Biking at Pulau Ubin

Boat uncle

Back in 2007 it was something of an adventure to go to Pukau Ubin. We started early in the morning, and after riding the MRT almost to the end, and then taking the bus another 26 stops, we reached something that was supposed to be a ferry terminal. There we had to wait for an eternity until the boat (or "floating vehicle" might be a better description) took us over to a tiny little island with a proper Kampong village life.
 

Hanna kamponging

Kampong is how Singaporeans lived back in the days, with wooden houses on pillars, no MRT or EPR (road toll). At Pulau Ubin, back in 2007, there was nothing to eat, see or do, but one could hassle with the locals to rent bikes and cycle around the island for a couple of hours.

Now we have entered the new and commercialized era of Singapore's history and probably also a new more comfortable level of living in my on personal history. Therefore The Pulau Ubin Adventure started with a comfortable taxi ride to the ferry terminal, that now really do looks like a ferry terminal. The boat was still a bit questionable, but that made the whole experience a bit more genuine. There was also absolutely no waiting time as there was lots of people everywhere. 

Sometimes knowing how to ride a bike is NOT something you remember your entire life.

Lots of people were also everywhere on the tiny little island. Forget about cycling around in no-mans-land. This is proper Singaporean park adventure: there are signs on where to go and what to do. For example what to take photographs of and  where to stop and look at the view. This is totally fine by me. Nature stays on it's on end, I get to enjoy my urbanized environment and we are somehow happily co-excisting.

Major minus on the island was the mad number of killer mosquitoes that was out in broad daylight. All blood suckers, including mosquito and vampires can only come out at night, that's a fact, so I don't know what was wrong with these little buggers. 

Messy food

Consu's first chili crab

Major plus on the island was an incredible seafood lunch. At a whopping $25/person we feasted on fresher than super fresh chili crab and pepper crab, fried baby squids, seafood fried rice and chicken noodles, oyster omelette, beers and more. And then we had ice cream before a relaxing fish reflexology session. 

Coming back to mainland we had ice-cream again, or well, some of us did, before heading off to do some sportswear outlet shopping (we all saw a need for this after sweating like mad for the entire day). Finally the entire gang had dinner at Cafe le Caire on Arab Street before heading home.

A great day, filled with everything you need; best friends, comfortable exercising, outdoorsy activities, excellent food, several ice-creams and some shopping on sale. 

Consu, Julia, Farhana, Alan, Hanna (photographer: Nima)

Girl's weekend in Bangkok

8 girls, with very varied background and personalities decided to do a weekend in Bangkok together. It could have been complete mayhem, but turned out really awesome.

Arriving Friday night after a long busy week at work, we started out in a relaxed manner at Clouds, a cozy outdoor bar close to our service apartment. Sipping on fruity cocktails it felt GOOD to be on vacation in Thailand.

In no particular preference of order, we all decided that in 48 hours we should do Thai massage, shop at the market, go clubbing, eat a Thai tasting menu at a fancy restaurant, shop at a mall carrying local designer brands, discover some wicked bars, get a mani-pedi, try the pool, relax, ride a tuktuk, try the street food and the local ice-cream (yes, that last one was suggested by me). After that we figured we could just see what happens.

 

Getting ready for clubbing.

Tuktuk for two? Surely six of us can fit. 

Shopping at the market

Local coconut ice-cream. YUM!

We really reall really wanted to steel it.

Successful shopping results

Got only a little bit tired towards the end...

All in all, Bangkok was fantastic! The fancy Thai dinner was incredible with exotic flavor bursts and creative combinations of known and unknown food. Clubbing was sweaty and sweet (free shots at the rooftop bar!). Thai massage was, well, it was painful and not exactly relaxing, but it was really really good. Mani-pedi, pool and relaxation was done at convenient time slots in between shopping and umbrella-drink sipping.

I'm allready excited about going back. Bangkok rocks!

Self inflicted pain

In Chinatown you can get a Chinese massage for the outstanding price of $50 for 60 minutes. Perfect!
If it wasn't for the pain caused.

Imagine a really small room in the middle of bustling Chinatown, and then place five plush armchairs (sitting comfortably during your foot reflexology is important), three back massage chairs, two bench-beds for full-body massage, and then a couple of flexible armchairs that can be turned into whatever you need them for. Fully booked this little SPA palace looks more like a wet market with a random mix of people piled up high and low wherever there is room.

Fully dressed and with a towel as a blanket I was placed on an improvised full body massage chair/table. Lowering my face down into that little hole I had to make a very conscious effort to breath only with my mouth. The chair/table smelled like hell and it didn't take long until I figured out why. The massage was seriously freaking painful. I was sweating stress- and anxiety hormones like crazy. It felt like I was the cattle next up in a butchery. Amazed by the masseur-uncle's ability just pinpoint the spots along my back that clearly were very unrelaxed, I was counting down the minutes doing breathing exercises to distract myself.

About 15 minutes into the massage the uncle politely asked "Mam', you pain?" I managed to squeal out a "yes, pain, pain-pain", underscoring that I was in a lot of pain. This was happily excepted with an "okay", and the massage went on. When I curled up backwards and almost fell of the bad because I was trying to balance out a finger that was poking my lower ribs out, the uncle laughed a little to himself and said something in Chinese that I can only assume was something like "wimp". They are supposed to be really good these deep, pressure point massages, and I did stick it out the entire hour.

Thankfully my massage was interrupted a number of times when people climbed over me to reach the washroom. I also had someone sitting down at my bed by my feet for a little while. And at some point my massage-uncle explained something that was happening along my spine by "drawing" and pointing at random places along my back and vividly discussing in Chinese with someone else.

Next time I'm doing a Swedish massage. For sure. Or maybe I should give it one more go... Maybe one gets used to the pain?