We hit the roads once again

hi, i'm back from road trip 2005 (part 2) this morning and have brought back some pictures as i promised. wonder why do we go for such trips to get tired, dirty and muscule strains? we ourselves don't know why but after pondering, we came up with 3 reasons to it.

1) we are adventurous people with relatively big balls.
2) cycling within east coast park = wuss.
3) once in a while, we just have to remind ourselves how damn lucky we are to have public transport, unlike in some countries, africa for instance, where people walk to and fro the sahara desert barefooted.

the roadtrip unfolds.

at 9 plus, desmond and I cabbed to ecp first to grab a few bikes before the rental shops closes for the day. we took new bikes with acceptable suspension and it was quite cheap; 8 bucks for each for overnight. the rental shop ah ma was so nice that i wanted to call her grandma. she borrowed us flashing lights and a big chain lock. (we were stupid for this once, taking the flashing lights as reflectors and kept complaining why the heck no light was reflected from it for the first 2 checkpoints.)

allow me to advertise for this shop for quality services.

the owner told us that we need not return the bikes personally if we were too tired by then.

retarded. the 'reflectors' could only be seen when flash was used.

darren and johny reached slightly later and at around 10, zak the king joined us. we labelled him hero because he can cycle from balestier to ecp in merely 10 minutes. besides that, he cuts the traffic like tofu. beat that both. he's the real bad boy since he still joined us though there's school for him tomorrow.

presenting zak the king, who's only 15 and has attained superb biking tactics like cutting buses.

check point #1: how romantic
we left ecp and zak lead us down to kallang waterfront. the scenery by the river at night was nice but no pictures. i don't risk getting unwanted attention, like being interviewed by mediacorp for publishing unhealthy materials. xiaxue did, see?

check point #2: the greatest fall of all time
in the future for your safety, never listen to emo while cycling. i repeat. NEVER LISTEN TO EMO WHILE CYCLING. i was listening to the song 'the greatest fall of all time' and that's it. whamp! and i got it.

while gunning down the park connector beside esplande, i skidded on some mud and my bike was flung 10 metres. i was thrown foward 20 metres like a bean bag and landed safely, in a pool of crimson blood.



OKAY, kidding. i wouldn't be blogging here and would be knocking on heaven's door instead if that had happened. actually, i was speeding down the park connector and had a rather bad fall after my front wheel skidded on a blob of mud. i lay on the pavement waiting for the pain to cease before i got up again.

my elbow wasn't spared.

my limbs aren't spared either.

the greatest fall of all time indeed. my mum did NOT abuse me for your info.

but thinking on the bright side, i was kind of relieved because... heaven wasn't harsh on my balls!!! luckily i was thrown off the bike a little. else daddy would have lost 50% chances of getting grandchildren.

the last thing i saw before i fall.

sorry, but for some damn reason, blogger doesn't allow me to upload more pics. i'll continue in the next post.

continued

YAY! can upload pics again. oh ya, and by the way, here was roughly when we dumbos realized there's a switch behind the rumoured 'reflector'. it's a flashing light after all!

this was under a bridge, where i rested after the fall and where zak fell asleep.

so dark. thankfully no extra freaky kawaii-neh-glare-upwards head popped in.

oi! fall down already, still can smile?

our little friend.

check point #3: singapura, oh singapura
this is just a little down the road. in fact, it supposed to be check point #2 if i didn't fall. with renewed vigour, the injured man hopped onto his bike and we cycled down to merlion park, a memorable place to lepak. this was when the pain sets in. ouch. it didn't hurt as much when i just fell, but no sweat. that is what it takes to be a man, LOL. we lay on the stone steps by the singapore river and gazed at the stars. suddenly, we felt lame and mimiced the bangla prank call. rofl. darren's obsessed with geylang or something. he kept repeating, "next stop go geylang leh!" for 324589073425 times.

i love singapore.

this is the platform above the river at merlion park.
i dated with a girl at the very spot where the light is 2 years ago.
the fluorescent was fused back then. hah.

check point #4: pool junction
after finishing our lame jokes for the moment, we headed for geylang pool juntion at middle road. it drizzled suddenly and we sped up to reach our checkpoint. we went for a quick prata bite at the indian mama and proceeded to pj to pot a few balls since the drizzle turned heavier.

check this out if you play pool.

check point #5: darren's geylang!
the rain stopped and we headed for darren's favourite! finally, we found out that he isn't that desperate. he just wanted to go geylang because there's some ramadan pasa malam going on and there's loads of food being sold. we all felt cheated. we reached there by 3am and this is what we saw...

dissapointment, like my results.

damn it. the rain actually stopped for a half-time break before it went into play again. we took shelter at some 24-hour mc donald's and waited for the full-time whistle.

check point #6: random
despite the rain, we felt that we shouldn't delay any more and braved the rain since it wasn't that heavy. we cycled towards town in search of 24-hour food areas. zak parted with us there and we continued looking for food. we found a mc donald's at lido and swensens at crown prince hotel. of course, we took the economy one.

i'm lovin' it.

we rested and planned the timing and route for our last 2 check points.

check point #7: the forbidden route
it's all decided here. we'll make a quick return by entering the the highway nearby. sorry, no pics here. it was 5.10am already and we couldn't delay anymore as the traffic will get heavier soon. with heavier traffic, it's also likely that we get booked by the coppers. by the way, it's an $80 fine each if we got caught. on reaching the entrance of the highway, we switched off our flashing lights and pushed our bikes up to the peak.

check point #8: the grand final
we helped each other's bike over the highway barrier and got ready for the free roller coaster ride. off we went downslope! that was the 'highest' part of the whole trip. we bolted down and reached the exit of the highway in one single piece. praise all the gods! for this is a multi-religion nation. after all the thrill, we travelled a rather long route back to OUR HOLY LAND, ecp mc donald's! it was 6.10am by then, exactly an hour after leaving from lido's mc donald's.

check point #9: home sweet home
we had breakfast and chatted till when the bicylce shop was about to be opened. this was the last time we had to get on a bicycle for the day. we cycled back to the bicycle shop to return the bikes. getting onto the bicycle seat after resting for so long was a torture! it's similar to having a 30mm-diameter-iron-nail up your ass in case you don't know. the last check point was travelled to by cab. how lucky are we.

damn the mud blob. now, simply taking off my shirt could make me curse and swear a thousand times.

complaints aside, we all look forward to road trip 2006!!

