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gear yourselves up, this is going to be a looong post. Very, VERY long.
DAY 1 (12/11/08)
So, on the 12th of November, Wednesday, a little late into the morning (10.30AM to be precise), a couple of guys and me met up at Chu Chu Kang MRT station. We were not headed to Changi yet. Rather, we were dropping by Ernest’s place to help him out carry some stuff for the chalet.
Ernest had kindly stepped up to the task of organizing the chalet this time round.
Haha.
As we were reaching the lift up to Ernest’s house, Alger joined us. He was waiting at the void deck already (they both live around the same estate). He was expecting Joseph to arrive, but he was running late. After carrying the stuff from his house to the void deck, Joseph arrived. A tad too late, but never mind. Haha. He (Joseph) was wearing a shirt that said “CocoCola” in thai. It looked cool.
We then boarded the bus 302 to go to CCK MRT station. Everything was as usual, until a mention of ERIC came up. You wouldn’t believe it, but Eric was actually sitting right at the back of the exact same bus we were in. And no one saw him.
Alger: “AY, Eric leh!”
Joseph: “where? where??”
Eric then stood up and joined the rest of us. Amazing how he landed right smack unto the same bus as the rest of us. The rest of “the rest of us” were all at the MRT station.
It was a pretty darn huge group of people at the MRT station, mainly consisting of guys. There were as little as 5 girls at this point of time. Many other girls were invited to come, but this was all the turnout we could get. It probably was 11.00AM by now.
Zhi Min (and maybe a few others) said that we were gonna look like a huge group of retards on the MRT. It was understandable, and no one considered it as an insult. Some people even agreed. Sure enough, it was true. On the MRT, due to the lack of space, the group of us was split into 2. Over time, it because pretty obvious which groups were what. One group of us was taking care of the stuff we carried over from Ernest house. The other group, well, were playing PSP. They were a quiet bunch (how the heck do you talk to someone playing PSP anyway?). SO, there were group of us playing PSP, and nothing else. The others (us) were just killing time by having small chit chats on our own, talking about how the PSP really should be “killed” in cases like these. Haha. Sze Ming, in one corner, was reading a book (!). But she was probably tired from her paper on earlier that day (pure science students had their last paper on the 12th).
Besides all the chit chatting, the journey there was rather uneventful (seriously, ever heard of a fun MRT ride?). The group of guys chit chatting soon deviated from me as they started to communicate in Chinese, which of course, I don’t understand. Jaja. Soon enough, I found myself talking to Sze Ming in that corner a lot. We made up a couple of jokes of stuff on the MRT, but I can’t really remember anything at the moment.
As the MRT took it’s ride below the surface, our group grew larger…some of the girls who were over at the “PSP side” came over, and Daesiree started taking pictures an’ stuf.
Our destination was Tampanies MRT station. That was a pretty darn long journey, although 2 stops shorter that the journey to the chalet back in sec 2 which literally took us all the way to the other end of Singapore at Pasir Ris, it was still quite a long journey…but Singapore, being Singapore, how long could a journey be anyway?
So, we arrived. At the MRT, it we split up into 2 again (LOL). Some of the (older) guys headed towards Changi beach…for reasons I didn’t know. The rest of us took the bus to Changi Village, where our chalet was. There was this map which was being passed around, curious to find out where we needed to alight and where our chalet was, and literally debating which stop we were supposed to alight at. The map was passed around so much so that we actually missed our bus stop! So we all stayed on the bus, and it looped at the bus terminal over at Changi Village and back down the same route. This time round, we got off at the correct stop.
We walked downhill, while Ernest and some other guys went searching for the chalet office. However, further downhill, we found the office. So I called Ernest up and told them we were all outside the office, and they came.
After they came, they checked into the chalet (or at least they tried to). Because, at this time we all received a piece of news that was probably the shocker of the day.
WE COULDN’T CHECK INTO THE CHALET UNTIL 3PM!
