in advancement of my campaign to visit to every library in singapore at least once before i leave, i took myself to sembawang today. it was one of the nearer two i had on my list, the other being yishun library. there are also jurong west, bukit merah and bukit panjang on my list - in fact, i was rather surprised about that: a count shows that of the 17 community libraries (excluding esplanade) and 3 regionals, i go to 6 regularly and am very familiar with 5 others, either going to them now and then, or used to go regularly. i have gone to 3 only very recently, and that leaves the five i have never been to before, though there are some libraries that shouldn't count as "having been to", such as choa chu kang (i've only been once, and that was a long time ago) and pasir ris (sama) which i suppose means to be fair i should bring the list up to seven.

if you are a serious reader of children's literature you have to pay one visit to sembawang which is genuinely stuffed to the gills with children's books: i have never quite seen such a collection before, where not only do they stock a great many authors they seem to stock their entire literary output with multiple copies of each at that. i saw about thirtyphillipa pearces sitting in a row. being without phone or watch when i came out of the children's section i was alarmed to find how late i was and bolted with no more than a cursory round of the adult section which was, as su-lin said, jawdroppingly alphabetised. i would go again for the children's lib but it has one thing overwhelmingly against it: the utter seediness of sun plaza and the lack of a respectable cafe or restaurant substitute for the library cafe. libraries in suburban malls seldom have galilees (which is another reason i adore sengkang!!) but isn't that because the mall can provide a coffee bean or starbucks or at a pinch, delifrance, which the standalone libraries can't? (well there's tampines, the exception, but tampines mall is across the road and there's a choice of bubble tea, starbucks, cartel and yakun...) i shall give sembawang one more shot, when i do yishun. for now, next libraries: choa chu kang and bukit panjang.