Seashell seashell

Forgot to add this in. I met a Noble Volute when we beached. ^^ . First time I met one that was alive. Really thought it might be poisonous, hence the extra precaution haha.

Round Ubin Trip

The distance for a round trip around Ubin is 21km. That's a half-marathon distance. 

Was i crazy when I signed up for this?

So 6 people including myself turned up for this meetup (originally 20+ people were supposed to come). After settling the usual stuff with the rental, we got our boats back to the shore.

We launched from Changi beach near the crossing channel that we will take to reach Ubin. 

A few curious people came closer at what we were doing. There was this cute little boy who said "Banana!" when he saw our kayaks. What things look like to a child xP.

An interesting sight was how Pulau Ubin looked like from the other side. It's been blocked with huge metal fences, that I guess was meant to deter smugglers.

Nothing much else happened afterwards. We beached up on the western tip to eat lunch and rowed back to Changi for dunch.

With this, I clocked sufficient distance to start my Three Star course. Will try to take by early next year. (I hope :x) 

BBQ at Zach's

Our training department has been really busy these past few weeks. The injection of new courses such as EMT and EMT-b has made our instructor pool barely enough to run our usual courses.

Zach decided to organise a small BBQ at his home condo, which is a small distance away from our camp, as a sort of gathering and retreat. 

For the first time, I took a ride on a friend's motorcycle, despite a subconscious thought of my parents reminding me never to ride on one. You can't blame them, but there's a fine line between safety and paranoia. Since it's a short trip anyway, I took the chance.

Zach has 2 cats. The friendlier one named Mimi.

It's かわいい! I do love cats or as Zach like to put it: pussy. Unfortunately, it's not very interactive with strangers...    ._.

A funny incident happened at the condo. Do you hate vending machines that get your food stuck during it's dispensing process?

We saw a vending machine that probably did that on some poor fella who used up his money only to receive nothing. A packet of twiggies lies at the very tip, somewhat defying gravity and refusing to fall down.

For cheap thrills, we decided to try to get it. Eventually, realizing that hitting the vending machine will probably get us into trouble, one of us bought a bread packet that would hit the twiggies on the way down.

The things we do for a packet of twiggies. >_>

The night went by really quickly. It was nice to catch up with everyone again. Despite being in the same office, we see each other so little, that having a small retreat like this makes us bond further.

Halloween 2013

So here's a backdated post. 

26.10.13

My sister, who's helping out with a Halloween event at the Asian Civilisation Museum had invited me to go visit. 

The event had offered plenty of activities together with free entry. And in the spirit of Halloween, I decided to put on some appropriate make-up. And here's the result:

It took me about an hour with help of my sister to get the complete effect. And the zip is real. It actually had to be glued on with some spirit gum that came with the make-up kit.

Only problem was that I did this while I was at home. And I had planned to use public transport afterwards.

So you can well ... imagine, the looks people gave me on the train.

I was afraid I might be a little overdressed at the event. I mean, do Singaporeans dress up for Halloween? 

I became fairly nervous when one entered. I was alone, and there were only normal-clothed people in the main hall apart from the performers who were doing the kuda kempang performance.

Luckily, I wasn't alone for long. Some people among the crowd approached me, apparently fascinated by the zip. 

Then another man in an awesome demon costume passed by. Our eyes met, and a short conversation turned into a request to take a photo together. 

Then somehow, we created some sort of station for people to take photos with us. Other scary people soon joined the scene.

And of course I didn't forget the real reason I came here, which was to have some bonding time with my sister. We took a sibling shot at the photo booth.

Home Team Festival 2013

The home team festival is a family targeted event that offers plenty of activities and educational experiences free of charge to the public.

So us medical instructors have been 'arrowed' to set up a booth of 5 manikins to let the public learn and experience what doing CPR is like.

This wasn't something new to us. We did do something similar for CBD 2013. And what's funny was that it was just at ITE Simei, a short distance away from EXPO.

The chairman said they wanted to reach a target of 40k visitors in the 3 days. I think they've passed it. The crowd was crazy. 

We had kids, students, young adults, parents and even the elderly approaching our booth.

Secretly we were hoping people would not stop at our booth. Not that we're lacking enthusiasm, but kneeling isn't the most comfortable position to teach in. And we kneeled for hours. 

My knees were red and pretty sore when I got back. Even prickly while in the shower. Cushions shall be on the list of items to bring next time.

Luckily, our officer in charge was willing to let us roam around during non peak hours. We tried some of the more exciting activities there like abseiling, the quick jump, and shooting the hand gun.

It was fun. Sure our knees felt like they aged 20 years in 3 days but we got to try things we otherwise wouldn't have gotten to do.

 

Great job team!

Getting back some personal time

I know it's been 2 months since I last penned my thoughts down and it was starting to bothering me.

It was a promise to a friend that I would keep writing as long as something troubled me instead of keeping my emotions in, lest I wish to return to a state I previously was in. But this blog isn't really as grim as it's supposed to be. I do pen happy and silly moments as they are as precious and honestly more fun to read in the future.

So I got back from Salt Lake City in early October with a lot of photos and stories to share. 

It's been a long time since I hung out with my brother. Even though we have an age gap of 10 years and quite opposite personalities (him being more serious while me prefering to fool around), I enjoyed his company especially when knowing I don't much opportunities to bond with him as he lives across the globe. 

But one will have to enter the barrier to enjoy this state. Cracked lips, dry skin, freezing weather and jet lag is a good start.

A shockingly slow immigration process made things inconvenient. Not impossible but made having Muhamad  as your name, an annoying issue (Sorry Sir, there's a lot of people with the name Muhamad, we need to double check the system) 

2 weeks came really quickly and it was soon time to return home, with dry lips and cracked skin.

So I have not given an excuse for my hiatus. It was partly work and partly procrastination. Haha, and to my future self reading this, no I am not lying about the work!