Most Romantic Night Ever

[Saturday, 14 August, 2010]

My brothers and I had a game of Command and Conquer before my younger brother went to bed. We planned to go swimming in the morning and thus I wanted to try dozing off earlier. However, Eileen messaged me and told me of her failed application to SIM and we started talking on phone later. Her incredible cute stories of her past entertained me till after 6am.

I woke up at around 12pm, feeling surprise that my younger brother did not wake me up for the swim. However, I could see that the sky was not in good mood. Five of us had lunch at the market and the owner selling duck rice turned me off the second time with his sales. My younger brother wanted to add an additional egg and he muttered and then pointed at the picture of a set meal for me, which included beancurd and egg, and thus I said okay to him. In the end, he did not serve us with egg and he told me that he had earlier mentioned that the egg was sold out. It was sort of ridiculous. The worst thing was that his duck meat was over salty.

Not long after reaching home, Huiting messaged me and told me to help her with a banner design for a blog, which she needed it by the same day. I spent the next few hours doing up the banner. Towards late afternoon, Regina told me she did not want to attend her church but she refused to meet me earlier.

I set off after 7pm and took bus 167 at Cantonment Link. When I was near Bukit Merah, I saw a bus number 5 in front and I had a strong intuition that Regina inside and true enough that she SMSed me that she was reaching. We went shopping for food together. I was quite disappointed that I could not find sushi at the NTUC. The MacDonald’s was closed as well. We went to the KFC and that was when I realised that upsizing everything in a Zinger meal could cost a big bomb.

We went back to the interchange and took bus 131. When it started turning into Bukit Purmei, I was quite turned off since Henderson Waves was actually just a few bus-stops in the straight Henderson Road away from the interchange. After making a big round, we finally reached our destination and climbed up the stairs to the beautiful Henderson Waves. I was glad that Regina was amazed with the beautiful scenery as well. It was a cool night and I had never thought of being with a female friend hanging around there at night, especially when I did not own a car.

We walked to the far side of the bridge and found a space to sit down. We took our dinner while playing around with the cameras. Next, we walked towards the Terrace Garden and we stopped by the fitness corner to take photos together. It was the moment I had waited for years as she trimmed her hair super short the previous time I managed to take a picture with her.

As we were entering Terrace Garden, I saw three Bangala walking behind us and I supposed that was the problem with going out with a girl at night that I had to tighten up my muscle and get ready for any unforeseeable event. Regina was acting like a reporter with my Sony camera but the battery was drained up soon. It was to my horror that my younger brother did not charge the spare battery and we had to give up the fun.

We reached the top of Terrace Garden to join other people to glance at the fireworks of the Youth Olympics Games starting ceremony from far, but it did not last for long and I could hardly catch any. Regina was waiting for more fireworks with my Olympus camera but it was a useless wait. I was glad that she was ready to take more photos with me ever since her crush joked with her that she was ugly. She did not see the remote control I held in my hand until I decided it was not fun to keep the secret anymore.

She was on the phone for quite long before I led her down to Forest Walk. The place was beautiful, though it more remote than any other places and I was shocked that she chose to complete the journey with me instead of turning back. It was the first time I went there at night, and instead of being with a group of guy friends, I was in fact with a cute girl. I felt lucky being trusted. We reached the Alexandra Arch after the long walk and finally Hort Park. After using the toilet, we went down to the hall area and Regina took pictures with the SYOG Mascot. We went to the swinging seat near the entrance and finally started heading off.

I checked my phone and was amazed that it was already 11.30pm. Regina was worried about getting home since she stayed far in the east and I was a little disappointed for she should not worry with me around. We crossed over the road and took bus 166 to Outram Park and waited for the last bus number 2. On the way, I dropped Hirman a SMS and he told me I could look for him afterwards.

It was one of the greatest nights I had ever been through.

.

Staff Bonding – Food Rally

Friday was quite a special day. After some hesitation, I finally decided to go into the office in shorts. When I saw Alvin wearing more causal than me, I knew I was safe. Afni made some cupcakes for everyone. Most people were in high spirit.

I went to Pui Kuan straight away for the amendment of the poster once again and around an hour later, just before everyone was moving off, she told me there was another amendment.

Things almost turned sour when Weitat dragged the time. He was helping Madam Seet with her work and at the point of time when we were moving out, he was not down at the car park yet. Jingkun was frustrated for the sudden delay because it was already planned since so early. I felt it was ridiculous as well but I remained silent since it was pointless to say anything or to change his decision like always. We decided to go ahead with the game without him but he turned up to ease our disappointments.

Joy sped off in her Suzuki, sending the four “hunks” she claimed to Hort Park. We were quite lost at first but we eventually got ourselves registered at the car park and took a picture to start off. Our initial plan was to stroll off fast but the teams in front were running and thus, we followed.

Jingkun was deadbeat somehow at the start at Forest Walk unexpectedly. My right knee started to ache soon as well. Weitat and I tried to take the gradual slope up to realise taking the stairs could be much faster. We reached the Hilltop and finally climbed up to the usual Henderson Waves.

