Today I went cycling in Pulau Ubin with Louis and Arjun. The last time I cycled must have been around July last year, when Lauren was still visiting Singapore - we were at East Coast Park and it was drizzling a little. Then school work started increasing, shit started happening and before I knew it I was stuck in a cast for a month and given orders to not go cycling till my tendon healed.

So anyway finally, on the 3rd of June 2008, 7 months after my accident involving a glass door, I have gone cycling again :D

We met at Commonwealth MRT station at 8:00 am and traveled to Tampines MRT station together to take 29 to Changi Point Jetty in Changi Village. On the bus ride there however, we noticed that the sky appeared to be having some self esteem issues - in particular it was emoing over our patch of sky.

Upon arriving at Ubin and getting our bikes, it started to rain. We ended up cycling a few meters and ended up hiding in a small shop with tables out front - Arj and I bought drinks to justify our presence, and so we sat there waiting for the rain to end. At the shop, there was also this grey parrot which kept meowing and saying hello. I rawred at it (in the cat sort of way, not the lion way).

When the rain finally abated, we got on our bikes and cycled toward Chek Jawa (give or take Louis' bike chain coming off once). To my immense horror when we reached there, I found out that when the map meant the road there was a dirt path - it really meant a dirt path complete with uphill and downhill bits. Oh noes.

Somehow, I managed to survive the dirt path to Chek Jawa. I had to stop some bits and push the bike up, had trouble controlling the bike on an uneven path, and went racing downhill faster than desired (and this is like the 5th time I've ever been on a bike!) - but in the end I reached the Chek Jawa visitor centre without losing more than the usual amount of skin cells, thanks to the patience and help of Arj and Louis.

Then it started raining again. So we ended up hiding at the little museum they had there, watching planes land on the mainland and talking about nothing in particular. When the rain ended again, we went off to walk on the sea facing boardwalk. There was nothing to see on the boardwalk however, because it was high tide thanks to the rain, though we did see a monitor lizard. The mangrove boardwalk however was a different story. There we saw many mudskippers, little fish swimming in the calm waters and hornbills.

On the way back out of Chek Jawa, we took another dirt path out. This one was far more inclined both upwards and downwards, and I was rendered remarkably tired by the earlier path to Chek Jawa - so the inevitable happened almost 20m from the tarmac.

I was behind the two of them, struggling with my bike after going uphill, when upon going downhill the bike started to drift towards the foliage on the left hand side of the path. As I tried to regain control of the direction and turn it to the right, I inched closer to the foliage and earned a few scratches from the whipping leaves. Just as I thought I was okay, I saw a tree trunk appear right in front of my mildly out of control bike, so I quickly braked and swerved to the right. The sudden change in direction caused my bike to jerk to a sudden stop, and I flew off and landed on the dirt path after sliding down a little from the original impact point :s

Initially I tried to get up by myself, but then I felt too weak and tired for some reason and ended up having to be pulled up by someone. I sat there dazed for a short while as Louis took out wipes and stuff to clean the wounds I sustained on my two knees and right elbow. I remember feeling really disgusted looking at the (deeper) wound on my right knee because I could see through the epidermis to the dermis underneath where there was a pattern of little red dots forming. Brrrrr. I looked at my watch, it was 1:30 pm.

After resting a while, we cycled back to the main village for lunch. Then it was back to more cycling around 3 pm, and we ended up bumming about sitting on a bridge for quite a period of time talking again about nothing in particular. As we were heading back, it started to rain again. So thus ended our tenure on Pulau Ubin, and I left many many skin cells lighter.

We ended up taking 2 back, and alighting at Tanah Merah MRT station instead of the originally planned Eu Tong Sen Street - then took MRT to Queenstown MRT station where Arjun and I ended up waiting some time for 970 to come trundling around and poof! I was home.

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This is a really boring and badly written entry. I am hungry.