The plan: Continue my Red Dot transportation exploration, this time riding the Singapore MRT East-West Line from Tuas Link to Outram Park as I watch the island change from one stop to the next. My companion post covers the rest of the line, from Tanjong Pagar to Pasir Ris.

Looking for more rail adventures? For an overview of every MRT and LRT line, plus suggestions for where to start, visit Singapore by MRT and LRT.

Tuas Link-Tuas West Road-Tuas Crescent-Gul Gicle

Tuas Link

Tuas is known for exactly two things: (1) light industry and (2) a bridge to Malaysia. I have never met anyone who has traveled to Tuas for fun, so I was surprised to find that just behind the Tuas Link MRT stop lie both a country club …

… and the Raffles Marina:

From here, you have a clear view out to the bridge that connects Singapore to Johor, Malaysia.

The East-West Line is one of the older MRT lines, so the stations tend to feel a bit dull and utilitarian. But the Tuas Link stop is a recent addition — it opened in 2017 — so it’s all shiny and new:

Tuas West Road

Things start to get pretty boring at Tuas West Road (unless industrial buildings are your thing).

The view from the train (which ran aboveground for most of the trip) says it all:

Tuas Crescent

Tuas Crescent looked exactly like Tuas West Road: more boxy buildings, more overpasses, more trucks. But this sign — which I found on a warehouse gate — was a new one for me:

As you ride the train east from here, you can see out over the water to the largely manmade Jurong Island, home to dozens of petrochemical industries:

Gul Circle

Here, we continue the slog through industrial Singapore:

There’s not much variety to the landscape.

Joo Koon-Pioneer-Boon Lay-Lakeside

Joo Koon

The scene starts to feel a bit more lively at Joo Koon, in part because there’s a mall! Singaporeans love shopping, so a mall is a true sign of civilization. Joo Koon also has some nice plantings that indicate that the government actually cares about this area looking attractive.

From here, you can walk to places like the Singapore Badminton Hall and the Singapore Discovery Centre (a museum where you can “discover the Singapore Story”). But Joo Koon is still pretty much an industrial zone — the air smells vaguely of chemicals, and factories predominate:

Pioneer

Pioneer feels like an entirely different world — at this station, you leave Tuas behind and enter the endless HDBs (Housing and Development Board apartment buildings) of the Jurong region. I found nothing but blocks and blocks of residences and a small hawker centre:

Boon Lay

Boon Lay station lets you out directly at Jurong Point, an enormous shopping mall. A cab driver once told me about this mall’s Japanese Food Street (called Shokutsu Ten), where you can apparently get great Japanese meals for a reasonable price. You can also see fake (and dusty) ninjas on the ceiling.

Lakeside

Lakeside offers the journey’s first real glimpse of green grass and trees:

A short walk here will take you out to Jurong Lake. Beyond that, you’ll find condos in one direction and HDBs in the other, with an above-ground train station in the middle:

Chinese Garden-Jurong East-Clementi-Dover

Chinese Garden

Singapore’s Chinese Garden is a lovely place to wander. You can get there via this tree-lined walk.

Chinese Garden also offered the first station art I’d seen on this particular adventure.

Some of Singapore’s MRT lines, like the Downtown Line, have art at every station, but the East-West Line has very little. In fact, it’s the only line not featured in the Land Transport Authority’s Art in Transit Gallery.

Jurong East

Sitting at the intersection of two MRT lines (the East-West and North-South Lines), a bus interchange, and three shopping malls — and surrounded on all sides by residential buildings — Jurong East is crazy-crowded. The MRT stop itself leads to a warren of mall corridors, where I ran into this giant flower:

Clementi

Clementi is nothing but HDBs as far as the eye can see. And while HDBs can sometimes feel monotonous in their boxiness, I’ll never get tired of the ubiquitous laundry poles that stretch up, up, up toward the sky.

While Clementi does feel packed with buildings, there are some lovely patches of green just beyond the station:

Dover

Dover offers something entirely new: on one side of the tracks sits Singapore Polytechnic, a giant institution; on the other, you’ll find a long, empty stretch of green, which separates the train tracks from the landed houses and condos beyond:

This is the first place along the East West Line that feels truly wealthy, where the housing stock is so deliberately protected from the noise and crowds of the MRT.

Buona Vista-Commonwealth-Queenstown

Buona Vista

Buona Vista, also a stop on the Circle Line, is home to the fascinatingly shaped Star Theatre, several shopping areas, and multiple high-tech business parks. It is fringed by large clusters of HDBs (including some with “My Buona Vista” stenciled jauntily on the facades).

Commonwealth

High-tech, shiny architecture disappears at Commonwealth, and you’re right back into the world of HDBs. I walked along typical storefronts like this one …

… and stopped for an ice kachang at a Koufu hawker centre.

Just outside, I found what may be my favorite sign ever in Singapore:

Who knew that killer litter was a thing?

Queenstown

As with Lakeside, Queenstown feels entirely local on one side of the station, while the other side is lined with condos.

Redhill-Tiong Bahru-Outram Park

Redhill

The best part of this stop was the Redhill Market (a combination wet market and food centre). Just behind it stand a few different styles of HDB:

At Redhill, I also walked by my first mosque of the trip: Masjid Jamiyah Ar-Rabitah.

Tiong Bahru

Tiong Bahru is a hipster hangout, a warren of twee bookstores, fancy coffee shops, boutique galleries, and justifiably revered local eateries. It is home to Singapore’s oldest housing estate as well as enormous high-rise HDB complexes:

On the edge of the neighborhood sits Tiong Bahru Park …

… whose signage proclaims a “haven of tranquility.”

Side note: Tiong Bahru was the first of the stops on my journey to be underground. It’s amazing how good a little bit of air conditioning can feel.

Outram Park

Singapore is a city-state, but this was the first stop that felt really urban. At the edge of downtown, Outram Park is a huge station — there’s a lot of underground walking to be done here. If you want to transfer to the North East or Thomson-East Coast Lines, this is the place to do it.

You also have plenty of ways to get aboveground, including exits serving Singapore General Hospital and the enormous Police Cantonment Complex. But I opted for the quieter side of Outram Park, which brings visitors out near Chinatown and Duxton Hill. Here. You’ll find a row of shophouses …

… which are home to everything from nightclubs and bakeries to the Grassroots Book Room …

… and what I was told is the “Purple Essence Location” (aka the Purple Temple):

As with many temples in Singapore, this small temple houses both Taoist and Buddhist deities — but it also has Islamic writing and a picture of Jesus hanging over the door. If you ever have a chance to visit, the guide here (who called himself a “watchdog”) was very chatty and informative.

There’s also art all over the place around Outram Park, including sculpture …

… and murals:

But while you may feel solidly in the city at this part of the East West Line journey …

… there’s always something just beyond the buildings to remind you that you’re in the tropics!