Really upgraded?

Want to guess what this is?

So nice sia.. Like some kind of sleek restaurant!

It's the deco of a hawker center! Hawker centers are no longer what they used to look like! Where have all the whitewashed walls with dirty fingerprints gone? What are these vertical lines doing here?

Pebble-like thing.

There are even nice stone structures. Is this related to some kind of feng-shui? I wonder if the red pail is part of the design also. And this can be found outside the toilets! Help you crap better?

If you are a snob and will only use resort-like toilets, fear not!

Check this out!

How chio can it get? I think this is even nicer than MY toilet. Still have plants and all. Do they absorb the "gas" emitted? Pooping in hawker centers doesn't seem so undesirable now!

MacDonald-like tables and chairs.

The color scheme thing that is going on in here is good. Can easily tell your friends where you are sitting. Good for me because I have many friends who like to play diva and arrive an hour after the meeting time. I'm quite diva-like in this sense also lah! Hahaha...

Don't like colorful furniture you say? Then this is the place for the minimalist in you...

Slick, black seats.

While all these renovations are supposed to be upgrades, I wonder if they are really for the better. I pretty enjoyed the old sights of tables that were chipped from many years of usage.

There's also the tiny mosaic tiles at its base and the fugly jade-like finishing...

Yep, the seat-less tables are for the handicapped.

I wonder if the food get tastier after the renovations but I'm sure they get more expensive. It is also quite nerve-wrecking when a hawker center is going to be upgraded. Will my favourite laksa remain? Where will the delicious yong tau foo move to? Somehow I have never really heard of foodcourt food being better than those in hawker centers. But on the day my younger cousin asked me why I HAD to bring him to a non-air-conditioned kopitiam for lunch, I knew that the future of hawker centers are threatened by the existence of cooler foodcourts with their homogenous cuisine. Bah!

There's also the old architecture of green zinc-plate covered roofs with decades of slime and grime stuck onto it...

I never knew dogs are not allowed in hawker centers.

Instead, the exterior of hawker centers now take on this kind of look...

Does new = colorful?

It's quite sad actually. Maybe it's because I am from a generation who had enjoyed ketchup-seasoned fishball noodles while sweating like a pig in a water-logged hawker center. Somehow, I think the food really did taste nicer then. Then again, maybe it did help that I did not have to pay for my meals back then... Haha... Although I yearned for the MacDonald's during those times, I think Mama was right to insist on bringing us to the good ol' hawker centers because fast food restaurants are pretty monotonous after a while.

The signboards also added more character to older hawker centers, which I think were uniquely Singapore.

Squint your eyes to see the distinctive signboards.

Sure, some of the newer places offer better ventilation but there is something cosy about eating in hawker center with the smell of oil in the air and wondering why there is no wind coming from the dirt-filled fans. Or is it just me? Muahahahahaha...

Maybe the only thing that really remained of the old hawker centers I knew of is the fact that elderly are still the ones who manned the toilets!

Old...

New...

Give me back my old roadside, wooden-table, wobbly-stools, neon-lighted hawker centers! (No, I'm not from that generation actually. :P)

*All pictures contributed by Serene! Thanks gal!