For Art’s Sake!

I’ve never gone on a Duck Tour. But I recently did get to go on two bus tours. And that just quacks me up! Guffaw.

First up was Friday’s dry run of The Jack of Hearts Mystery Tour, which is an event tied up to the screening of Saint Jack this week. More on this soon over at my colleague, the Flick Chick’s blog.

Saturday afternoon, I tagged along on the War On Wheels tours organised by the National Heritage Board as part of their Explore Singapore campaign (you know, the one with the “I heart Museums” logo).

Pretty interesting stuff that’s been going on for the past two Saturdays. The last one will be this coming Saturday.

There were two tours to choose from: Invasion Singapore! and Singapore Under The Gun. The former starts at 9am while the latter began at 3.30pm. Guess what I chose.

Contrary to the kancheong spider schedule on Sistic, the tours only run for around 4 ½ hours and not 7 hours. During which, they take you to the lesser known museums.

The itinerary for the SUG one starts at Changi Museum then heads down to Johore Battery, Changi Beach, Fort Canning Park’s The Battle Box bunkers and finally at City Hall.

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Assembly point is in front of the Peranakan Museum.

They’ve even got a map and other freebies. I’m wearing one of them. It doesn’t fit. Hmmm…

Banana money!

We’re at the Changi Chapel (a replica of the original one, which is at Canberra) and that’s tour guide and part-time actress/performer Gillian Tan. Seated to her left is Juliana Mattar, aka “boss” of Motion, the company who co-organised the bus tours.

One of the messages that were left by visitors. Sniffle.

Ey look! They also had ST back then. Get it? Snort.

Prisoners of war had to pee in a space this small.

My oh my, look what we found — repro drawings by Liu Kang!

And another one by Koeh Sia Yong. After which we headed for the nearby Johore Battery with its “monster” gun.

They’re really quite proud of its “Monster” proportions.

What big guns they had.

The labyrinth-like structure gives you an idea of what’s underneath. There’s a trapdoor to the side, but we’re not sure if you can actually go down and explore. There’s no one selling tickets at the entrance, you see.  

We were marched (okay lah, we took a bus) to Changi Beach to re-live the infamous Sook Ching Massacre. Pretty poignant and creative moment here, where Gillian made us all line up and imagine we were digging our own graves. While she recited British war poet Siegfried Sassoon’s How To Die.

Off to The Battle Box, this bunch of bunkers underneath Fort Canning, which they say was only discovered quite recently (as in a couple of decades ago). By accident. You mean the Brits never told the Singapore government they had bunkers there?! Gee, wonder why…

While the dummies look kind of creepy — especially the automated ones — there are some nice posters up on the wall too. They’re on sale at the museum show. Yes, they have a museum shop.

Finally, a nice photo op of the surviv… I mean tour participants, at City Hall. And no, the Singapore Youth Olympics thing in the background isn’t part of the tour. Neither are the Singapore Design Festival exhibitions inside.

After all that, they give you this. Yay!

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Catch the two remaining War On Wheels bus tour this Saturday, Nov 28, 9am (Invasion Singapore!) and 3.30pm (Singapore Under The Gun). For ticket details, go here or here.

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