The Random Trip To Singapore

There was this crazy plan that I schemed up a few months back. Basically, my colleague who sits right next to me - Raja Farah - was getting married in Johor Bahru and invited me for the wedding. I figured since the wedding was to be on a Sunday afternoon and it was a longer weekend thanks to the king's birthday, I might as well take a trip to Singapore for the weekend and meet up with some faces that I hadn't met for quite some time.

As much as I'd love to have planned the trip better, it just so happened that I didn't. Anyway, I ended up calling Nita Aunty a day before my trip to inform her that I'm coming down. Pretty crazy, but the amazing part is how they readily accommodated me on such short notice. After a drive down to JB with Dad (he was attending another wedding that evening but wasn't intent on entering Singapore), I walked by the checkpoints and took the bus to Kranji MRT where Selvam Uncle picked me up.

The sun was way below the horizon by the time I got to their Woodlands home where I spent the night. Dinner was great, especially in the company of some familiar faces that I hadn't seen for a long, looong time like Devi Aunty and Sentha Aunty. After dinner we picked up Hamesh who's currently serving his compulsory National Service, and we had a chance to catch up on lots of things that night.

Funny thing is come the next morning, the rain was so heavy that I had to call off my plans to attend Farah's wedding in JB - which oddly enough was the primary reason I took the long trip down for the weekend. Hah. My sudden plans coupled with my short time there meant there wasn't too much activities planned out, but I it truly is amazing how Selvam Uncle went out of his way to make my trip memorable. He drove me out to the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore's latest addition to its list of urban attractions. The rain was a bit of a bother as my adventures were limited to the indoors, but I still managed to explore the mall. It truly was a pretty high-end place, and at least for now (considering my meager income and this annoyingly strong sense of responsibility) I had to be limited to window shopping alone. The casino looks neat, though it doesn't compare to the likes of Venetian and Wynn in Vegas. Oh, and I guess it is pretty unfortunate how Asian casinos don't serve up free drinks to patrons, which is pretty much the main reason why I'd always rank the Vegas experience higher.. Ahhhh. Those amazing strawberry daiquiris!

After that Uncle picked me up for lunch at Chinatown. Dinner, breakfast, lunch - I was pretty much stuffed to the ribs despite only being there for a few hours. What's even more amazing - my wonderful hosts did not even let me spend a single cent. I truly cannot be more grateful for having come across such incredible people in this life. A recurring topic during our chats while I was there was those nostalgic moments during our family trips in Singapore and Malaysia more than half-a-decade ago. I can only hope we could plan another trip like that again - would be far more difficult though with everyone's busy schedules these days.. Hmmm.