October 15th, 2007
On the Sunday before my transcontinental jaunt, I put up a plea for company for my Underground wandering. As well as then meeting
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
midnightxpress for tea, cake and charity shopping in Putney, I had a text frompoggs offering his services on the adventure. We arranged to meet at Euston station and take things from there. It's always an adventure meeting people from the electric world in real life; one that can be either joy or terror. Having pink hair makes me very easy to find in a crowd, which can be either an advantage or can lead to one wishing one had a large hat in one's pocket when you realise you've arranged to met a troll. In the past troll avoidance tactics have involved not only capacious headgear but resorting to pretending to be suddenly French or spouting Andrea Dworkin for the driving away of oddballs. However, no trolls manifested and at a little past three in the afternoon I was expertly hugged by a charming chap.
I pull out my map of Stations Still to Be Collected and we hatch a cunning plan. P suggests, with maniacal glint in his eye, the radical idea of doing the Hainault Loop the wrong way wrong. Genius! Oh man, do we know how to live life on the edge. This may mean nothing to most people, but anyone using the Central Line regularly will know the Mogodon-inflected announcer's voice declaring: 'this train is for Hainault via Newbury Park' - in other words there's a right way to go round the Loop and we're playing fast and loose with the proper order of things. It feels terribly naughty and subversive, like we're sneaking in the back way somehow...
Here's reminder of the layout, taken from a faded poster outside at Grange Hill that hasn't been updated since the zoning was enlarged in January to put the whole of The Loop inside Zone 4. So the plan is to head up towards Epping, hop off at Woodford, cross the tracks and coast over the top of the loop clockwise down towards Hainault bringing us in through stations neither of us had been through before.
( Snaresbrook )
I am approaching this project from an emotive, artistic perspective, concerned with subjective history and psychogeography wheres as P has a much more nuts-and-bolt, statistical interest in the system. What this gives us is a great opportunity for exchange, and cross-fertilisation, which if you are open to sharing perspectives and different types of knowledge is a wonderful and interesting thing, and meant we barely stopped talking all afternoon. I am now very curious to see what gate codes are stored on my Oyster Card.
We burbled on up the line to South Woodford, where again, this being Sunday out in the sticks, not a lot was going on:
( South Woodford )
To the best of my knowledge Woodford can either be a through station up to Epping, or it can be the terminus of trains curling up from the opposite direction. This makes it a sprawling station of three platforms, and slightly confusing as to where you should be. Our mutual fascination with the infrastructure meant we weren't that bothered with venturing beyond the station entrance. The main local attraction seemed to be the glamourously named Snakes Lane Recycling Centre, but seemed to be nothing more exciting than two dumpster bins in the station car park.
The station itself is brightly painted in green and yellow, with a footbridge over to the terminating platform...we realised we had ourselves directionally confused and nipped back over to catch the outbound service to Roding Valley.
( Roding Valley )
Apart from a lone cleaner travelling the track, who we've been shadowing since Woodford, we are the only people taking the train on to Chigwell.
Finally, as the sun is sinking towards evening we make it to Hainault. The urban sprawl begins to catch us up. The station architecture changes from red brick pavilions to sleek deco curves.
There's renovation work going on, so the concrete platform signage is parcelled up in protective chipboard:
( Chigwell )
Leaving Chigwell, we're high on a ridge that looks down across rolling fields, with cows and horses. Incredible to see actual farmstock through the windows of a tube train. This is the Roding Valley itself and looking at the Ordnance Survey map the dense housing of Leyton and Woodford fall away into a spread of open country, small woodlands and farmland all still within the M25 orbital. We rattle along, marvelling at the beauty of it, picture postcard England on such a gilded afternoon, and eventually pull into Grange Hill.
( Grange Hill )
Finally, as the sun is sinking towards evening we make it to Hainault. The urban sprawl begins to catch us up. The station architecture changes from red brick pavilions to sleek deco curves.
There's renovation work going on, so the concrete platform signage is parcelled up in protective chipboard:
So far on our journey we have totally failed to find a place for tea and scones. The gap between services means it has taken several hours to inch our way along the map, and we are in dire need of sustenance. We ride back into London itself, passing a vast sprawl of a cemetery outside Leyton that bears further investigation, and hop out at Whitechapel for curry on Brick Lane. Even better we've timed our visit with a Curry Festival, and the street is lined with trestle tables laden with tempting goodies. Using the highly scientific method of picking a number at random; nine, and then chosing the ninth restaurant we pass we settle in for the evening as dusk falls. I think of![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
mr_robnoxious who would be a perfect addition to the meal...and later, contentedly full, we wander back to catch trains home. A total of seven stations collected, and a new friend made; all in all a pleasant and productive Sunday afternoon.
mr_robnoxious who would be a perfect addition to the meal...and later, contentedly full, we wander back to catch trains home. A total of seven stations collected, and a new friend made; all in all a pleasant and productive Sunday afternoon.There is nothing more sublimely luxurious in the world then showering off the coated grime of air travel in a glass and marble bathroom, slipping into a fluffy white towelling robe and slippers and calling room service for gourmet titbits to eat while staring across the opal splendour of downtown Singapore twinkling in the black of a tropical evening. A full moon floated serene above the light-spangled, high-rise cityscape. I was more than aware that I am stupendously lucky to get to make this trip, and mean to enjoy it to the full as I may never get to go again.
The next day, despite coughing up what looked like solidified pea soup, I decide that the warm, damp air will be good for the lungs and set out to conquer the MRT in the middle of a downpour. As the rain is warm, unlike get rained on here, it's like strolling through the rinse cycle on the dishwasher. Even when the rain stops there's still such moisture in the air that your clothes remain damp, as you both sweat in the heat and soak up the humidity. I soon realise that wearing an ankle length dress means I'm also wicking up all the free water sitting on the pavements. I may develop trench-foot by the end of the day.
