The Singapore Sling

Hey there, it's really something worth sharing which pushed this lazy guy to write. Also there was no Parth with us this time so as he would have written the blog & I would have relaxed.

First of all meet these two simple, yet special creatures of nature:

Rick & Harry (me). [Still from dolphin show.]

The Trip to Singapore was long planned. The VISA was obtained in January, The trip tickets booked in early march (during offer period from AirAsia: now everyone can fly.)

Learning from the last trip to Pangkor (where we just stood up & went.) that we must collect information about Singapore that what to do & where to go and all that, I prepared a 20 page project report with big words on top page "Why to go SINGAPORE". I thought this would be a planned and smooth tour. (How wrong was me? Let's find out ;)

As we started from our stay (about a kilometer from KL Sentral Station), we noticed a bunch of people standing beside the way. They called us, we ignored and kept walking. Suddenly two of them collared us & uttered, "We need some more drinkzzzzzzzz… and we have no money…" We were terrified and considered the trip cancelled here itself. On the spur of the moment, one other stout from the group came forward & asked us the whereabouts, then he said, "Ok! You go." The guys still didn't release us; hence the stout held them & freed us to move. Here started the first race of 2 days adventure trip, the race to Bus stop to catch the bus to airport.

Anyways then we rushed to bus stand (KL Sentral) from where we took the bus to Airport. It started at 5.30 & was supposed to be at airport latest by 6.30, which meant still we had 15 minutes to check in. Sitting in the bus Rick said, "The twist has already started & now we have only 15 minutes in hand for check in. It's again neck-to-neck." A cheer to his tongue, here comes a new one… We heard some strange voice from bus, garrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhh………gaht. And the bus stops, hey what's that? lemme check out.. I enquired & found that the bus can't move anymore, driver said the other bus is already on the way which he meant the next bus which just started from bus stand @ 6.00 that would reach airport @ 7.00 and will say "CONGRATULATIONS! you missed your flight." Now we are on the mid of an Expressway, we can see vehicles moving at the speed above 100 kmph & no chance to get any lift. Futher if we call taxi from either Airport or the city would take half an hour to reach us, ha ha ha. Great we are in a complete mesh; again we assumed that we've missed the flight and the trip is over. Suddenly a bus stopped and we get to know that it would go to nearby town only from where we can get a taxi. Let's go. Bus dropped us to Dengkil (a town midway between Kuala Lumpur City & Airport) in 5 minutes. We got down from the bus & rushed towards a visible taxi at the taxi stand. Wow! There's no one in or around the taxi. No problem I'll call a local taxi from the same services, with this notion I called up the number painted on taxi & was delighted with the message, "Thank you for calling .. taxi service, we operate from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. please leave your message." Cheers! The assumption of missed flight continues, on the spur of the moment we spotted a taxi stopped on red light nearby. Another ray of hope rising from the dark, we rushed to it; he agreed to take us to airport at a slight higher cost. Now we explained him the condition & asked him to drive faster. Hats off to the taxi driver he was running at a below average speed even on expressway. Aaah! Let me tell you something special about his taxi… Its odometer read speed between 90 & 100 kmph when vehicle just starts on green signal, no matter whatever be the actual speed.

Finally, we are at the airport. Its 6.47 now, we rushed towards check in counters. Astonished! The counter is missing; we rush back to customer service counter. Customer service executive says, "Its counter no. 57." We told him that it's closed. He asked, "When is the flight?" 7.30 am we replied. "It's 6.50 now, you're 5 minutes late." He said. We asked him to do something, "its airport's rule to close counters 45 minutes before departure & not airasia's rule. So I can't help you at all. Sir, you've missed your flight." We reassured that we've got no luggage to check-in & what we need is just the boarding pass. Then he sent us to another service counter where we got the boarding pass ultimately. Then we proceed to boarding gate through immigrations.

Looking at the long queue on boarding gate, I got relaxed & asked rick to have water first. Rick went to ATM, I bought water & tea. When turned back, we saw the boarding gate is closed, rush again. Now the rush finished only after taking seat in the flight. Wow! We haven't missed the flight! And now we are about to fly to Singapore.

