It's all coming to an end.... soon.... haiz....

It has always been my favourite post-workout 'spa'.... where refreshingly-cool natural spring water is used to erase remnants of a muddy, sweaty, at times bloody, excursion in the forest trails....where the waters wash off and return mud on my machine back to the lush ecosystem that is Bukit Timah hill forest....where I converse using my broken dialect with elders who had been bathing using the same water a scant 60 years ago.... now, modern development has forced the need for yet even more bungalows and private houses in the upmarket Bukit Timah area.... such that even the very last piece of primitive forest in our island has to give way and sacrifice a part of itself.... in the beautiful sunset I try to capture my memories of this little cove before it is bulldozed into chips of brick and cement and mud....






Some uncles and aunties swear that this water, runoff from the BT hill, has wonderful qualities that can cure illnesses and promote health....


Soon, all will flow away with the drain....



Now.... back to writing my lab reports and tutorials.... ZzzZzzZzz....

Sherman's Lagoon

Hehe.... very very true....

Life.... sian chi phua....

2 weeks of lectures and tutorials had since past, and it's still just the start, that is the fun of labs and tutorials and quizes are still not factored in yet.... only starting from now....

First lab session of the semester, formal report due in 2 weeks.... not that hard though except that I have to power over the hurdle of my lerthargic laziness and the myriad of temptations that yearn for a share of my attention....


Received my personalised lab coat this morning, this is it before it starts to turn yellow and get stained with unknown-and-never-will-be liquids or powders....


Taken on the bus ride home after an 11-hour day in school.... just after some rain and the temperature in the bus would be able to make a woolly mammoth shiver....

First to POSB, then to buy Pau....

First to POSB to withdraw money, then come back to buy pau....specifically this Jurong Point stall's fit-for-emperor $8-for-one abalone-and-dried-scallops-stuffed-pau haha!

Fireworks Festival

My first time seeing fireworks 'live' in all near-22 years of my life and my mum's first in just as many years too.... And I finally can understand why the Government would spend millions each year on these colourful controlled explosions in the sky during the annual NDP. Gee I'm now a firm fan of these expensive gunpowder.... yeah I'm really excited man! All till the 2 hours it took to reach home that took 3-quarters the excitement away....

NDP ride (Updated pictures)

It's the earliest ride this year so far, starting off from 6.15am from home. Playground of the morning: the place where I spent many-a-days sleeping, eating, slapping mozzies, catching fireflies and digging up mud and crushing innocent plants and insects.... Lim Chu Kang aka Sungei Gedong Training ground.

It was a cool still morning, azure early sky and the smell of burnt paper offerings still lingering in parts of the CCK cemetery/ Lim Chu Kang air.... shiok ah I love the early morning air! Just that I'm always too lazy to wake up in time to enjoy this luxury hehe....

Man we got a rude shock when we saw a platoon of BMT recruits road-marching in the grounds.... poor guys though to suffer this on a PH.... managed to siam detection though heehee....

Easy riding, just that the long continuous climbs are there to torture quadriceps.... There's still a beautiful mist in the scenary, some of the valleys look like photos of China or Thailand! Fantastic man! Probably the most beautiful natural scenary in S'pore now....



Breakfast was taken on a cliff overlooking the Straits of Johore, despite a slight drizzle.... And much curiosity took us to the Live Firing area for tanks....

We kept seeing signs leading to Mathilda Hill, seemingly All Roads Lead to Mathilda heh!


Went on several trails where I used to lay down metal track prints in the mud.... but the hills took out our energy.... even PowerBars and PowerGels did my riding friend no help.... and we gave the place back to the wild boars and dogs and smelly recruits.... while we replenished our engines with Ba Chor Mee and chicken cutlets and iced-kopi at SunShine Place....

Can compare Nokia and Sony-Ericsson cameras here too hehe. My pictures are taken with a SE 2MP-camera phone, while BengChuan's are taken with his 2MP Nokia phone....
Pics taken by BengChuan below....


