(this is a backdated post for 4th April 2010 and is continued from this post)

When the shuttle bus finally arrived 15 minutes later, we followed the queue and got up the bus while Catherine carried Darius and I with the stroller.

Aboard the bus, there was not enough space to squeeze in the stroller by the side so it ended up occupying one seat beside Catherine, with Darius on her lap and me one seat behind them.

It was a pretty long ride where the bus took us all the way to MacPherson Station.

When we made our way down to the station, I was slightly taken aback by the crowd and buzzing activities. Besides the passengers, there were also students involved in performance or involved in crowd control and reception. There were also events, performances and games going on at various times. Quite an unique experience for us to see these in a MRT station.

The lady sitting beside the tic-tac-toe was Evelyn Tan, the MediaCorp Artiste

Over at the reception, we picked up a pamphlet detailing on the Circle Line and what are the places we can go from these stations. Some stations are really going to be very useful, such as the Stadium Station which can bring us to the Singapore Indoor Stadium and the future Sports Hub. The Esplanade and Promenade will also bring us closer to the Esplanade and Marina Square without having to walk all the way from City Hall Station.

We also picked up a smaller piece of pamphlet featuring the four museums that were opened to public for free on that day. There was this stamp-collecting event where visitors on that day could collect one stamp from each of the four museums (the National Museum of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum, Peranakan Museum and Singapore Philatelic Museum) and upon collecting any two, we could exchange the pamphlet for a 1-for-1 museum pass which is valid till 30th June 2010. Not a bad deal and it would give us more reasons to check out the museums that day.

Back to the events at MacPherson Station, we did not really stop by to check them out as we felt we were already running late and would like to get to Bras Basah Station as soon as possible. Anyway, the train rides between these 11 stations were all free of charge for that day, with the ticket gantries wide open for anyone to pass through.

Free for all!

We then took the lift down to the platform level and entered the train’s front cabin. To our surprise, we could see through the head of the train as it made its way through the tunnel.

Reminded me of a roller coaster ride, albeit a slower one! ^^

Initially we had thought that all trains along the Circle Line were already built like this but according to the news reports that I read later on, that was not the case. These trains were unveiled to the public for the first time during the Circle Line Discovery.

Like some of the passengers on board, I was pretty excited about seeing our train going through the tunnels and had taken a short video clip on the experience:

On the other hand, I couldn’t help but wonder if this will initially cause an unbalanced distribution of people on the train when the Circle Line opens on 17th April? It would be quite likely that curious passengers would flock to the either ends of the train just to see into the tunnels.

Sidetracking a bit, for those who remembered the Nicoll Highway collapse on 20th April 2004 while building the Circle Line, four victims were claimed near the Nicoll Highway Station but the body of the 40-year-old selfless hero Heng Yeow Peow was never found.

We soon arrived at Bras Basah Station and similarly, there were events going on, such as a cantonese opera show that we briefly came across. The architecture of the station was also quite unique, such as the huge horizontal beams and glass ceilings which was located below a pool of water.

Unable to locate the lift to the surface, we ended up taking a long escalator up to the control station level.

Darius looking tired as he had hardly taken a nap...

It was already close to 4pm then and with the museums closing at 6pm or 7pm, we did not stay to watch for the performances and exhibitions at the station and headed straight for the exit.

We had a hard time deciding which exit to take since none of them pointed to the National Museum of Singapore. We had planned for it to be the first museum we would be visiting since it closes the earliest out of the four museums.

In the end, after referring to the location map in the station, we took the exit passing through the Singapore Management University (SMU). That didn’t turn out to be a wise choice however, as we ended up getting stucked in the basement as we could not find a way up to the surface.

Yes, there’s this loooong flight of stairs heading up but there was no way we were to make our way up with Darius and the stroller without getting ourselves soaked with sweat!

There were some lifts available but they were only accessible to SMU students, who could swipe their student passes to get through. Come to think of it, we should have asked to hitch a hike when we saw two students swiping their passes.

Later on, we managed to locate an escalator leading upwards but alas, it was spoilt! So in the end, we had no choice but to walk all the way up the escalator and left us panting when we reached the top. -_-|

All this while, Darius had been showing a bored face, after having seated in his stroller since we alighted from the shuttle bus earlier. It was only until we carried him out that he happily started to run and explore the place around the campus.

Darius is all energetic and merry once again! ^^

As we made our way towards the National Museum, we could already see a long queue in front of the museum from a distance. We were disappointed as we had wanted to check out the Quest For Immorality exhibition, especially when it was the last day for that exhibition that day.

Looks like many others were also eager to check out the exhibition before it's gone

So in the end, did we go ahead to queue up and did we managed to get into the museum? Find out in our next post! ^^

(continued in the next post here)

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