Ahlemak! here comes mr MUTHU!

i have the weirdest nightmare, trust me. do share yours with me if you think yours is even weirder. these usually occur after heavy suppers. weeks back, i had one about being chased by a dinosaur. that really sucks, there you are running like hell for your life and the dino catches up within several steps.

okay, now the real thing. i actually laughed at some parts although it's a nightmare. this is how it went. i was an assassin for no damn reason and was assigned to kill somebody in SA but i didn't know who or can't remember. my mission partner is really out of blue. he's some primary school friend that i haven't seen for ages and i didn't know why the hell he appeared in my dream. the worse part was carrying the gun, in singapore especially. we disguised ourselves as students of the school and searched the building for don't-know-who. finally, i chickened and out also preached to my partner some buddha scriptures that killing is wrong. here comes the funny part, probably to sa students only. we were at the 4th level around breaktime, thinking of how will we have our weapons disposed and mr muthu the discipline master happened to be on patrol duty.

"oi, the two boys over there. don't pretend not to see me and stay put."
facing me he said, "you, from 4st is it? i'll tell gordon goh about it."

oh christ, he actually remembered me and is going to complain to gordon goh, damn! next, we were brought to the yellow box (the place for the naughty boys to stand in) and i finally woke up after standing for some time.

remember boys, you are liable to be sent down to the yellow box for loitering around classroom blocks during break time yo.

Bat me out please.

i'm rotting. i was trying to sleep since 12.30am and failed terribly. the past 2 hours, almost 3 was spent listening to my mp3 hoping i can fall asleep.

there's only about 2 weeks plus to the new semester and i'm dreading it. it has got nothing to do with school but just the timing. i hate the waking up part. i want to have a road trip before school starts. the last one was so damn fun. taking a bike on the highways all over singapore and finally stopping at jalan kayu, the 'holy' land for supper. in case you are wondering, it's bicycle and not motorbike. bike just sounds nicer. if there gonna be a road trip, i promise pictures to be up.

now i'm hungry again. i'm craving for xiao long bao from ding tai feng, laksa from jalan berseh and marche. drooling already? off to raid the refrigerator.

Twenty-six-pointer

dad just received a letter from the traffic police which looks like this.

26/24. wow, dad exceeded the maximum marks. now this is bad. the letter states that he will have his driving license suspended for less than 3 years. he needs to drive to work and somtimes drive around while working. how inconvenient. all jay chou's fault. my dad seemed to pick up speeding since initial-d was out.

of course, being in a democractic nation like singapore, we are given choices. not much though, just like the president election.

A) have the driving license surrendered after 14 days.
B) give explanations on why the driving license should not be suspended.

well, i wonder how many offenders did not have their license suspended after the officials have read them. or worse, a 7 year-old kid who is paid $3.55 an hour is assigned to collect all these appeal letters from the mail box and stuff it down the paper shredder repeatedly. okay, maybe it isn't that bad. now, it's time to think about how the letter should be written.

LETTER 1
to whom it may concern:
hello there. i'm 60 years old this year and my sons are not married. please be magnanimous and do not suspend my driving license.

LETTER 2
to whom it may concern:
greetings to my beloved traffic policemen who have braved dangers to preserve peace and uphold the law for the past decade or so. today, i am here to reason out why my driving license should not be suspended.

firstly, i would like to mention the quote "country before self". i'm sure you know what i mean. if you don't, spare me a few seconds to point out to you. i need a vehicle to work efficiently, so that i can contribute to the annual gross domestic product. in other words, let me draw you an equation for clearer understanding: me not working efficiently = drop in country's gdp. i'm sure you wouldn't want the nation's gdp to drop even by 0.001 just because of a blue collar worker like me.

secondly, i'm speaking of being infleunced. i'm sure that all of us know that since god/nuwa/allah/lord krishna (choose accordingly to your religion) put life on earth, each individual's way of living was influenced by one or another in some way. by now, you should have guessed i'm talking about initial-d, the racing movie by jay chou, edison chen and a few more. with the entire nation going gaga over initial-d, HOW CAN MY VEHICLE STILL BE CRAWLING LIKE A SNAIL!? i mean i just exceeded the limit by 30km/h at most. didn't even try drifting on any part of cte, pie and tpe.

lastly, i would like to address on the offence "failing to conform to red light signal..." it contributed 12 demerit points and i think it is way too much. i merely followed behind a ten-tonner truck with a huge ass, so huge that it blocked out my entire view, including the traffic light. the next second, when everything gets in view again, all i saw was a red traffic light followed by a flashlight which caught me 'red-handed'. whose fault was it? is it the traffic light being too low, the truck being way too huge or i was just unlucky?

...

i was too lazy to end the letter. anyway, these letters are purely for killing time and nothing else. they harbour no ill-intentions of opposing the traffic laws nor the government and are just products of a 17 year-old kid who is bored during his vacation. if any dear government officials happen to stumble upon these, please be merciful and do not sue him. thank you.