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X-Pro1 Diaries: A Singapore Siesta Story

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The midday sun was punishing, baking the pavement and all that walked on it. People darted about squinting in the light and holding up folded newspapers and their hands in a futile attempt at shielding themselves from the heat, moving from one patch of shade to another.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion, their heavy lunches and the heat producing a heady cocktail of drowsiness, sleep beckoning at every step. Valiantly, they resist, sitting back upright, but Sleep, the seductive mistress has her way with tired bodies and clouded minds.

“Just for a few minutes … I’ll close my eyes … just for a few minutes …”

View the rest of my ongoing X-Pro1 experiences and photos or the rest of the photos on Handcarry Only

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X-Pro1 Diaries: A Break In The Day

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Lunch hour exists like a comma in a sentence, a transit during a flight, a breath in the middle of long note, breaking the day up into two more manageable halves. I could never understand people who ate at their desks at work, doing that was akin to playing all 90 minutes of a football match without halftime. Even going out of the office (if you worked in one) for a short walk serves to rejuvenate and recharge the mind for the afternoon ahead.

The midday sun beat down upon the pavement, a dizzy heat rising from the surface. People stood almost directly above their shadows, the heat and humidity forming a think and cloying atmosphere as women carried colourful umbrellas in an attempt to shield themselves from the sun.

Under the cool shade of a tree, construction workers toiling away all morning sought the chance for a quick kip, a noisy bunch of coworkers sharing a meal and the latest gossip, the restaurants busy with the lunchtime crowd, juggling orders and trays of perilously balanced food, and others opted for a cigarette.

For the non working crowd, the hour held no significance, time passing as it always had. The lunch hour was not unlike the hour before, or indeed, the hour after.

Then just as suddenly as the commotion began, it all turned quiet, the workers back in their air-conditioned offices, leaving behind plates of half eaten food, the ice from their drinks forming a small puddle of condensation, trickling to the edge of the table where it dripped on the floor.

A quiet monotony ensued.

2 men smoking red tie