Besides all the surprised faces I saw, reaction to this was surprisingly calm. The overall reaction to this was interesting, because the first thing that came to everyone’s minds was what we were going to do until 3PM, and not someone going: “OMG WTF WE CAN’T CHECK IN??? OSHT OSHT OSHT” we were all just wondering, “oh. 3PM ah. Then how?”
It was probably 12.30AM around now.
So, we all decided to walk to our chalet and discover where it was. It was terrible, the chalet was located on the top, literally. To save ourselves from walking a really, REALLY looooong distance uphill, we took a “shortcut”, which was kinda funny. We climbed up a steep slope of grass, and while we were struggling to climb, there was strong word of encouragement (LOL) such as, Ernest’s catchphrase: “ENDURE!!!”
At the top, we jumped over the railings and reached the chalet. We put our bags down as suggested, and probably was the most logical thing to do at that time...because we had been carrying our bags the entire day around.
It must felt like lunchtime by now, because mentions of us wanting to go have a nice snack or two rose. So, we put our bags down at the chalet, and walked downhill (and uphill later) to reach Changi village. Changi Village was literally, the only place to go to if you wanted…anything at all. Anyway, there, we all settled down at a coffee shop. Ernest and some other couldn’t join us, because they were back at the chalet taking care of our bags. Thanks guys!
At the coffee shop, I just had a bowl of iced lychee. Other bought stuff like Nasi Lemak and…yeah, you get the idea. I earlier heard that Grace had a fixation with Nasi Lemak in Changi or something, but I’m not sure how true that was. Well, we took our own sweet time to eat, since the chalet could only be checked into at 3PM.
The guys finished eating earlier, so a couple of us decided to go and hang around (I think we bought drinks) and wait outside the office to get the keys at the earliest possible opportunity (I think).
At the office, Ernest and a couple of others (I think) were already there. As we waited for time to pass, it started raining heavily. Really, really, heavily. As a matter of fact, the weather was already showing signs of it when we were walking from Changi village to the office, it was drizzling then. Now, it was pouring. The girls were still, supposedly, at the coffee shop. And the guess was that they wouldn’t turn up. However, all of a sudden, at a guard post some 5 meters away from us, there they were, all completely drenched. From top to toe. Wow.
So they joined us outside the office, in the shelter. And we slacked, I guess. Some others went into the office to inquire about stuff about the chalet, from which we would discover that we needed a person of 18 years old of age with an IC to check in. And the debate started from there. Yue Ming said his Ez-Link card would do, (no one brought their IC, !) but not many people were convinced.
Somehow, we got into the chalet one way or another. It was a bungalow, rather. It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it worked anyway. So, we all had to settle down at the bungalow. The girls were smallest in number, so they got the smallest room. Which made sense. There were 3 other rooms, and we decided for ourselves which ones to take. One of these 3 rooms, however, was especially reserved for people playing PSP. And trust me, there a lot of people in that room.
Ernest started explaining a couple of ground-level stuff, such as informing us all that the air conditioning was metered, and we would not be able to use it at our own expense and will. Other than that, I couldn’t remember anything else of major importance.
Ernest then went into the girls room and started reading all the stuff right off the paper he was holding in his hands.
Ernest: “Please do not paste anything on the walls. Do not write anything on the walls. Do not move the furniture. Do not –“
Some of the girls burst out giggling. Damn, it was hilarious.
So, it was raining, and we were all forced to stay indoors. I sat at the dining table and slacked. I was at the table, and we played a half-hearted version of Truth or Dare. It wasn’t very successful, because Zhi Min’s dare to all the girls was to ask them to go clean the kitchen up. LOL! Of course, people like Hui Ying would simple love to argue and play around with this.
Hui Ying, frowning comically: “You shuddup hor. We don’t have to clean the kitchen!”
Zhi Min: “but do you even have a choice???”
It gets funnier. More girls joined later, and when Daesiree joined in, Zhi Min said his dare to the girls was “something productive and useful to everyone”. You should have seen Daesiree’s reaction when she found out the dare was to ask the girls to clean the kitchen up.
