The National Heritage Board will have you believe that a leisurely visit to Jurong is a worthwhile exercise, particularly this Labor Day weekend.
The board launched a Jurong Heritage Trail this weekend as part of HeritageFest 2015.
The self-guided tour features 35 stops, including 12 heritage markers located in the site of some Singapore firsts — like a now-defunct drive-in cinema that used to screen films twice a night, and the city's first-ever hawker centre Yung Sheng Food Centre (now Taman Jurong Market and Food Centre).
There's also the Garden of Fame in Jurong Hill (formerly Bukit Peropok) where visiting heads of state and dignitaries like Deng Xiaoping, Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and Queen Elizabeth II have planted trees.
A former rubber plantation, Jurong was earmarked by the late Lee Kuan Yew as an industrial estate in the 1950s. During the kampong days, it was known as the koo chye (Chinese chive) capital of Singapore.
Jurong has since been (over)developed. Malls now crowd the Jurong East MRT stop.
For a not-so brief history of Jurong, here's the 78-page handout from NHB.
Photo: Sengkang via Wikipedia
The National Heritage Board will have you believe that a leisurely visit to Jurong is a worthwhile exercise, particularly this Labor Day weekend.
The board launched a Jurong Heritage Trail this weekend as part of HeritageFest 2015.
The self-guided tour features 35 stops, including 12 heritage markers located in the site of some Singapore firsts — like a now-defunct drive-in cinema that used to screen films twice a night, and the city's first-ever hawker centre Yung Sheng Food Centre (now Taman Jurong Market and Food Centre).
There's also the Garden of Fame in Jurong Hill (formerly Bukit Peropok) where visiting heads of state and dignitaries like Deng Xiaoping, Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and Queen Elizabeth II have planted trees.
A former rubber plantation, Jurong was earmarked by the late Lee Kuan Yew as an industrial estate in the 1950s. During the kampong days, it was known as the koo chye (Chinese chive) capital of Singapore.
Jurong has since been (over)developed. Malls now crowd the Jurong East MRT stop.
For a not-so brief history of Jurong, here's the 78-page handout from NHB.
Photo: Sengkang via Wikipedia