Cycling in Punggol

Hello!

It’s been a long while since I’ve updated this space, but my dear girlfriend Chelsea has asked me to update it. So here it is.

To be honest a lot of exciting, significant things have already happened in 2017 – just in the first three months of the year! However I just don’t think it’s the ‘right’ time to share it on this blog – not that anyone is really reading it anymore (right…?????)

So it has been a nice long weekend. Long weekends are always nice, but they are much nicer after entering the workforce. To think that bonus holidays are nice as a student – what a joke! Especially if you have like a one-lecture workday… or even free days in the middle of the week…

Anyway, I digress.

Saturday was nice. Met Han Liang (probably the only reader of this blog) at this nice cafe called Oberstrasse at Lavender to update him on the abovementioned exciting, significant things. It was nice catching up for those two hours. 🙂

Subsequently, after the usual Saturday Toastbox with my mum and siblings, Chels and I went to the northeast! Probably one of our most frequented “corners” of the island, even though we stay terribly far away from the northeast. We’ve been there a few times before, but it has been a while since our last one, so I thought it would be nice for Chels and I to cycle along Punggol Point and Coney Island. After all it’s been a while since we did something like this!

And the good (or probably most important) thing was – Punggol was literally the only corner of the island that was not raining on Saturday. Hahaha!

So off we went, renting a double bike for $16/hour (if this is not daylight robbery I don’t know what is, but my demand curve was basically almost perfectly inelastic), and going off on the PCN towards Coney Island. Over the years Punggol has really become very very happening – parking cars have become an issue, and queues have formed for restaurants that have popped up.

Even the lalang 🌾 we saw as (OMG freaking) first-year NUS students have disappeared. Back in those days, everything was not open, including Coney Island.

It was a simple one hour, but it was incredibly fun (for me at least, I hope Chels had some fun also hahaha). Going along the Coney Island trail, going down to the beach area (and forgetting the stupid sandflies in the area), taking stupid selfies, enjoying the sea view… it was so nice.

Hello from Coney!

Our exciting, significant things over the past weeks have taken away the time we could spend doing fun things as a dating couple. I was really happy we could do that together yesterday. ☺️

After that short one hour (we almost busted the 10 minute grace period before having to pay $8 for a 30-min extension… *faint*), we headed to the hipster-ish Wheeler’s Estate down at Seletar! Yes, the same people who opened Wheeler’s Yard have opened another place in ulu Seletar, near the Seletar Airport. Selling even more expensive food…

That was incredibly sucky. It’s the ultimate expression in hipster-ness… nice looking place, good ambience, photogenic but ultimately terrible, overpriced food. And for me if the food ain’t good, I ain’t comin’ back. 😡(Or maybe I just got unlucky… hmmm)

But if you were to take my experience with a pinch of salt, let that pinch of salt tell you not to order the fish and chips. 😵 Chelsea’s burger was much better.

Look at the thick crust and the watery fish texture. YUCKS!

But the ambience was nice. There’s a live band (we sat on the first floor) that played a mix of Chinese and English tunes based on audience requests. They were not too bad, and their song list was quite comprehensive (including the song… Home. Yes, the national day song. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing! 🤔).

Doing the hipster thing right

And it was quite packed. Popular with the Singaporeans (if not the hipster-wannabes) on a Saturday night. Even met my dad’s friend’s family there. But for me it was just a nice evening spent with a very special girl 😍

University of National Champs

Finally:

An unwatchable game turned into a beautiful night for the Tar Heels, who turned a free-throw contest into a championship they’ve been waiting an entire year to celebrate.

It has been four full years since I left the Tar Heel state – and every one of those years I have followed the UNC men’s basketball team from sunny Singapore, after being enthralled watching them play in the Dean Dome during my student exchange days there. I remember watching games on crappy streaming websites – especially those against archrival Duke – while staying in Tembusu College. Each time, wondering how they will fare in the ACC regular season, and how far up they will go in the NCAA tournament.

Last year, I remember I was in some Econs lecture in my second-last semester (probably EC3101) when UNC was playing Villanova in the national championship game. I didn’t have access to the livestream, but I was following the gamecast on ESPN… and can’t believe UNC had lost on a buzzer-beater. It was extremely nerve-wrecking and ultimately disappointing.

(I clearly didn’t pay much attention during that lecture)

This year, the Tar Heels made it back to the Final Four – and ultimately the championship game – again. One year on, I’m in the workforce, but still *had* to catch the gamecast. Needless to say, I didn’t really have a productive morning (the game was ongoing this morning Singapore time).

But the Heels won this time. And it was great!

The game apparently sucked, but I wasn’t able to catch it anyway. Just that I know that many years after physically leaving UNC, I still follow the basketball (and to a lesser extent football) team, giving them some moral support all the way from a tiny red dot.

Truly the power of sports.

 

Coldplay in Singapore

From Coldplay’s official website:

I could be mistaken, but the crowd seem even louder than the previous night. These folks don’t just make noise between the songs and in the singalong sections – there are swells of cheering and singing popping up all over the first few songs.

Coldplay’s resident roadie is not wrong. The crowd on 1 April is way louder than the one that watched the 31 Mar show – no joke. They probably forgot (or didn’t know) that the first show was actually the 1 April one, and the “extra” show was on 31 Mar. Which probably explains why the crowd on the “second” night is more passionate than the “first”, because the “first” night is actually the “second” night. And vice versa.

(And I did feel the same, considering that I was at the venue on both nights too ;))

Simply put, I think #ColdplaySingapore is the best concert I’ll ever attend in my life. (Until maybe I go see them at Glastonbury or something)