What's Singapore like at 4am?

I put my inability to sleep to good use by joining an After Hours tour hosted by non-profit organisation My Community

- Cherie Lok

Lately, I've been finding it harder to fall asleep.

As insomnia becomes a more recurrent experience, I've developed a fascination with the witching hour - that liminal space between one day and the next in which most human activity is suspended.

Regular as clockwork, yet cloaked in mystery.

Surely the world must look different in the wilderness of early morning. Perhaps sleep deprivation might give me new eyes with which to view my city, a compact weft of flats and people so overly familiar as to feel boring at times.

So, when I hear that non-profit organisation My Community is hosting an After Hours tour as part of its annual festival, I jump at the chance to put my inability to sleep to more productive use.

I wake at 3am and drive through a gentle fog to Queenstown, where I meet a groggy group of nine in front of the Sheng Siong supermarket in Tanglin Halt.

Leading the way is 57-year-old Andrew Lin. He went to Queenstown Secondary School and spent a lot of time in the neighbourhood growing up, though the freelance tour guide no longer lives here.

He ushers us inside the supermarket to observe how the workers prepare for the coming day. They restock the shelves, mop the aisles and unload the fish. We ooh and ahh at rows of familiar produce as if seeing them for the first time, such is the transformative power of an organised tour at odd hours.

Ms Sue Lightfoot, an accountant who lives in the area, points out that one of the shelves has shifted from its usual position. A small change, but perhaps a foretaste of the upheaval to come.

We cross the road to Tanglin Halt Market, which is just stirring to life.

"This is a dying estate," Mr Lin pronounces grimly as we pass rows of quirky businesses - a cobbler's makeshift hut, a watch repair store and a traditional Chinese medicine clinic.