Kampong Glam: Shazleen's thoughts

This is an edit of my reflection because I realised that I wrote very little compared to Erjin, See Ming and Hema...heh . My apologies. This entry is still very short though... hahaha

So yes,the Heritage Trail turned out to be pretty fun --learnt stuff we never knew, took funny pictures and even squeezed in some shopping! What Erjin said in his reflection is true.. there are many places and details on the trail that we would have just dismissed or not bothered with if we were any other regular primary/secondary sch student on an excursion. I doubt that we would have searched for the blacksmith shop or stepped into the cemetery if we were on a regular excursion. Somehow I liked the fact that the blacksmith shop had burnt down and the Pondok Java had been demolished. It added a sense of adventure to our trail. We had to sorta put ourselves in detective mode and go on like a scavenger hunt to search for these places.Kinda cool.. hahaha...Anyway by going on the trail ourselves (rather than as a class) gave us the freedom to further explore the area. We were able to enjoy ourselves and discover stuff that weren't necessarily related to history. Personally, the present can be as interesting as the past. We were pretty psyched to browse through the costume shop along Aliwal Street. I am now very tempted to have a costume party for my 21st birthady... heh :P

However, it's pretty sad to see that certain parts of Kampong Glam had become 'tourist-y'. For example, Bussorah street was filled with shops that obviously catered solely to the tourists. Hardly any authentic traditional stores remained. So anyway, here are some of the pics we took that day. :)