Have a look at scenic Singapore with my cam.

That's a distant Singapore View..

Some clouds on Singapore

Have a close look at Singapore.

So guys, we made it. It's around 9 and we are in Singapore. What's the program?

No wonders! The City called a Cement Jungle:

Now we opened the project report looked for the accommodation possibilities, tallied it with the map & headed to Bugis. At Bugis we didn't find anything worth staying, so we bought the daily tourist pass & headed to Little India. After long hunting, we camped at InnCrowd Little India; also we got discounted tickets for Night Safari here. After having chill for some time, we started our journey to explore Singapore where in the way we had some food at Anand Bhawan (an Indian Restaurant). We were eager to join the Dolphin show at 3.30 pm and it was 2.30 which meant we had ample time to get it. Here comes a new one:

After walking down to MRT station, about a kilometer from inncrowd, rick asked where's the digicam? How funny we spent more than half an hour on the way already. What now??? Rush hour… yes rush back to inncrowd, pick the digicam & back to station…huff, huff. Then took train to Harbor front (terminal of NE line) from where runs the Sentosa Express to reach the island. We continued our journey to the island.

There are two major attractions in Singapore which are talked off majorly, The Singapore Night Safari (Show timings 7.30 pm to 10.30 pm, every hour) and The Songs of the Sea (Show timings 7.40 pm & 8.40 pm). The commutation time between the two is minimum 75 minutes using public transports. And we had only one evening to catch both of them. We planned to go for Songs of the Sea at 7.40 pm & then to rush to Night Safari for 9.30 show. In case we miss the 9.30 show we could catch the 10.30 show.

As we landed the Sentosa Island, I noticed the sign board of "Tickets for Songs of the Sea". We decided to buy it first & as we rushed to the queue… We saw the ticket selling personnel flipped a board kept in front of counter… Guess what it read? Hmm… Ok let me tell you… "7.40 pm show tickets are sold, we would like to see you at 8.40". Ha ha ha… isn't that funny? The recalculation begins… 9.05 show finishes, hurry up to train station, reach the harbor front… train to Ang Mo Kio… then bus to the Zoo… hmm… computation finished… yes, we can make it.. "Let's give it a chance." We decided, purchased tickets & moved…

Then we roamed around the beaches had some snaps. Later went to "the underwater world" where we touched some fishes in the touch pool,

Touch Pool @ Under Water World: Feel it!!!

Met some strange creatures of sea, like this dragon:

Seen some Giant illusions like this:

This is a rare White Shark (which is actually not there, this is created through an optical illusion).

I also met some angels…

Sea Angels

And some innocent looking devil…

After completing the two attractions we started towards the beach again for the "songs of the sea".

On the way, we got down at "Merlion", roamed around & it appeared to me that across the Merlion is a bus stop where we'll get the bus towards the beach. So we went across it to get a bus, but we kept walking and walking and walking… and the distance which appeared to be not more than 500 meters turned out to be more that a kilometer or twoL Rick was shouting, "The bus stand is just there…, don't you remember the ways? Just now we came here through bus… you are such a stupid…" actually he was repeating the sentences I used earlier to convince him to walk :P … he he. Anyways, we reached the bus stand shouting at each other with respites & took a bus to the beach station.

On reaching there we saw a hell lot of crowd around the station, probably the crowd heading back to harbor front after the "songs of the sea". Looking at this we planned to stay at the rear of theatre, near to exit, from where we can easily rush back & catch the early train to harbor front. We did so, after the show, we were in the sentosa express heading harbor front at 9.10 pm. During the show, camera battery was gone & had to capture it in mobilecam. Below is the short video of it.