This dare to the girls from Zhi Min literally caused the entire game to stop form moving forward, and with all the laughs and the number of people coming in to join the dining table, the game was forgotten about. At this time, I think I went up to the room.
People played PSP, watched TV (I think), and played poker cards. I didn’t do poker, and was very tired, so I went upstairs and slept. After the nap, I woke up to realize everything was pretty much the same, just that there was no longer the energy and noise in the air anymore. None of the girls were downstairs, and they were all in their room. The guys were all over the place, and to be honest, it was uneventful. I can’t really remember what kept me occupied all the way till night, but at one point of time, I remember seeing Sze Ming alone reading a book (!!!). Everyone else was playing poker, and some were watching channel U (I don’t do Chinese) so I joined her. And we were bored together. Lol. Yaked about some random stuff, with constant reminders of how boring it was. We talked to Premala over the phone, and that was more random stuff, but I do remember that we talked about gaming. Flyff, to be precise. It’s been long since I’ve played that game, and the story went on.
Sze Ming was staying for just one night, and not the entire length of the chalet. The barbeque was supposed to happen on the first night of the chalet, but the rain just had to spoil it for us. The rain spoilt quite a lot on the first day for us, to be frank. That’s just sad because, it meant Sze Ming would have to miss the barbeque. Crap!
Sze Ming and me moved to the TV room later, and it was pretty chaotic in there. People were talking across the room, and some with PSP or handphone in hand, and some –watching TV. Their channel U show was over, because people were leaving already. One of the people who didn’t leave was Zhi Min. We were watching America’s Got Talent on channel 5. Zhi Min was like, “is this even talent?!?! Americans are stupid!” Soon, TV would prove to be unentertaining, because Zhi Min and me started cracking jokes about stuff from the internet forum 4chan.
At night, Grace left. She had some church choir thing, I think.
The situation couldn’t get any more perfect, because Chen Sing was arriving. He was at the Changi Village bus terminal already. Zhi Min and I went to go to pick him up. Zhi Min wasn’t interested in this at all, something which I found funny.
Zhi Min: “wow, it’s actually amazing you made it so far until here from chua chu kang! I think it’s like an accomplishment for you!”
Chen Sing: “wa lao, you can stop it already la!”
So, as the sky got darker, the weather only got wetter. People stayed up playing poker cards and stuff, but I slept, as I didn’t sleep properly the night before.
DAY2 (13/11/08)
The chalet was a lot different than back in sec 2, where it seemed as if tomorrow never came. This time round, tomorrow actually came. I was woken up by, uh, I don’t actually remember. But I was woken up by someone 4AM in the morning. Reason was:
Someone I was woken up by: “hey hey wake up, you going OCH right?”
Me: “ya…”
Someone I was woken up by: “we going to leave already…c’mon”
There was a lot of talk on who was going to visit OCH on the previous day. I knew there wasn’t going to be much to do in the chalet bungalow, so I joined the group of people, and visited OCH.
For those of you who don’t know, you must be wondering, “What the heck is OCH?” Well, OCH stands for Old Changi Hospital. Yue Ming and some others (Alger, I think) were all about it. Old Changi Hospital is, as you can tell, a abandoned building. Yue Ming was talking about how there were some worshippers and other haunted stuff in the building. I didn’t have the slightest clue what I was going to expect, but that very fact made me wanna go.
So, early in the morning, everyone was still awake. I simply just had to wash myself up, and so I did. By the time I was done, everyone was waiting. I rushed downstairs, and we left for OCH.
I immediately started feeling the chills when we started climbing a flight of oddly-heighted stairs all the way from the bottom to right at the top, where the building was. It was freaky, I’m telling you. The building had graffiti all over it, and the old architecture nature of the building was just…urrgh. And right at the top, there were those words: “Changi Hospital”. I kept staring at it. The place was just…wow. The graffiti was the freaky part, mainly because it indicates some form of presence…although really, the place was freaking abandoned. It took a long time before we actually went in, because some of us were having second thoughts and doubts. In the end, we all took the plunge and went in. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all collectively broken. Pipes from the ceiling were all coming down, switch sockets were empty, walls were faded, cracked, and every other single thing you could imagine. The guys at the front shined their torch around. All this, at 4AM in the morning? Oh yeah, we really needed this!
