punggol point – Swee Life

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.

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! 🤔).

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 😍

Smelling the Roses

Looking at my forecasted evening activities in the next few days, I decided to go for a run this morning. Just a simple run down my usual 6.2km route to Bukit Batok Nature Park. The weather was getting pretty clammy and the Garmin took a little longer than usual to get the lock for the GPS (I always feel like an idiot looking down on my watch when this happens). So when I started, I was quite anxious to move off.

And off I went, going down towards Jalan Jurong Kechil and towards Bukit Batok Nature Park. Usual run, usual pace. Usual pace meaning a pace that is not too slow, where I will try my best to maintain breathing through my nose.

Nearing the 3km mark, I will enter this little “open amphitheatre”, a relatively big circle around a grass patch surrounded with trees. Pretty nice. But since I’ve been running this route so often, this would be the point where I tell myself there’s around half way left.

From Tripadvisor.com — The big grass patch

This was where the run took on a twist. There were two ladies (I believe they are local) who wanted a photo taken and I was just about to run past them. They stopped me and asked me to take a picture for them. And so I did that. But I didn’t expect myself to be surprised.

I was surprised. Not by the ladies (hahaha), but by how beautiful the backdrop was. Every time I ran around this little loop, I focus so much on maintaining my pace and sticking to the circle that I have never looked up. In those moments when I took the photo for them, it occurred to me that I am slowly losing one of the most beautiful aspects of running – the surrounds.

Running is not just about you. It’s about everything around you as well. The wind, the weather. The blazing hot sun, the comfortable shade provided by old mature trees. The fellow joggers in the park, or the park connectors. People of all ages and sizes. The traffic. The sound of traffic, and the sound of everyone else. And at night, lights. From cars, from street lamps, from individual HDB flats and condominiums.

I have believed in immersing myself in this environment. This was why I stopped listening to music while running five years ago, after one year of doing so with the Nike+iPod kit. And the moment I took the photo, I realise I still miss out on this immersion.

Last month, I remember telling Chelsea when we were visiting Punggol Point that the scenery there was super awesome and I would have loved to run there, next to the sea with the sea breeze. And this moment reminded me that if I had run there, there would not have been any difference anyway. I have already been missing out on how beautiful my run routes are. I was just intent on finishing the run before the sun got too hot.

Or before dinner turned cold. Or before it got too dark. Before my friends waiting in Tembusu went to eat dinner first.

As you can probably imagine, the later half of the run turned a little better. A little slower, a little more comfortable, but a lot more different. When I reach the 4km mark of the route, I would run past this huge quarry. And this time round, I stopped.

From fotopedia.com — The quarry at Bt Batok Nature Park

And took in the moment. The quarry, the serenity, the unbelievable fact that Singapore has things like this.

Then I ran home.

The Northeast

Today was our Managerial Accounting paper. I’m not sure how I should feel about it… it seems “do-able” but I have this naggy feeling that I have done some parts completely wrongly. It was also quite tricky and unfortunately I have been tricked by a minor trick in one question that left me quite disappointed (I was quite pleased that I had an answer for the question).

Regardless, as managerial accounts and economists will call the time spent on the paper as a “sunk cost”, we moved on with life. Since I think that there is enough studying for this week, Chelsea and I went out after the paper. Since I felt like getting to a place as far away from Kent Ridge as possible, I decided to spend some time and take the (sort of) trusty rapid transit system to Punggol Point! From the southwest to the northeast.

It was such a beautiful time to be Punggol Point. It was almost 5pm when we reached, so we were in good time to catch the sunset. And since it was all sunny and bright, my iPhone proved to be a point-and-shoot monster, taking shots that I thought were really impressive. But beyond that, it was really nice spending time with Chelsea after a stressful exam period (though it’s not over yet!). Eating ice cream, walking along the promenade by the sea, enjoying the cool breeze… it’s quite priceless. And such a beautiful contrast to the stillness, quietness, and tension found in the exam hall.

After spending a good hour or two at Punggol Point, taking snapshots and walking around (with our heavy bags… MacBook Pro in my bag, Accounting Info Systems textbook in hers – which got transferred into my bag midway), we headed back to the relatively less ulu Sengkang estate and took the LRT system in Sengkang for the first time! It’s so much cooler than the chunky system at Bukit Panjang. We reached Thanggam LRT station and walked over to Jalan Kayu for that “famous” prata shop (they self-proclaim to be so) where we had quite a nice and fulfilling dinner.

Then back to Compass Point for quick dessert and the relatively longer ride back to the west. (It is during the trip that I realise students living in Sengkang take such a long time to reach NUS, or worse, NTU…)

We spent a little more than six hours together, but it flew by quickly. No wonder time flies when you’re having fun.

Oh look, five more days before I finish my last exam as a first-year student.