding dinners in the 1970/80s:
Here are more photos of Toa Payoh Town Park:
The distinctive hexagonal guardrails
The 27-m viewing tower
The 3 arch bridges
Each watching you like an unblinking eye
You can read more about Toa Payoh here and here.
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17 comments:
The viewing tower is also a favorite hangout for couples, especially after the sun sets!
I thought it looks familiar. Just couldn't place it. Love Toa Payoh for its hustle and bustle. The basement food court had a stall with genuine, peranakan cuisine but it's gone now. Baba Bob was the owner.
victor, you are funny, lah. you should be showing your own wedding photos (taken at the chinese garden) instead of your brother's.
Your brother also in the Batman family?
Thanks for your feedback. I will look into it.
buay tahan the wedding pics look so funny with the batman mask.. hahaha..
anyways, check this out GD:
http://singaporetvchannelguide.blogspot.com/
on the left are all the old dramas since 1981. really nostalgia, just wanna share with u!!!
take care GD :)
Aiyah. What a pity you had to desecrate your brother's photos with the ugly masks. But I understand the need for privacy.
Alex G - Really? I didn't know that. Maybe I was way past the era. :-)
Andy Young - A Peranakan food stall in the basement food court? Was it in the HDB Hub? I didn't know about that either. I only know that there's a famous Chinese rojak stall called Soon Heng which has a "HDB queue" system for its customers - you pay in advance, take a queue number, await your number to be shown on the electronic display and then go collect your rojak. Very systematic.
Yg, I didn't take my wedding photos in Chinese Garden lah. Hmm... come to think of it, I don't recall taking any outdoor photos. Maybe I did but I've forgotten where. But definitely not Toa Payoh Garden or Chinese Garden. Got to go find my wedding photo albums first.
LKK - Yes, I belong to the "eye-mask" family while you belong to the "face-mask" family. :-)
STST - What feedback? That they should reinstate Toa Payoh Garden as the choice venue for outdoor wedding photography?
Oh, it's the system for awarding quiz prizes! You're welcome.
GNE, thanks for the link to the old dramas website. It really brings back the memories with the old shows like Kopi-O.
Hope, life's been good to you too. I guess it must have been - 2 overseas trips in one month. Wow!
LCS - You said it. My brother and sister-in-law were actually very good looking at that age... compared to the masks. Haha.
Sorry. I think I used the wrong word in my comment above. Not 'desecrate'; maybe mutilate or deface is better word.
late reply: Yes Vic, peranakan food where the rojak is. 2nd stall from the left where the nasi melayu and porridge lie - same row. But it's gone. Reason? Baba Bob says business is bad as his food is too expensive for the average patron.
His peranakan ngo-hiang is really great and it costs $2.00 which I used to order for Chinese New Year.
His nyonya chap-chye and nyonya-mee, buay tahan. Best! Now he's gone.
Andy Young
Thanks Andy for the info. Ah, now I think I have seen the Peranakan stall before. However it's too bad that I have not tried the food before. And now it's gone.
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