When we travel, we would visit the residences of the Head of States e.g. Buckingham Palace, the White House, the Blue House, etc.
Being a Sunday, 7th August 2011, and being a pleasant evening after the rain, DW and I took a bus to the Istana and found a 4-deep queue waiting to get into the grounds. I was hesitant to join the queue but it was moving quite quickly and DW wanted to see the expenditure of her taxed money. So we joined the queue and were into the grounds, after security screening, in less than 15 minutes.There was a little commotion behind us as we started walking and saw President Nathan shaking hands with the crowd behind us. We walked on and saw Mrs Nathan on a buggy and I had a good chat with her, away from the crowd who did not realise her presence.
We strolled through the Museum & NHB exhibits and arrived at the main building and saw an assembled group standing on the steps. One of the men in the group asked me to take a picture of him, then did we realise that President Nathan was following us to be photographed with the group.NaThAN is probably the most photographed President of Singapore, so snide some critics. But besides enjoying being photographed with people, the simple explanation is not just the two terms of office (12 years) held by Nathan, but more because of the digitisation of photography. How technology changes our lives.
On the 17th of August, in 10 days after our visit, Singapore would know who of the four TAN’s will be contesting in the democratic election for the successor to Nathan, and in 10 days after nomination day on the 27th of August, DW and I will be going to the polls to elect (i.e. exercise our rights and responsibilites in selecting) our next President TAN.After a noodles dinner at Plaza Singapura next to the Istana Singapura, DW bought some black cherries and we took a bus packed with Philippino maids and returned home. An interesting evening in Singapore.
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