Bukit Timah Hill

Finally the exams were over last weekend and I could start my exercise routine again. Well, I did not start my regular running routine yet but ended up at Bukit Timah Hill last Sunday with a few classmates and their children. Almost all of them are first timers to the hill, and I was last there some months ago. I was there early and had to wait for another hour before everyone arrived. In between we just "hang" around at the car park checking out the monkeys, who were as mischievous as ever. I believe it were some of these monkeys that shitted on my car when I returned later!

We went up to the visitor centre but before we set off, the kids wanted to have some ice cream. What a way to start a trek! All of us were in shape - ROUND, as the ice cream did not help. But off we go and up the slope. The kids ran, yes literally and panted and slowed down and stopped and one of them even vomited after 50 metres! She ended up on the father's shoulders after that receiving first class transport. The rest of us took our time to walk slowly up the steep slope with some slow coaches lagging far behind.

It was just a simple intro-walk to Bukit Timah and not one of those "chiong" training sessions that I used to have with my other DiveTrek kakis. We soon reached the point where you either continued the regular road walk or the steep steps. The kids wanted some challenge and so we went for that, leaving the slow coaches to catch up later. The steps did pose some challenged to the kids as the steps were too high and wide for their short legs. But we made it finally to the summit, dropped our bags at the shelter and the kids were begging for one more round. So I brought them down the main road again, meeting the slow coaches halfway, before coming up the steep steps again. A 3rd round was proposed but I did not sanctioned. I did not want the kids to overwork themselves.

We rested at the summit, snapped many photos with the silly rock and then down we went. The original plan was to take a walk to the quarry but it was getting late and so that would have to be left for the next trip there. We were going for pepper crabs to a popular coffee shop at Joo Chiat, renowned for its long queue, and of course delicious pepper crabs. We arrived to see the usual long queue and quickly sent one of us to join the queue while we tried to find a place to park the car. Fortunately the wait this time round was short only about 45 min I think. The longest wait ever was over 2 hours! The pepper crabs were still as good as before.

The after-dinner activity was spent at Changi Point. We planned to watch the planes land at Changi Airport but too bad for us, the planes were landing from the other side of the runway. We lazed around for a while and called it a day.