Next, we tried to fool the rest of the teams into wrong direction but it somehow did not work. The journey towards the Cable Car station marked my greatest mistake as I led the team to take the stairs up. It was the normal route for trekking but the other teams took the road instead and made a faster and less effort trip.

The finish dash down the stairs towards the Harbourfront MRT station allowed me to lead all the way, except that we were all lost at the entrance since it was the last station and yet nobody was around to receive us. Jonathan and Joy were doing their shopping and had to rush over.

I was told of reporting near the food centre and quickly rushed over to get the puzzle from Sharon. It was a magic cubic and Jonathan quickly torn it apart to cheat. The next puzzle was a list of location for us to decode and we simply continued solving them by the crowded covered path besides the food centre. Some people were doing surveys near us and we borrowed a pen from a sweet girl but she was gone when we were about to take off. The pen was from City Harvest.

We went to Yuan Ching, Bukit Timah, Adam Road and finally Clementi to take pictures with the stalls. Our greatest defeat was at the traffic jams and we did make some minor mistakes in turning, but overall, Joy was reckless enough to help us speed up a lot. The final mistake was that we should have asked Joy to wait for us near the main road instead of the car park because it took us quite long to get out afterwards.

It was a very enjoyable day even though we could only emerge as the fifth team out of twelve of them. We had nasi lemak from Adam Road for our lunch at the school canteen. Later on, it was announced at the prize presentation that they had extended it to five teams instead of three, and we were glad to receive the twenty bucks NTUC voucher.

I took a lift from Bernard and then Weiming accompanied me until Commonwealth MRT station.

My elder brother and I were engrossed in the 倚天屠龙记 on channel 8 every weekday at eleven PM and thus, we watched it online after midnight and dozed off together.

Henderson Waves with Family

Sunday started off in the morning with my elder brother’s plan to have breakfast at Amoy Street. We were, however, so unlucky that the stall was having a two day break. Therefore, we had chicken rice instead. So, my elder brother and his girlfriend and my mum shared half a white chicken and half a roosted chicken at twenty bucks. The taste was normal but I did not like the soup. After eating, we had a little shopping at the NTUC.

The next part of the day was during the late afternoon after taking a nap. My younger brother and mum were ready to go to the Henderson Waves. We stopped by the bread shop near 7-11 store and got some buns. My mum had a waffle and complained that the amount of peanut butter applied was very little.

The Henderson Waves

We started off at Henderson Road and challenged the stairs. It was not that tough after all. After admiring the place which I had been to for more than four times already, we proceeded towards the Terrence garden and then down Forest Walk. We stopped at Hort Park and the entire trip took us more than an hour.

We took a bus to Vivocity and shopped at the Giant. We conquered the groceries section and managed to let my mum know that we had to carry whatever we bought all the way home. We were drooling over some nice and cheap sofa but had to face the fact that our house was too cramp and messy to put any.

Next, we stopped at the Starhub shop and applied to change our house’s phone line to Starhub since we would be enjoying the free service as long as we were subscribed to SCV Max-online. We were the last customer and the Pilipino staff Christopher impressed me with his politeness.

We bought big coleslaw from Harbourfront Centre’s KFC and went down to MacDonald’s for dinner. They did not have student meal and thus, our budget meal was destroyed.

Trekking at Southern Ridges

I completed the Southern Ridges trekking with Gilbert just now.

We met up at the Seah Lm food centre and started off at the Harbourfront MRT station.

We took the right direction after going uphill and finally walked the opposite direction towards Jewel Box restaurant (Slogan: Singapore’s Iconic Hilltop Destination).

Next, we crossed Faber Walk and finally reached the speculate Henderson Waves; we were so impressed by the great work at such a great height – near 80 kilometres above sea level.

We proceeded to Hilltop Walk and after more struggles under the hot sun, we reached Forest Walk, which was a grand place with the steel bridge leading visitors towards the Alexandra Arch; it was never possible to access to Alexandra Arch from the Hilltop Walk with the steep slopes until the completion of the Forest Walk.

We finally arrived at Hort Park which I had visited once a few ago near midnight and could not walk around. I did not expect it to be a very big place.

We took the Canopy Walk and lastly, arrived at the Science Park after some extra walks.

It took us around five hours to complete the journey, inclusive the photo taking throughout the expedition.

We took bus to Bouna Vista MRT and walked to Holland Village after that. After some consideration, we decided to dine at Coffee Club. It was my first time and a very disappointing one. Gilbert discouraged me to order fish and chips and thus, I tried the Alfredo, which was actually pasta together with ham and mushroom in mushroom cream. I was actually “allergic” to pasta and furthermore, the sauce made me sick right after a few bites. The soup of the day was tomato soup, which was not to my liking. After the dinner, which I did not finish, I had mochaccino and I had never expected it to be served hot, and thus, I was extremely disappointed. The dinner could be described as a complete disaster.