26 January 2013:
A day out with P.M. - A.M.
(Seriously speaking, I almost don't know how to blog, after being on a hiatus for almost a fortnight.)The original plan of our outing was to celebrate V's birthday. We would go cycling, watch a movie and go sing karaoke. In the end, we only cycled.
I met them at McDonald's in Parkway Tower. I was a few minutes late and there was V, I, SJ and J. They were just talking. The topic moved from things done during oral to horror movies. I has a very high threshold of horror and gore and she lambasted many movies for being not scary enough.
As usual, when the meeting time's 11, people would reach at 1130 or even later; not surprising at all. CW was the last to reach. At 12 we decided to go cycling, but then V had to go back to CCHMS. Her sister forgot to bring their house keys out, so she had to bring it to school so that her sister can take it.
That took about an hour. CW and I stayed behind. SJ had left by then and J and I accompanied V. At first we sat there talking and I ordered McWings because I was rather hungry. When I finished, we moved to Popular cos I told CW I wanted to see the books there. It was a better way of killing time.
We went over to Popular and we did browse for a while. I wanted to see the new textbooks but I called. Then she told us that she was expecting us to use the time to write on V's scrapbook-card. Both of us never thought of that.
We had three minutes to do so. The both of us didn't know where to go and write. Finally we went to outside the church near Popular. There was this raised platform with a metal covering. We hastily wrote there and V called before long.
They had finished and were back. Because we previously said we were in Popular, they went straight to Popular. CW had not finished with the scrapbook (I wrote first so I finished first) so I tried to stall them for a while.
Finally, we met outside Mavis Tuition Centre (not being paid to mention them okay). From there we finally went cycling, two hours after our original planned time. We finally reached ECP about five minutes later. But from the underpass we had to walk a while to the bicycle rental shop.
Within the past two weeks, I went to the shop at least thrice. I really wanted to ask the staff there if there could be a discount for regulars. The price was $8 for two hours (but of course they make it sound nice by saying one hour free another). We decided to cycle for four hours so we all paid $16.
This was my third (or fourth) time cycling, so I was more confident of myself. Since it was already 1330 or so, we went to the hawker centre first. It was far away, so we cycled there. I could ride off more properly now, instead of wobbling here and there. Along the way we cycled at different speeds. Most of the time I cycled the slowest; my legs weren't used to pedalling so I couldn't pedal fast enough.
There were some parts that went uphill and I found it tough. My leg was quite tired by the normal pedalling liao, still have uphill! So I dismounted for some parts and pushed the bicycle. When we were almost at the food centre, an accident happened.
I was going downhill and there was a bend. I was still a little self-conscious and afraid of turning, so I didn't turn the handlebar fast enough. The worst thing was that I had pedalled. Downhill + pedalling = acceleration, which was definitely not good.
Thankfully I remembered such a thing called 'brake'. So I applied the brake but it was slightly late. My bike had already went off the road and onto the grass. The bush was just centimetres away. Somehow instinct kicked in and I tried to get off the bike. I swinged one leg around. Just at the same thing, the bike crashed and fell.
I was alright, but my intenstines felt like they were jumbled up or something. Thankfully my crotch was alright
Off we went to the food centre. V and I wanted to order carrot cake, so I chipped in and we ordered a big plate. I went to order. I tried using Hokkien but the guy kept using Chinese with me. So failed attempt #1.
After bringing back the carrot cake, I went to look for 'my own' food. CW didn't want to eat at all, and they were contented with just carrot cake. I bought pineapple juice first; I was so thirsty. Failed attempt #2.
Not many stalls were open, so I went to an open one that had queues. They were selling duck rice and porridge. There was a group of angmoh tourists in front of me. I don't know if it was they who were slow or the stallholders; anyway I waited for a while. Finally it was my turn. Failed attempt #3 cos I suddenly forgot what to say tsk.
Okay after that it was eating and talking. After finishing with the meal, V and I went to search for bottled drinks. It seems like the whole food centre didn't sell it; we went to four stalls. But finally I used Hokkien with an elderly couple.
Since there was no bottled drink, we decided to continue cycling. I was very full from the duck rice + carrot cake + pineapple juice. We left our bicycles in the sun, except CW who had cleverly placed his seat under shade, so I
So we cycled all the way in the same direction for a very long time, maybe an hour or so. We went through the zones till the last, Zone H. In fact, we exceeded Zone H. From that part on, things were kind of scary.
There were many uphill and downhill areas. And to our left was a road where cars were speeding really fast. We dismounted and went across until we came to this turn. It was quite dangerous cos it was uphill (downhill from the other direction) and a right turn (left ftod). They pedalled up and I pushed for a while. From there we cycled until we reached this traffic light. We decided to turn back cos it was so far away.
We cycled the distance back. We went to that dangerous turning again and again I braked else I would hit a tree. I didn't turn enough. V was worse: she couldn't brake and dashed straight across. ... Which meant she went across two lanes of roads. Thankfully there were no cars or she would have been hit. That was very scary.
V scrapped two of her toes on a small 'pillar' and they were bleeding. Her calf was also scratched a little. We hurriedly went over to her. CW gave her tissue and water to clean the wound. I would think it was quite pain, ouch.
Because T was coming to meet us, we told him to head to this building at Zone H. We were 'back' at ECP. We rested for a while. As usual, taking photos of the sea and tagging on Instagram.
Once T arrived we set off again back to where we came from. When we were near Bedok Jetty, CW and T told the girls to turn left into the jetty. Somehow they didn't hear and went straight. After that I don't know where they went; I followed the two to the jetty. People there were fishing or enjoying the scenery.
At 1645 V called. She told us to hurry back cos she had to leave for work. So we went off and met at 1715, returned the bikes. The rest went to eat dinner and I went home.
TTFN.