Escape to Marina Bay
It’s been very windy in Singapore lately.
And that makes an ideal weather condition for kite flying! I still vaguely remember there was a big grass patch at Marina Bay in front of its row of famous steamboat/seafood restaurants (which are already torn down I heard). Some construction took place and no one could fly their kites there anymore.
Fast forward to today, we now have the ‘Singapore’s latest downtown icon’, Marina Barrage, sitting right there. People can finally go back to fly their kites and picnic on its green roof.
Miss Toh and I made our virgin trip there for a picnic recently. The sky was getting really cloudy but fortunately it didn’t rain at all.
The sky was not only full of clouds, it was also full of flying kites, falling kites, flying frisbees, falling frisbees and birds (!!!).
Personally I don’t think it’s a good idea to celebrate birthday over there, because this is what might happen..
… The constant strong wind will extinguish your candles faster than you, and a falling kite might give you your birthday bash sooner than your friends.
Both of us nearly got killed hit by kites and frisbees a few times.
The wind became stronger and colder as the sky turned dark. It’s as if someone adjusted the air-con to full blast and forgot to turn it off.
Unfortunately Fortunately no girls wore skirts over there. =P
That night, I made a bold request.
“Shall we attempt to walk from here to City Hall?” I asked
(Note: City Hall is near Swissotel, which is indicated in the photo)
Without much thinking, she said yes!
And we set off just like that. It felt thrilling because it was very dim everywhere, and I had zero clue on how to walk there other than using Swissotel location as a rough guide. (Miss Toh had negative zero clue, therefore she had to count on me to reach home safely.)
Logically speaking, if you somehow walk towards the direction that leads to that building you’ll never go wrong. Theoretically speaking, walking a straight line to that building is the fastest way to reach there, but that also means we had to swim. Lol.
The first part was easy. There were a few others walking away from Marina Barrage, so we just followed them a bit. Turns out that those people were going to the carparks to drive out of the area.
In the end, both of us were the only ones still walking. All we could see were roads, trees and street lamps. Sh*t, I can’t see the Swissotel building anymore!
This is where instincts enter the picture. My gut sense told me to just keep walking.
It feels like you’re travelling around a maze. It feels like suddenly you are the only humans left; Putting behind all the stress, the noise, the expectations, the routines, and everything else from your life.
Along the way we encountered weird abandoned buildings that look like they are haunted, construction sites with many hungry looking foreign workers lurking around, a few road junctions that forced us to guess our next path, unknown road names and directions one after another, which didn’t help much.
Marina Way, Marina Grove, Marina Mall, Marina Place, Marina Street, Marina Boulevard.
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And so we carried on walking freely and talking along the way. At times it was rather tempting to hitchhike when a few cars drove past.
The real thrill of it all was asking this question:
When was the last time you escaped your life?
Instinctually, it felt like the most right thing I’d done that night. It wasn’t about doing things using the usual familiar method, about how to get from point A to point B in the most correct way, nor about the time we took to complete the journey. There was no real deadlines. (okay, except that we had to try to reach an MRT station before the last train left)
We were on our own in a dark area/corner of our country with no familiarity in sight (not even ERP gantries!), and there was not a single soul around to tell us what to do. Heck, there was no reason why we should be walking around like that at night in the first place.
Miss Toh probably burned some calories because of this walk. Lol.
And voila! My instincts brought us to the Marina Bay station instead, after about an hour. As it was getting really late, we decided to take the train from there. Walking to City Hall would mean we had to walk along expressways.
Still remember that little inner voice you’ve probably put on mute some time ago? It’s called instinct. Do listen to it sometimes. Don’t forget to escape from your life once in a while and indulge yourself. =)
