Running Home - Toa Payoh to Pasir Ris

I haven't run home from work for quite a while. I was in Toa Payoh attending a course so I decided to run home from there rather than take the train home. I checked the distance on Google Map and and it was about 16km via the car route. I reckoned that the route by foot should be almost the same except that I will not go up the Kaki Bukit Viaduct.

I started from Toa Payoh Lorong 4 at about 5.45 pm. It was a short run out of Toa Payoh to Braddell Road. At junction of Lorong 1 and Lorong 6, I passed the magnificent Toa Payoh Seu Teck Siang Tong, a Taoist temple. Took this picture with my phone from across the road against the light so the picture doesn't show how impressive the entrance to the temple is. For a closer look, try this link

Braddell Road is not a very nice place to run, with heavy traffic. I don't like to breath in fumes but no choice, this was the only practical way to go back. But I did get a view of the cleaned up Kallang River.

I supposed I could follow the course of the river all the way down to Bendeemer Road and run home from Kallang or Sims Drive but that could be detouring too much and I didn't really feel like doing an extended distance run.

So I continued and reached Bartley Road and on my right was this lush green space. It was breath taking and I haven't run here before. Trails for exploration? 

Another view of the place further down the road. This is of course part of the Mount Vernon cemetery if I am not wrong. I should go there before it makes way for some condominium.

The last highlight along the road was this gateway. It looks like the structure of temples entrance but look closely, there is a cross at the top. This is in fact, the main entrance of a school and not just any school but a Christian school. Now I wonder why does a Christian school have a Temple looking entrance?

It got progressively too dark to take further photos. Anyway, by now I was on Hougang Ave 3 running next to heavy traffic and factories in Defu. I went into the Kaki Bukit area, took a wrong turn and wound up at some construction site and had to detour but eventually I reached the familiar Bedok Reservoir and with that it was just another 5 km to home.

Total distance according to my unreliable Timex watch was 16.8 km and I took almost 2 hours. Not too bad considering that I stopped to cross countless road junction and took pictures. But this will probably be the one and only time doing this route. Next up will be another run home from the real work place probably as soon as next week.