Wan's Ubin Journal

Hi All! This post is in chronological order, in fact if you are reading this, you wouldn't find any more posts before this as this will be the first of what I believe will be many posts to come in the future as I share with you my journey in finding my grandparents' kampong house in Pulau Ubin and also at the same time, trace back my roots and family heritage on this beautiful island. Read this post already? The next post in sequence can be found by clicking here ! Image by Shiva via  ABSFreePic Just like many other Singaporeans, we would have ventured into Pulau Ubin at one point in our lives, but as for me, I did travel to Pulau Ubin quite a lot - especially when I was still a small kid. In my primary school years, my mom and I would usually go back once the term break started. I still remembered those double-seater bicycles where two people would be cycling together on one bicycle but I was pretty sure most of the cycling back then was done by my mom as no wa...

Hi All! Not all things are meant to be forgotten, and not all things are meant to be the way they are. Last Sunday on July 29th, 2018, it was a pretty eventful day for me! Met some new people, did some kampong activities, engaged a lot more with the residents on Pulau Ubin and found out some awesome things about my late grandfather! Be sure to read the previous post first if you'd like to read my posts in chronological order! To start off the day, I met up with members of the Woodlands Malay Activities Exective Committee (MAEC), whom I had previously met on the previous Saturday on Racial Harmony Day together with MP for Sembawang GRC, Mr Amrin Amin who had actually direct messaged on Facebook Messenger, inviting me for a meetup as he would like to more about Ubin adventures. Coincidentally, the Woodlands MAEC were planning on having a heritage trail event to Pulau Ubin, called "Jejak Warisan Pulau Ubin", which aimed to promote a sense of appreciation to...

Hi All! Published in The Straits Times today is an article on Pulau Ubin, and I believe it should be worth talking about! Photo courtesy of Dr Imran Tajudeen I've previously been honoured enough to have come across Assistant Professor Dr Imran Tajudeen and his wonderful team of students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Architecture during a symposium that I attended in the National Library in mid April this year. He and his students have dedicated an immense amount of time and effort for Pulau Ubin, and seeing them appear in the news article, makes me extremely proud and inspired by them. More about Dr Imran, his students and the symposium in a later post! In fact that post would pretty much be a cornerstone in my quest in finding my late grandparents' house so it's pretty important. When going around the Facebook page for Pulau Ubin, Ai Lin from the Singapore Heritage Society shared a link that she has found on the Straits Times, d...

Hi All! While I was in the gardening section of Daiso the other week, I came across this small but adorable looking picket sign. Immediately in my mind, I knew what I wanted to do with it - a small sign to indicate the location of my late grandparents' home on Pulau Ubin! I couldn't really find the time as I have been busy with work the past few weeks - until today. I initially wanted to print out the words on A4 and  make it into a stencil where I can just paint the words over, but when I did that - the paper would just tear easily when I was about to cut through the curves and extremely sharp turns of the letters.  The next thing I knew, I just decided to trust my own style of painting the letters onto the sign. I was pretty nervous about it looking bad, but the final result looked pretty good. I did want to have the sign painted the same shade and hue of blue as the former house did, but I believe having a white sign might stand out pretty much in the for...

Hi all, Here are this week's feature! I hope you enjoy them. SYAZWAN MAJID @nsyazwanmajid "I took this picture last Saturday during the golden hour of Nenek Puasa's house. Must have been beautiful seeing this everyday on the island for all the current and former residents there!" KEITH O'DONOGHUE @odonoghue_keith " Handy out this fella was able to give us directions to the Wetlands"   GENESIS NOMER C. DELA TORRE @dihydrogenox "Ubin Coas t ⛴" Want to get your photos featured in this blog? I'd love to show them! Simply  #wansubinjournal  onto your photos and you might stand a chance to have it featured in this blog. It's my way of saying thank you for remembering and visiting Pulau Ubin and of course, leaving behind memories and stories for others to appreciate and love the beauty of the boomerang-shaped island off the eastern coast of Singapore. There...

Hi All! I've been planning out ways to provide more content for this blog in the weeks to come and I'm happy to announce the launch of the following new pages for Wan's Ubin Journal! These pages will serve as sub-stories for my journal and would be up pretty soon for your reading pleasure, to kick start this blog. MAK'S MEMOIRS (MOM'S MEMOIRS) Mak's Memoirs is a personal recollection of the stories that my mom has to share with all of you. These will be told in her perspective,allowing you as a reader to reminisce, immerse and imagine yourself being in her shoes as you live your life back on Pulau Ubin from the 1960s till the 1990s. I hope that through these stories and memories of my mom's early life on the island, more can learn on the beauty and simplicity of kampong life in Singapore. 5 HOUSES OF KAMPONG SURAU NORTH 5 Houses of Kampong Surau North  is a page dedicated in memory of the path that once existed from present day ...

Hi all! For now, I will just share with you guys what happened last Sunday. It perhaps might be one of the most important or significant day in my mom's life. But first, a super brief summary to provide a sense of background knowledge. My mom was born and raised in Pulau Ubin till she reached her twenties. Following the death of her father in 1981, life has been gradually difficult to cope on the island, eventually leading to a necessary shift to the mainland in the hopes of a better life in 1989. In doing so, the house has been left abandoned on its own accord, without any external influences. Since then, my mom has never been back home ... till July 23rd, 2018. A quick side note: I have in fact found the house earlier back in April 22nd, 2018 together with the help of my colleagues from National Service (NS). However, my mom has not yet been brought to the area due to her health and also because of the rough terrain and dense forestation. I will be writing about ...