Bugis

Canvas-covered passages branch like a maze. Some three hundred narrow stalls of clothes, bags and phone parts press together, and the first price quoted leaves room to bargain. This site is a rebuild from the 1980s, after the original street was cleared.

An old street was roofed over in glass and turned into a mall. Shophouse outer walls and window frames are indoor walls now, and walking between them means walking an air-conditioned lane.

The building of 1887 takes the eye before the exhibits do. A spiral stair climbs under a glass dome with an installation hung in its ceiling. The permanent show works the island's history from the top floor down. Two hours gets you to the last room.

A Hindu temple that at times draws more Chinese worshippers than Tamil ones. People coming to the Guanyin temple next door took to offering incense at this doorway too, and the temple set out a stand for it. Shoes come off to go inside.

The incense at the entrance stings the eyes. Inside, a bamboo stick is shaken out of a cylinder and its number read as a fortune, with a counter beside the hall to write the reading out. Stalls in front sell flowers, incense and paper money together.

Ride to level 16 and the city centre opens up with no ticket bought. A glazed bridge crosses between the two blocks, and from it the roofs of old school buildings stack against new hotels.

Two blocks with no cars in them. Stalls write calligraphy and read fortunes down one side, and old school buildings taken over by arts groups stand along the other. This is the path worshippers take between the two temples.

Hainanese arrivals settled this street, and kitchens serving that province's food are still on it. A short row of shophouses has hotels backing onto it, so the street itself is over in a few minutes.

This was the Japanese street before the war. Photo studios, clinics and inns lined it, and most of the buildings have gone, leaving the street name and a few houses. Without hunting down the plaques it is just a road you walk along.

A Portuguese mission church. The present building went up in 1912 and its stained glass and floor tiles date from then, so even after restoration the interior colour is not showroom bright. In Holy Week the procession comes out onto the street.

A white colonial hotel opened in 1887 by the Armenian Sarkies brothers; it is a national monument. Since the 2019 restoration the lobby is for guests only, so visitors stick to the arcade shops and courtyards. The turbaned doorman is a photo stop himself.

The buildings of a convent school founded in 1854 now ring a courtyard of restaurants. The Gothic chapel serves as a hall for weddings and concerts. In the wall on Victoria Street survives the Gate of Hope, where babies were once left.

Used bookshops, art suppliers and stationers fill the lower floors of this 1980 public housing block, dubbed the City of Books. Students hunt used textbooks and study guides. Weak air-con leaves the corridors warm, but prices undercut the big bookstores.