Here starts the final Event of the day, Relay race to the Night Safari Zoo, it begin with the fireworks of the "songs of the sea". We tried to escape once(before the whistle to race start) but the security guard said that fireworks are remaining. So we stopped & as the fireworks blown, Rick headed to ask someone if the show is over, meanwhile I noticed people standing up & yelled, "Run, faster…" …huff, huff… the race stopped only after entering the Sentosa express. We reached Harbor front, where was the relay race part-2 from Sentosa Station to MRT station (I think we are good atheletes). The baton of relay race was handed over back to us in Ang Mo Kio by MRT; this was the third part of race from MRT Station to the Bus stand at Ang Mo Kio. We saw the desired bus was standing in front of the bus stand, but when we tried to board it, driver indicated towards the entrance of bus stand. Alas! We missed itL this was the part of race we think where we lost, else we were about to win the raceJ. Then we were eagerly waiting for next bus to come, finally it arrived after quite long time & took us to the final lap of race, where the official at finish line (entrance to the Night Safari) snatched our baton & told, "Stupid! Why are you running? You've lost the race."

What next? The day is over, events finished, attractions closed & the body is tired. So we had our dinner, relaxed in tram, watching the animals of night safari and went back to rest for another day full of adventure.

Relationship.. the ARC Concept

This is one of the simple concept known to me.

They individually stands for:

Affinity: It's a natural attraction by any virtue. It may be by natural relations like siblings, parents or some goodwill like good friends, sometimes may be business needs such as clients, also seldom the infatuation.

Communication: The exchange of thoughts by any mean. May be verbal/written in several languages or can be in signs.

Reality Agreements: These are made by us as a whole. The objects we see in our daily life, we name them, everyone calls it by its name. Like a wooden object made of 4 legs & a rectangular top may be a stool, a tea table, a study table or a bed, etc. depending on its physical size. Same applies for the situaltions.

Any relation is maintained by the balance of these three elements. Whenever the balance is disturbed, the relationship starts to cockle. So this can be a very basic approach to reclaim the losing links of great bounds. Let's understand, how this construct works?

Think of the one closest person to you & question:

1. Don't you have Affinity towards him ?

2. Don't you Communicate with him ?

3. Don't you have Reality agreements with him?

Yes, you've all these in place with the person. Now if you think of last conflicts with the same person or some other. What was that? Was it a miscommunication or a reality conflict? in most of the cases, it's a communication gap. How was it resolved? just by communicating & convincing each other, isn't it? Sometimes may be reality disagreement which was later converted into agreement and things were back to place. How the discrepancy resolved? just by communication. You haven't lost the affinity in both the cases, however.

How Affinity is Lost?

Coming to some bigger dispute in the past which is yet there, a link which started simply and grown up to a better friendship & now nothing in between or even hostile. How it started? with a disagreement followed by lack of the communication. What happened later? Probably you didn't cared since it was not the way you wanted nor he did ! And with the fleeting time, the distances kept increasing. Did you noticed that you're losing the affinity with him? Most likely you didn't. Since if you did then it would have been much better today.

This is not the reason always, at times the story may be dramatic. Such as a villain who can't see you two happy & together. So due to jealous, he will provoke both against each other. In all such cases, it's just about communication. If someone complains about your friend, then it's your call that how far you trust whom? Here, you must go & ask your friend directly that is it so? This way you come to know the fact & situations. This way you'll be able to save loss of the affinity & eventually your relation. Here if you opt the other way (not communicating with friend), your ignorance results in the disinterest which leads to distorted relation, gradually the affinity is lost & relation disappears.

How Communication is lost?

"Now-a-days lifestyle is much busier, hence we fail to manage the time & we're unable to spare the time for communicating with our near & dear ones." The tragedy is, we think this statement applies to me only & not to the rest of the world. So we remember who missed to wish me this anniversary (the ego) & he is not good to us anymore thus we won't contact him anymore.(this is sad !)

Now if we change this angle by 180 degrees, means the statement applies to everyone in the world except me ?

Wow, thats beautiful, isn't it? You never mind who remembers you & who don't as they're all busy people. And you try, never to forget anyone at any ocassion, here you get the everlasting relationships.

Why Reality Conflicts?

These we can see more in children. What does that mean?

Immaturity is the most prevailing reason for reality conflicts. Different levels of perception between people, dissimilar understanding to the situations.

This can be easily sorted out through good discussions or sometimes with the help of third person, so as to come on a meaningful conclusion. Reality conflicts are better if never minded.

Thence, here we conclude that next time when we see a downtime in relationship, we work around the ARC to find out the shortfall and rejuvenate the relation by fulfilling it.