Singapore National Day

12:30 PM - My eyes open and blurry vision streams into my brain as i peer up at the ceiling.  I'm wondering how I got home last night.  Oh yeah, i jumped in a cab with Carolina and some other Swedish annas after McDonalds.  I saunter over to my desk and open up my laptop.  Am i missing anything?Where's my wallet? Where's my phone? Shit.  How much did i spend last night?

Log onto facebook and see if anyone wrote me anything.  My phone rings.  It's Dakota and he wants to grab some lunch.  I head down and the whole gang is there looking like they fell off a train in the middle of the night.  Head down to the 

canteen and grab some fruit and coffee.  Today is going to be a great day.  After exchanging stories about last night and having a few laughs, we decide that going downtown for National Day will be a good idea.  Next came the fun part.

We board the bus and Max calls us up.  We agree to meet him at the Boon Lay train station.  Next thing, everyone but Dakota and i are having McDonalds.  We get bored and start wandering the mall.  Finally after 20 minutes, we get everyone outside.  Maggie and Max need to hit the ATM.  After a while, i head over to see what's taking them.  There's a guy who's staring blankly at the machine scratching his head, about 6 people behind him and then Maggie and Max.

  After losing four pounds in water weight, Max tells us that he needs to put money on his ez-link pass.  Max, Dakota and i wait in another line while the gang is fucking around in the station.  This entire section of the story took about an hour or so.  Finally we board the train and pack in like sardines.  We get there and everyone is already getting over it.  We walk outside and follow the crowds.  Everyone who lives on the island is out and about near City Hall.  Hordes of short dark people crowd the streets and flow through like water.  We hit a roadblock when there's a ticket checkpoint. Tickets? What tickets?  For what?  We talked to some people and they told us that we could watch the show for free over by the bridge.  I look up and dark grey clouds line the horizon.  

Fuck.

I don't have anything to put my camera in if it starts raining.  

So we're standing on this bridge with tons of people on it and we can't see a thing.  Awesome.

"Where's Max?" i ponder out loud.

"Oh, he dipped out like ten minutes ago.  I guess he got over it."  said Dakota

Hmmm Typical

I glance up again and i get this really bad feeling that it's going to pour.  I yell to the others that i'm going back inside the building nearby.  Henrik decides that he wants to go too.  That was the last time that i saw the whole group.  

We hang out for a bit and i try to use the restroom but some lady starts yelling at me in Singlish.  I shrug my shoulders and smile.  Henrick spots a good place to go outside and see the show.  

Let me say one thing about Asia in general.

Lines do not exist.  You just push your way to the front of anything.  7-11, getting train seats, trying to get a urinal in the restroom, getting drinks at the bar, going up an escalator.  At first, i would get really upset when people would push me but now it's an olympic sport.

I PUSH my way through the crowd and next thing is Henrik and i standing around some stage with a bunch of stuff wrapped up in tarps and nothing happening for at least a half hour.  I start snapping away at random people and

 Henrik laughs because of my forwardness with photography.  It starts to rain a bit, so i'm between taking pictures and keeping my camera under my shirt.  People push and we push back.  A couple of helicopters fly by, the people cheer and then nothing happens.  We're both pretty bummed that we spent a half hour standing our ground against a bunch of dirty Singaporean guys so we could have exactly 45 seconds of "fun".  We cruise down a ways and end up under a bunch of trees and i'm talking with another photographer about cameras.  Everyone around me was really interested in my camera because i had found a bag and wrapped it up in it.  I poked a hole for the viewfinder and let the lens stick out.  I kept telling people that it was an underwater housing for deep sea photography.  i think that some people actually believed me.  We get bored here and head back.  There's so many people around that i'm literally swimming through the crowd.   We hole up in a spot and meet some annas (excuse me, girls) from NUS and start chatting away.  They start telling us how their school is better.  Immediately, they lose points cause they were being serious.  The fireworks start going off and i keep bumping into some guy while taking pictures and he keeps turning around and looking at me in disgust.  I smile to myself and chuckle a bit.  Fun's over.

This crowd, this living breathing entity started to get wild.  First, people began to boo when people started to leave right after the show.  Henrick looks at me and makes that face that says "we should leave."  People didn't go crazy or riot or anything like that.  But when you have that many people trying to get somewhere at one time, things start to get out of hand.  Luckily, there's police presence to keep things in order.  We started to head through a corridor when it backed up and people began to flood out into the parking garage through a small door.  We head out and start walking up some ramp to the street.  After we hit the top, i look left and see a bunch of people standing behind a barricade with a cop standing there holding them back.  This large group that we're a part of is walking in the middle of an empty street that was previously closed down.  People start shuffling together as we reach the MRT station.  We're standing shoulder to shoulder and this is when the pushing match really began.  We decide to hang tight and grab some food before heading home to avoid the crowded trains.  We go down a huge escalator, turn around and head up to go around a barricade and enter the mall.  We head straight for the food court and start looking for a table with trays in hand. We spot two seats near a couple and cruise over.  Just as we get there, some guy walks up and asks the couple if they could sit there.  Henrik and i look at each other and plop down at the table, ignoring the other guy.  He grimaces and i mutter "that's right, bitch"  in my most macho murmur available.  We smile at each other and enjoy our cold food.  There is no such thing as heat lamps in Singapore.  Any food that you get where you point and build a plate will be cold.  No exceptions.  

After food, we wander the mall 

and spot a crazy fountain that makes 

shapes and such with flowing water.  I tried to capture the word "Singapore" but it didn't come out quite as i wanted.

 

After the madness had settled down, we jumped on the train and caught the bus back to campus.  My feet hurt. 

Time for bed. 

P.S. In your face Dakota.  My day was better than yours.