Straits of Johore behind us.... my army friends should know this place when we came here to fire the Primus's smoke launchers....


Look like some valley in China....?


'Area contaminated with unexploded bombs'.... wow

Me barking....

Was on this SBS bus today.... noticed this China chinese couple sleeping together. Seems like nothing surprising, except that they were sleeping like caterpillers in a cacoon. Specifically, insomiac caterpillers which last slept 5000 years ago.... they looked so terribly ragged and unconcerned about the rest of the world including public etiquette, and this isn't the first time I've noticed how lousy many China chinese, especially the young ladies, look when they sleep on our public mass transport. Surely comparable to our drooling, snoring, legs wide-open uncles.... And it seems to me that they behave(sleep) this way on purpose, seemingly to show 'relax-ness' and 'carefree-ness'.... could be just my own biased thoughts though....

Then, it's my turn to black out. Until I got jolted awake by this bump on the road, and I saw this pair of arms stretched out straight right beside my sleepy head! I almost broke them, thinking that they belonged to a mugger or some bus serial murderer! Till my blurry eyes cleared and saw that they actually belonged to a China girl who is stretching, strangely by threading her arms through the space between the seat and its handle, to the seat in front of her, that's my seat! Irritated by the rude shock, but amused and intrigued at the same time, I couldn't quite continue my sleep after that....

Like my earlier post, they bring some peculiar and previously unfamiliar colour into our lush green island. Like in The New Paper (5 August 2006), the china guy who sat outside Isetan Scotts to seek forgiveness from his girlfriend. This might be the first street 'protest' since the racial riots in 1965.... And I've yet to get sick of being amused with them wearing socks with sandles and slippers or wearing colourful higher-than-knee socks, it just seems so alien to me! And to think that nowadays, schoolkids are even getting away without wearing socks under their school shoes.... heh school-socks become knee-socks to 'no-socks'!

By the Way.... it's Wm_T's birthday today!!!

Wah lau eh.... Dogs also do this stuff???

Dog Lick Video

What the H*LL.... what kind of dog owner would train his dogs to do this? Or unless the dogs are just mimicking their owner heh.... Wonder if the chihuahua knows what she's doing....? And wonder if the terrier? feels anything....? Maybe the chihuahua's just helping to lick off the sticky syrup when the terrier sat on the floor of a 7-11....

Bully!

Israel attacks Lebanon, they say it is a war on terror.... ok reasonable....

But with full-scale artillery and air-strikes pounding on innocent civillians too? And the non-fufilment of the promise of 48 hours of cease-fire? Giving the Intl Red Cross trouble by continuing air-strikes and destroying roads? Bombing the UN observation post? Bombing hospitals, even though those of the enemy? It's schoolboy bullying!!! Unacceptable! They're causing more mayhem than the terrorists can do!

Aren't there better ways to 'fight terror' than a full-scale invasion and resultant war? Iraq and Afghanistan are still hot zones despite the best efforts of the US Marines....


Photo courtesy of Scotsman.com News

Wah kao....

Thought I could ride the Kent Ridge trail once before school starts, then this....


'Pissed off' face....


Arghhh....I want to go in!!!


'Little Giant' wants to grow up to be a big gun too!!!

No trail to ride, just a park with a artillery gun exhibit, a crazy cock with a camera and a bike with no where else to go and nobody around hehe....

Sorry... friend....

Made a friend wait for me for close to 90mins.... because a seemingly routine gear cable change on my bike turned into a Da Vinci Code kinda challenge for the kind uncle at Bikers Hub....

Thanks Uncle! You're the most most pro bike mechanic I've seen so far! *Salute!*

Ya.... and thanks to that friend who waited for me and didn't get angry too.... You deserve a kiss and a pat on the butt from 蔡依林, Mr Nice!

About to leave for Kent Ridge Mountain bike trail now.... 45min by road to reach.... all for 1.5km of mayhem.... probably going for 2-3 laps.... then 45-60mins by road to get home.... Fingers crossed that I'll return intact with nothing broken and still nice and warm, not sun-burnt....