Like the MTR in Hong Kong, the MRT in Singapore was built all in one hit in the late 80's and is the second oldest metro system in South Asia after Manila. There's a total of 64 stations, not that I'm going to attempt to cover them all in the day that we have, but I can certainly collect a few. We buy SMRT cards, a pre-paid system like Oyster, which deducts a fare calculated on how far you've travelled each journey. We'll have wasted the non-refundable deposit on the card as it's not really meant for a tourist on a day's jaunting, but is a quicker option than buying single fares each trip, plus the cards are valid for 7 years so I have until 2014 to pop back and clean up the remaining stations. City Hall is just round the corner from the hotel, so from there we travel to Dhoby Ghaut
There's a uniformity to the stations, not only do they all look the same, but they all look just like Hong Kong - smooth, low-ceilinged marble rectangular spaces. We nip outside briefly, to fulfill the rules of passing through the ticket barrier, before changing lines to Orchard Station.
Currently this is the closest station to the Botanical Gardens, which have been strongly recommended as a thing to do if you only have a short time in the city.
We walk the rest of the way, about 2km, as the Botanical Gardens MRT station isn't due to open until 2010. It's slow going as not used to the weather, but walking a city is the best way to actually get a feel for the place. We muse along window shopping, looking at the buildings and generally soaking it all up, just as clothes are soaking up the damp. The mass of growing things that I am used to seeing only in doctor's surgeries is astounding. The sheer volume of green matter, all rejoicing in the warmth and water and growing with damn near visible vigor is just exhilarating.
Still the flowers are pretty...
Slightly sodden, we take a cab to Clarke Quay, which is supposed to be a funky downtown hotspot of fun, but I guess that's in the evening, because it's lunchtime and the places is deserted. It is funky though - huge parasols cover the space over the street, there are enormous bizarre air-conditioning ducts, and street level fountains to play in - I figure I can't actually get much damper so splash about in them.
From Clarke Quay we take the tube to Chinatown for serious tourist tat shopping, lunch and a visit to Singapore's oldest Hindu temple. The temple sells you a dispensation to use a camcorder or a camera; clever way to raise funds out of the hordes of tourists glued to their technology. All the fantastical carvings have been bleached out by the sun, and have the patina of old travel agency posters left too long in the window. Gods and goddess the colour of sugared almonds...
B is having back trouble, so after lunch he heads back to the hotel for a bit of a lie down before the flight, while I finish blowing my money on trinkets and clothes made for the tourist trade - hell, I'm not returning home without one cheong sam. Back on the MRT I travel one stop further than City Hall to Raffles Place hoping that might be near to the eponymous hotel. Emerging, I see nothing remotely familiar (hardly surprising since I've been here about 17 hours) so bother a local for the pictorial evidence of the journey before playing it safe and heading back to City Hall again.
Mural in Chinatown station:
On the platform the cutest little schoolgirl takes a picture for me. I should have got a picture of her in her uniform.
Back at the hotel I book myself into the spa for a massage. Am fed the most wonderous ginger tea for my cold and pumelled Balinese style. Bliss...
...all to be ruined, of course, by 13 hours on a plane to arrive back home gritty-eyed, sick and dislocated...and that's it; all over, time to go back to work...but I really was there, riding the tube across South East Asia...
We walk the rest of the way, about 2km, as the Botanical Gardens MRT station isn't due to open until 2010. It's slow going as not used to the weather, but walking a city is the best way to actually get a feel for the place. We muse along window shopping, looking at the buildings and generally soaking it all up, just as clothes are soaking up the damp. The mass of growing things that I am used to seeing only in doctor's surgeries is astounding. The sheer volume of green matter, all rejoicing in the warmth and water and growing with damn near visible vigor is just exhilarating.
Still the flowers are pretty...
( orchid porn )
Slightly sodden, we take a cab to Clarke Quay, which is supposed to be a funky downtown hotspot of fun, but I guess that's in the evening, because it's lunchtime and the places is deserted. It is funky though - huge parasols cover the space over the street, there are enormous bizarre air-conditioning ducts, and street level fountains to play in - I figure I can't actually get much damper so splash about in them.
The bridge has been decorated for the Autumn festival with figures and scuptures in silk stretched across frames ...everything's wired up, so by night it must be illuminated...
From Clarke Quay we take the tube to Chinatown for serious tourist tat shopping, lunch and a visit to Singapore's oldest Hindu temple. The temple sells you a dispensation to use a camcorder or a camera; clever way to raise funds out of the hordes of tourists glued to their technology. All the fantastical carvings have been bleached out by the sun, and have the patina of old travel agency posters left too long in the window. Gods and goddess the colour of sugared almonds...
B is having back trouble, so after lunch he heads back to the hotel for a bit of a lie down before the flight, while I finish blowing my money on trinkets and clothes made for the tourist trade - hell, I'm not returning home without one cheong sam. Back on the MRT I travel one stop further than City Hall to Raffles Place hoping that might be near to the eponymous hotel. Emerging, I see nothing remotely familiar (hardly surprising since I've been here about 17 hours) so bother a local for the pictorial evidence of the journey before playing it safe and heading back to City Hall again.
Mural in Chinatown station:
On the platform the cutest little schoolgirl takes a picture for me. I should have got a picture of her in her uniform.
Back at the hotel I book myself into the spa for a massage. Am fed the most wonderous ginger tea for my cold and pumelled Balinese style. Bliss...
...all to be ruined, of course, by 13 hours on a plane to arrive back home gritty-eyed, sick and dislocated...and that's it; all over, time to go back to work...but I really was there, riding the tube across South East Asia...