The amazing tricycle

This type of tricycle you rarely find nowadays, that every morning, I woke up at 4 am, 364 days cycled to Sims Drive, from Mattar Road, loaded it with containers of foods.

Covered it with a piece of plastic  put my bicycle on top of it. My mom sitting behind, rain or shine, even the tyres punctuated, after unloaded the foods at Sims Drive hawker centre.

Cycled to Upper Aljunied Technical School, after school cycled the tricycle back to Mattar Road from Sims Drive in the 1970s.

World Record (Free Style) Soccer Juggling Feats?

All he years since 1986 until recently finally,  Eric  to agreed he had seen me juggling a standard football 3,400 times in one hour and 20 minutes, keeping the standard soccer ball in the air, without letting it drop on the floor at Woodsville Secondary School in 1986 from the beginning to finish, in different patterns, using my body, shoulders, neck, head, back, thigh, heel instep and outstep except my hands.  

Eric recently arranged a gather together with Francis  and his family of his children and wife at the Circuit Road market, we took some wefies together.

Incidentally Francis lent me the extra bicycle for the feats filmed and broadcasted in the TV few months before the record breaking feat.

I had made numerous attempts to verify it before.

Guinness Book of World Records could admit and recognise it one of these days base on different criteria or category?

Archivedhttps://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Page/straitstimes19851201-1.1.24

                                  

The Straits Times interviewed by Janice Seah

I had wrote to Ms Jackie Chan of the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation Executive producer now Mediacorp to verify my record breaking feats as the 2 tapes which I and my friend recorded, was damaged by mould, she agreed and replied me through  email. 

The video recording of my amazing (Free Style) football juggling feats and cycling feats had been erased long time ago

It was broadcasted in 1986 in the program World of Sports, Channel 5, Sunday 10 am

Letter from Ms Jackie Chan

The amazing interview with Surekha Yadav of Today newspaper

Archived  https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/today20060320-1.2.24.6

Today newspaper

 

My 10 most popular photos

I started taking photos when I was a few years old. These are my 10 most popular photos in Flickr

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjENqRy8

Otters spotted at Kallang River

Otters spotted at Kallang River beside Upper Boon Keng Road HDB the National Geographic team went there to film it

NatGeo film crew at Upper Boon Keng beside the garden HDB

Otters were seen active at Kallang River

https://www.facebook.com/otterscene/posts/987890628082746?comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22O%22%7D

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/bishan-otters-defeat-marina-rivals-again-in-kallang-basin-clash

Amazing Mediacorp artistes was seen filming in various locations

                           Sora Ma filming Fatefully Yours at Upper Boon Keng

                            Felicia Chin filming Jungle Survivor at Odean Tower

                                       Zheng Geping filming at Kallang River

                            Jeanette Aw filming Dream maker at Raffles MRT

                                     Fann Wong filming at Bugis j\Junction

                              Rui En filming Mister Flower at Cavenage Bridge

                      Carrie Wong filming Hello Miss Driver at 77 Robinson Road

                         Kym Ng and Quan Yi Fong filming at Lavendar Street

                                         Zoe Tay filming at UOB Plaza

                           Chen Tien Wen filming at Bouna Vista kindergarden

                                    Jesseca Liu filming at Geylang Road

                                       Vivian Lai filming at Bugis Junction

https://www.flickr.com/photos/henryleong/50623138622/in/dateposted-public/ 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/henryleong/35866210141/in/dateposted-public/

The amazing Baltic

This amazing photo taken from the castle at the Estonia border overlooking the Russian border, I wondered can I consider I had travelled to another country?

My amazing experiences in sleeping in the street

My dad was a bag maker, which at time he earned only $15 per month in the sixties, when I was few years old he passed away from illnesses.

Left  6 of us, my mom, my 3 sisters, my brother and me to fend for ourselves.

We lived on social welfare and picked cans to sell for a living. Many times we survived on dark soya sauces and plain rice at times with an egg.

Than someone teaches my mom how to cook food to sell. Steaming the glutinous rice and yam cakes 2 hours made the room very hot. The heat didn't dispersed until the wee hours in the morning

The pushcart quite similar to the makeshift pushcart when I was a few years old from Mattar Road to Circuit Road pavement to hawk the food, before I go to my primary school

https://www.est1930.co/tiong-bahru-satay

Even after the cooking stopped, the room still hot with the heat generated around.
I usually avoid staying at home due to the heat by sitting in the staircase downstairs for hours watching the days went by, playing Chinese chess at the coffee shop and catching fishes at the Pelton canal etc.

My 2nd sister after married brought her 4 children to come to stay at our one room rented flat. So at night there were hardly any place to sleep.

Every morning 364 days, rain or shine. I woke up early in the morning at 4 am brought the foods down and push the cart from Mattar Road to Circuit Road  to sell. At that time if the estate officers caught us selling foods they might confiscated it.

The heat in the room and worrying about the food been confiscated exacted  heavy toll on my 3 sisters and mom health.

Later we got a stall to rent at Sims Drive. Situation improved a bit. After that I am able to buy a 3 room flat.

                                                      Sims Drive market

Every night after all my neighbors slept at around 11 pm plus I brought the cardboard and a pillow out to the end of the alley to sleep, until 4 am woke up to help to sell the food.

It is not safe sleeping outside at the corridor of the rental flat. There were constant fightings around the area at that time. Sometimes raining and strong winds I moved inner,. At the end of the corridor which the open air were cooler.

 

Photo credit: The Observer

After we got the rental stall at Sims Drive every morning 4 am I woke up, brought the food down to the tricycle covered it with a plastic and put my bike on top of it and my mom sitting behind. cycled to Sims Drive.

http://www.bikequestrian.org

Rain or shine 364 days I got to cycle it to the stall as the whole family of 10 depend on it, If the tyres punctured I pushed it there.

After unloading it I will cycled to my school in Upper Aljunied Technical School to study after finished the classes cycled back to Sims Drives to bring back the tricycle home.

 

At Upper Aljunied Technical School

Things begin to improve, A master printer who print the Lianhe Zaobao stayed nearby came to my mom stall, encouraged me to work in Singapore Press Holding.

After I started working one year plus I got the good fortune to buy a 3 room HDB flat at 27 years old, which officially end my journey of sleeping  on the street .

I worked 7 days a week then with the overtimes and bonus to build up the finances and started to invest, which a colleague introduced me a broker at 30, so I am able to afford to buy a flat.

I regular borrow book to read at the mobile library at 10 years old, which came every Wednesday in Macpherson Community Club building up my knowledges and interest in travelling.

To avoid staying at home I train regularly with my ball juggling and cycling which the medias found it interesting and came to record and broadcasted it.

 

                                                 At the National Library

Photo taken in Europe

Subsequently Singapore Press Holdings called me up for the award. And published my story in the internal Newsletter.

                                               Singapore Press Holdings

Macpherson Community Club