Us at Pulauuu Ubinnnn, after going up many gravelly slopes with tired faces A spontaneous decision to head to Pulau Ubin today because...

And you wish you could speak Malay

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Us at Pulauuu Ubinnnn, after going up many gravelly slopes with tired faces
A spontaneous decision to head to Pulau Ubin today because my dearest Huiquan and Suxin had never been to Ubin before (despite having studied at a Pulau university bahahh)

I'd been there maybe 3-4 times, and this time... Pulau Ubin seems to have shrunk to me?? Like when I was a kid, I thought those slopes were treacherous, but now I think they're pretty easyyyy. After all that biking in Laos, this was a lot less challenging cos I now know how to meddle with bicycle gears. So thank you Laos for training me up - I think I've a thing for mountain biking now... Hiking, Biking, what or who's the next king??? *wink to the wink* alright, that was a pretty shabby one.


Coastal walk at Chek Jawa

Me besties~*
Think you'll be seeing these faces a lot. Since we're at an age where all our friends, including ourselves, are at work, and everyone seems to be getting busy and caught up with their lives, us three... we'd always make time for outings and get-togethers. And they're always fun and exciting - one of us would suggest doing something and the other two would pick up from there and we'd actually execute it. We'd say GO. All you need is a simple majority to be enthused about something and the rest will follow. "Rest" meaning that one other person, who's more or less psyched as well.

No dilydallying, no ah- "I've got this to do, I've got that to do." We just freakin make time for each other and I'm soooo thankful for that.

I watched a recent interview of Sir Patrick Stewart, for the movie Logan, who was interviewed by radio dj Joshua Simon.

The question was, "When was the last time you felt so happy, you almost felt like you didn't deserve it?"

His answer, after a moment of contemplation...

"I feel that (happiness)... at different times... every single day."

and you could see it in his eyes when he said that. he meant it. and I could fully understand what he meant by that.

I see that too in snippets of my interactions with friends, family and a lot of the time, I'm so aware that I'm so bloody blessed that I'd take a mental snapshot in my head to remember the moment I had with someone. A few days ago, I was cycling with my dad at bedok reservoir and the light was streaming in through the trees and I looked at him and he was talking, but everything drowned out... it was a beautiful moment and I wished I could tell him in that moment how much I loved him and it's moments like this I'll miss when he's gone. I do that mental snapshot thing a lot and it's a way for me to remember.

Soaked in absolute g r a t i t u d e .

In his reply, Sir Patrick Stewart continued... "I'm a very lucky man. I've a wonderful wife, 2 children, 4 grandchildren, my career has been quite successful...... If only the world could become a better place to live in, I can't think of anything that I would improve."


Pretty house owned by a Malay family at Ubin
Preets seashells just outside
Once, while we were cycling, we heard loud music blasting from speakers. Indonesian music. And Huiquan being the crazy lil nutter she was, walked towards the villager's home and approached the family. We all started dancing outside their houses lol.

The Malay family went, "Japanese?" We looked at each other. One of them continued, "Korean?".

And we said... Singaporean!!!!!! And you could see a wave of relief wash over their faces. At the same time, I caught a look of maybe... embarrassment? Like oops, I didn't know you were my countryman.

Then we tried to converse with them and talk a little. We splattered a bit of Malay here and there like "joget-joget" and "bagus" and "cantik", and one of them went "ahhh, bercakap melayu ah!" and I went "sikit-sikit".

Honestly, I felt quite terrible inside. For the fact that we could hardly converse with our own countrymen, more so after being mistaken for another. I know we could've spoken English, but speaking the language of the nation seemed to have been more appropriate in that occasion, but we simply couldn't. And the connection was lost. And I thought it was weird because aren't we all supposed to be Singaporean?

Huiquan said it was the first time she thought knowing Malay would be useful.

But ok la, maybe I'm thinking too deep into this. It's Pulau Ubin. We're city dwellers living in the mainland, why am I making such a big fuss eh? Plus, it's natural for them to assume we were tourists since the majority of visitors were foreigners.

Hmm, I still can't put a finger to why I thought the way I thought. Ah well, I think you sorta understand where I'm coming from anyways.

Question we must.

And I'm only happy to have this bunch of kiddos :-)

navigating and making sense of this crazy world together.


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