Easties have East Coast Park, Golden Mile, and the excellent sports facilities in Kallang. In Yishun, I make do by cycling to Sembawang ‘beach’, a sorry strip of sand barely 500m long but with an excellent view of Johor’s many landfill fires. No wonder most of my friends only visit me when receiving inpatient treatment at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. By the way, can you buy me a pack of cigarettes? C’est La Yishun.
Thankfully, our government is doing everything it can to make the north more habitable. On Saturday, they reopened Sembawang Hot Spring Park after a two-year renovation. You might have visited the place when you were younger. Here’s what to expect in 2020:

However, most of the people present on opening day were SPH journalists explaining how very hot the hot spring is, so I expect the situation to improve.

There are many Nparks people standing around in polo shirts. I feel sorry for them, for having to get up on a weekend to stand around watching Minister Ong Ye Kung play with water.


The elderly folks are still here, but substantial improvements have been made.
Nparks have really outdone themselves this time. Instead of taps, we now have a four-tiered, wheelchair-accessible pool with different temperatures for every tier. The main water collection point has taps of different heights, including a ‘shielded water collection’ to protect wheelchair users from the backsplash, and a ‘two-level’ collection point for kids or very short people.

They also provide wooden spoons. Some visitors used the spoons to rinse their calves, while others used it to scoop their eggs.
It’s probably fine so long as you do not try to eat your eggs with the spoon.

Do NOT, under any circumstance, just leave your eggs in a container of rapidly-cooling water. You will get raw eggs. This is—uh—what my friend did. He had to make the walk of shame to dispose of his uncooked eggs. It was thoroughly, utterly humiliating—or so he tells me.
Some of the more intelligent visitors brought quail eggs, which are smaller and easier to cook. Sadly, I was not amongst them.


You might laugh, but you’d be surprised to see the number of people who made this mistake. Many of them are staring at their too-hot water with the forlorn expressions of Narcissus staring at his own reflection in the pool. From time to time, they dip their toes in the water, only to flinch and jerk away, cursing and complaining.



Probably not. According to Google Analytics, the average RICE reader is a white-collar millennial between 20-30, with above-average education and below-average income. As such, you are unlikely to visit Yishun for a foot bath. If you do, you will be bored out ofyour skull within 15 minutes.
That being said, Sembawang Hot Spring Park is lovely. I salute the government’s efforts to build and maintain public parks in the most godforsaken corners of our island. The kids and elderly folks seem to be enjoying themselves thoroughly, and I feel a sense of ‘secondhand’ pleasure. This is what happens when you approach ‘uncle’ age.
The only pity was Minister Shanmugam’s absence. I thought he would be present because his ward is Chong Pang. All the dumb POFMA squabbles must be keeping him busy.