Squares of captured time

I don't know why, but these square, translucent glass panels (with a faint tinge of green) on the floor used to be my favourite features of the old Fullerton Building, when it was still the General Post Office.  There was a whole row of them on the corridor of the building. Walking on them was such a thrill because of the feeling that you were actually walking on the roof of the basement below. Then there were those mysterious ventilation slits  -- black cast iron grills -- at the side of the brown granite walls which you could peer through, to catch glimpses of the happenings in the basement. I remember that it was lighted up with yellow bulbs -- and there were people there working quietly -- were they sorting out mail? (The glass squares shown in this picture belonged to the OCBC Building at Chulia Street. Picture taken on 4  October 2015. Are there any more buildings with such glass panels on the floor?)

Today, I look in vain for those glass panels on the floor outside the building which everybody knows, is now the Fullerton Hotel. But enough that I know they once existed. They may still be there now, just covered by the sands of modernity. I am glad I had many happy moments skipping over those little squares  -- sometimes with a little help from Dad as he helped me leap over a few squares in one great standing broad jump. And I loved to hear my parents pronouncing it as "Foo-ler-ton Bil-lor-ding" -- in thick Cantonese accent.