A terribly cliche title for a cliched Singapore story.

Tonight I helped my Dad clear out all the things from the family car. We bought this car ten years ago from the showroom. It was an exciting time because it was the first time we'd bought a car that was not pre-owned. It was not a fancy European luxury car, it wasn't even the typical Japanese Toyota  that most people bought. We bought a Korean car, at the time (before Chinese cars became a reality) were probably seen as an inferior car. My dad really took care of that car, he brushed the rugs every day and until today, the original plastic covering the sunshades above the front seats remain firmly in place. My dad talked about how this is the only car he's ever owned in the 40 years he's been driving, and it will probably be the last.  It is too expensive to own a car these days. The (many) taxes are too high and the roads are too congested because they were made for a time when there weren't so many people.

Lately, too many things seem to be getting too big for me. I have lived in Jurong all my life. And for the bulk of my life, Jurong has been a place where nothing happened. 10 years ago there was absolutely nothing here. We had one mall that was terribly run down and had a really random dinosaur interior. There was an arcade, a cinema, a terribly old ice-skating rink and a few small clothing stalls. There was also IMM which was predominantly furniture mall.

There were a small parks and playgrounds but that was all. They tore down the old mall with the intention of  building a new mall. Then the Lehman brothers financial crisis caused construction to be postponed. So for almost 5 years, the only mall we had was IMM. And this was long before it was revamped to become the semi-hip foodie and factory outlet mall it is today.

But suddenly everything changed a little too quickly. There are now 4 malls ( or 5) within walking distance from my house in which there are two cinemas, and ice skating rink and 3 Starbucks in the 500 metre radius between the malls. God only knows why one might ever need so may Starbucks outlets. All the parks are connected in this massive labyrinth known as a park connector and the train and bus interchange are always too crowded.

So I find myself walking past the likes of Kate Spade and Poulet in flip flops on Saturdays now. I don't think I will ever get used to it.  It is incredibly convenient, no doubt. But I also miss the times when I could look out my window at night not wince at the LED lights flashing from the malls at my bedroom window. I miss not having to dread rush hour as much as I do now. I miss the time when Jurong was a place that nobody went to and that only the bunch of us who lived here seemed to have some kind of (misplaced) pride about. I am only 20 years old. That means I am old enough to remember and crave the simpler pre-iPhone era but young enough not to be able to ignore technology and capitalism.

Maybe it's just growing pains but still, this town is getting too big for me.

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