Bukit Timah Hill trek

Definitely not my cup of tea, but it'll do. At least it's an escape from urban stress, the way I see it.

The night before, everyone was making noise over why I wasn't sleeping by 12am. Hell, you've got a backload of homework, you wanna tackle them all? I want my sleep, I want my rest, I want SILENCE. Can't even go about my own business without getting disturbed, even for a minute. Project work woes - the references page were terribly done - I had to mark out dead links and do all the grunt work for them. Blame it on speed over accuracy - more haste less speed.

Now after all of this is solved, what now?

The trek-day has come. Usual stuff happens, sending morning greetings to a certain someone, rushing for school in time to catch the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve coach ferrying 30+ greenhorns there, including myself. Ah, finally a day just for chatting, bonding and doing almost anything apart from schoolwork. Whoohoo - a day of escape from all that sink-or-swim crap.

It was being at one with nature. No more smell of liquid paper - just leaves, fresh dew and bird chirps. And an occasional sight of monkeys...? A welcome sight - except that the law says not to feed these little fellas. Earlier, Jeremy was talking about some monkey-butt asshole running away with his spectacles after a monkey troop assault for peanuts in Malaysia. Cool as nuts - probably that's why they don't feed monkeys in Singapore.

The climb was nice and smooth for the first part, and we got to learn a lot of things on the first trip. For one, you had to bend forward while climbing uphill in steep areas to keep your balance, and that you had to keep your hands free all the time for convenience in grabbing stuff in case you slip and fall. Rocks are dangerous - watch out for those with moss. And oh, when climbing the steps do so sidewards if it is too steep to walk normally.

Sadly halfway during the climb my entire day was spoiled by some random phone call about Mission X-trepreneurs - change of topic. Nothing to do with it itself, but the fact that the call was made while going downhill. Did cause some distress halfway down, because it got harder to catch up while talking and holding onto the phone at the same time in a slopy area full of rocks. Got an extra hand? Not me. Lesson learnt - always inform people beforehand whenever you are doing any activity that may turn dangerous in an instant.

Ate lunch, and got lost. How to go back? I had to hunt the bus stop that could bring me back to Tampines. Cool thing I found a direct bus 67 back home, but the drawback was that it took me one and a half hour to reach home. Better that than not reaching home at all, but it screwed up my entire timetable. And there's still tests and the Promotional Exams to catch up before all hell breaks loose on 28th September...

Looks like I'll never get my peace and quiet until the Promos are over... For the first time in my entire life I'm appreciating the times where I don't get put down by others for no rhyme or reason...