Cycling Trip at East Coast

Yesterday Si Hua and I took a train all the way to Bedok. We contemplated with Sequeena if we were going to East Coast or Pasir Ris. In the end it was decided that we'd go to a place that we were more familiar with - East Coast.

This is the first time we've been cycling together. All this while we've never considered the activity because Ash hadn't learnt how to cycle. So anyway, we met Sequeena at Bedok MRT station. She woke up kind of late and was still in a slightly blurry state when we met her. We went to the hawker center to have a small meal before taking bus 401 down to East Coast. It was a direct bus, but there was a bloody long wait for it!

So we went to the bicycle rental place and got ourselves a couple of 'em bikes!



We took the route where I once had my 20km route march. After that 6 hour-long stroll, it was hard not to know the place well. The Standard Chartered people trained there too. There was also a 5km out camp run there once. Anyway, the view was pretty amazing.

It didn't occur to me that you could be a parent and still bring your child around while doing physical activities. Maybe because I haven't been to East Coast for a long while, or maybe I'm a mountain tortoise, but I saw a couple of parents cycling and they had a stroller with their kid attached to the back of their bikes! And there were parents who roller-bladed with their kids in the prams.

I want to learn roller-blading. But it looks like there'd be plenty of falling down before actually mastering it. I heard that if I knew a bit of ice-skating, it'd be easier for me to learn it. However, I'm quite out of touch with that as well. My last trip to ice-skate must've been almost 2 years back!


Other than the absurdly picturesque scenery, there were plenty of people who looked relaxed and were just having a good time. The atmosphere was good. There wasn't much on my mind when I was cycling with them. It felt like my brain was emptied of all unnecessary thoughts and I was concentrating merely on keeping my bike moving. Si Hua didn't really look like she was a beginner and we were doing weird stuff like pretending to be cars, 'signalling' before switching lanes, giving way to other vehicles etc.

I think we're all crazy.

We stopped at the Bedok Jetty, or somewhere around there to take a drink and a few photographs. Did I mention that I saw a bikini babe with a very cute small nose roller-blading? Right.



After 1.5 hours of cycling, I was kind of tired myself! I don't know if it was the weariness left over from the previous day's orderly duty (which shouldn't be the case) but I was a bit lethargic from waking up at 6AM! I don't think I'll ever get used to waking up early. Anyway, after returning the bikes, we went to Mcdonalds and got ice-lemon tea. It felt real good going down my dry throat!

We left East Coast and walked toward Parkway Mall. Tiring stuff. We had our dinner at the hawker centre there before going to Parkway Mall. We didn't end up shopping or anything. After finding an empty area at the top most floor, we sat down and had a long chat. Like 2 hours plus plus. Talking about relationships and all that brought back a lot of memories. I think I now know where I went wrong with mine.

We stopped at around 940PM and were kind of surprised that time passed so quickly. It was late; the shopping centre was closing. When Sequeena caught her bus home, she realised that Si Hua had her EZ-link card that she had passed to her to gain Mcdonalds points when we were buying the ice-lemon tea! We ended up taking a bus to Bedok to meet her, before going home by train. Bloody tired!

I'm booking into camp for guard duty in about 2 hours. This weekend will be interesting because I'm taking part in the Vertical Marathon at Suntec Tower D. It's on Sunday (which I am scheduled for another guard duty, which I will find a way to swop). It is 43 freaking storeys and I haven't trained for it or anything, and I have no idea if I'll even make it half way! The registration fee's a whopping $14 (there goes money for my Britney remix CD!) and there are a good few people from the platoon who are going for it, so I think it is going to be a good experience!