wow… i just came home from my lesson and omg i took a super old-school sbs (now smrt) bus! i haven’t been on one of those in years. i remember taking them and having to regain my balance while i fed my ‘mrt card’ through the red machine and pressing the 45c button, then just running to my seat, aka whereever you land when you finally manage to stop running (because the bus is taking off!). of course, my mum or whoever’s taking me out would then come along and scold me for sitting too far away from them (very wtf right i chose the seat first leh!) irregardless, i tell ya, it’s better than the knight bus. the bus tonight resembled one of those old creepy, rundown hospitals in japanese horror movies, where the exit sign is the exact shade of garish red, flashing like the emergency sign at a byoin, only with incessant beeping noises.

i just typed all of the above in like 10 seconds. *catches breath before it runs away again*

hahah penang buses are run down and old and the exterior may resemble that of the old-school smrt bus but they are really different. penang buses have two categories. the old white & blue buses and the new, rapidpenang buses. i’ve had my share of weird encounters on penang buses, and that after hearing those you might not want to send your kid to school on a penang bus hahah. smrt bus drivers are reckless yes, but when they stop to let you alight they make sure they slow down (so sweet right!). who can forget those smooth brown chairs that are so much more comfortable (and hygenic, really!) than the current furry seats on buses now, where all the bacteria thrive! >:D *cue fat man & perverts jokes*

who can forget collecting those pink/yellow sbs/smrt bus tickets?? some people had a huge collection, with the wordings fading off slower than that of a movie ticket. i remember huge creative artworks made from these little scraps of paper, and of course, the horrible littering in buses. tickets could be found in every nook and cranny of seats, all folded up into tiny squares or rolled up like little ciggie butts.

when it was coming to my stop, i glanced at the bars anxiously looking for the bells, only to remember that the bells were on the sills. handles were still round - i remember sliding my hand through and taking them for bangles as a kid, and there were individual seats as well.

it just isn’t the same, having futuristic-looking ezlink devices installed near the doors of the old sbs bus, looking awkwardly out of place, as if it were a little girl dolled up in diamonds and adorned in the best silk wandering among the slums and squatters of india (or any other country, really).

anyone who knows me should know that my favourite form of transportation is the bus. it used to be airplanes, then i got sick of it just like any frequent flyer. up till a few years ago, whenever i was sad or just needed a place to think, i would take the 67 bus at night to the end, then alight, cross the road and take the same bus in the opposite direction. bus rides are ideal for thinking, for long conversations, for just watching people. perhaps my love for buses stem from my childhood, a reminder of simpler times before where everything was so much easier, a reminder of 1990s singapore where it wasn’t all that much of a stepford wife.

i wonder how i have willingly given up my simplistic life for one that’s materialistic, for one that finds the simple notion of faithful love sickening, for one that i would never would be proud to have ten years ago.

have we grown up, or have we deteriorated?