walking down the same old lane; memory lane

life is a many curious thing.

last weekend, fate brought me back to a place that i have never re-visited in 20 over years. eventhough it holds many a memories, most of which i have let drifted away with the wind of time, it is a place that i am most unlikely to return to. simply because there is no reason to. it's tucked away in a corner of bukit timah, not close to anywhere that you will want or need to be in, and so it remains a stranger to me all these years while it changed and transformed with time.

bukit timah plaza. a place where i spent 4 years of my life amongst strangers and friends, amongst family members.. but not quite, a place where i learnt a lot of things, a place where i grew up with the companionship of me, myself and i.

even after 20 over years, i was amazed to see that some things did not change. most things have, of course, but in this world where everything moves in lightning speed, and life moves on in the blink of an eye and leaves you grasping at the empty air, the familiarity of the place is like a security blanket; musky, old and comfortable. pizza hut was still there. dbs bank was still there. but more surprising, even gallen sports was still there.

where i bought my first pair of dark blue nike sports shoe. i can still see the image clearly in my mind..... or at least i think i can, because suddenly it feels like it could have been new balance, and not nike. *grins* sometimes, you think you know something so well, and you think you remember it very clearly, but it's all a trick of the mind. yes, definitely, it's new balance.

even bro's favourite music shop is still there. amazingly, even the decoration, or the lack of it, doesn't seem to have changed much. i wonder if i walk in there, will they still remember my bro? was it tony? i don't remember. then again, i didn't know him very well back then. despite staying above the shopping center, and probably coming down here a million times, i didn't visit that shop more times than the fingers on one hand.

a part of my memory of that place brings back the whiff of the most delicious mee siam, available only at the corner stall in the highest floor. my mind knows that it is the most delicious mee siam ever, the typical wet soupy type of singaporean mee siam, but i can't really remember anything else about it, except for my favourite moniker of it being 'the most delicious'. is it hot? is it sweet? is it aromatic? i've forgotten every single detail.

it's not on the highest floor anymore, but it's still in that cute little corner spot, several floors down.

last saturday i had a taste of it again. it was delicious. undoubtedly. was it as good as last time? i can't even remember how it was suppose to be, so i wouldn't be able to tell the difference. but being able to recapture that part of my memory again, even for a little while, even for a small bite, was priceless. it was like a dream come true. i didn't finish it, i couldn't, but just being able to be there, to have another taste of my memory again, it was enough. if i could freeze it and bring it back with me, so that i can let the memory melt on my tongue and re-awaken memories from long long ago, i would have.

the funniest part of re-living this gourmet experience, with all the satisfaction that it brought, is that i probably did not have this mee siam more than 10 times in all my years there. so why is it so special? because it belonged to a time past, where things are now only pictures in your mind, where memories are what you think or remember it to be, and being able to physically taste it or re-live it, and to capture at the elusive past even for a moment, the experience is so real and mind-boggling.