Anyway, part of the reason we went there at 4AM was because we wanted to catch the sunrise. Someone said that the sunrise from the top floor (the roof) of that old, abandoned hospital would be a good place to catch the beautiful sunrise. When we were actually at the building, well, no one wanted to see the sunrise anymore. But they insisted (specifically Yue Ming). So we reached the top floor, and tried opening the roof. However, they couldn’t get it open (thank god) and so, we turned back.
On the way back, I swear the sound of the raindrops dropping sounded like someone who walking behind my back. Shit, I was so freaked out, I was sweating like hell. The top half of my shirt was wet.
We needed a quick alternate way to catch the sunset, so we headed to the shore. We walked along the coast for a very, VERY long time. The cool breeze felt good, especially when the top half of my shirt was wet. Checking out maps and stuff, we headed towards somewhere where we could catch the sunrise. We were under a shelter, and the breeze was very strong, bringing together a little bit of the rain together with it. Some of us were very confident that we would see something beautiful (the sunrise), but we waited, and waited, and waited. Other guys who didn’t visit OCH joined us later, but the girls couldn’t find us (LUL NOOBZ). So, the girls went to the coffee shop to have their breakfast, while we waited, and waited and waited. The sky was getting brighter, but the horizon we were facing was still pitch dark. That kinda convinced me that we would actually see a sunrise, but as time went, it became clear we wouldn’t. And believe it or not, it would be ERIC, out of all people, to point this out first to everyone. Wonder how he did it?
Well, at Changi, the planes flew really low because the airport was close nearby. Eric had this brainwave: he said that the airport’s runways always face the NorthEast (I’m not sure what he said myself, actually) direction, and therefore we were facing the wrong direction. Because the planes were flying directly above us, it indicated that we were facing North, and that’s not where the sun rises from. Complicated? Ask Eric how he did it. Seriously. Wow.
Anyway, after that huge failed attempt of watching the sun rise, we decided to go to Changi Village to have our breakfast. The girls, as expected, were already there. We had our breakfast. Quite a lot of people ate ROTI PRATA. As for me, I just decided to get a hot drink, because I was freezing from the chilling breeze of the shore. I ordered coffee at just 90 cents and enjoyed every single drop of it. Damn, that was some seriously good coffee. Take THAT, high-class starbucks shit!
I’m not sure what happened after breakfast, but I walked with Zhi Min and Joseph back to the chalet. He talked about his trip to Shanghai (show off!) and stuff. He says he’s gonna meet Annabelle over at Shanghai (SHOW OFF!!). hahaha just kidding dude. But wow, meeting a classmate friend overseas has got to be one of the coolest thing ever to do at this kinda age.
After all of the guys reached the chalet, nearly everyone wanted to sleep. Apparently, the bulk of everyone had stayed up the entire night doing stuff. Now, somewhere around 10AM in the morning, they wanted to sleep. Nice sleeping quotas, guys! Haha. But hey, it was fair enough. SO they all slept….most of them, at least. A couple of guys had messed up the chalet, and there was ants crawling all over. Ernest wanted to sleep, and he looked a little irritated by the issue (which was kinda scary but understandable) so I took over from him and swept up the entire first floor of the chalet. When I was near completion, the girls arrived, but one of them were missing. Anyway, the girls went up to their room, and…I’m not sure what happened for the most of the late mornings.
The missing girl was Sze Ming. Zhi Min had to leave for school also, so they were leaving together. Zhi Min helped take her stuff, and it was good bye for them. The last time I saw her was back at the coffee shop, which…was quite a pretty long time ago I think.
I slacked alone to myself at the dining table, with absolutely nothing to do. No, this wasn’t signs of a bad organized chalet. It was because of the weather. The rain just had to….aiyah.
Later into the afternoon, people started waking up already. Meng Xuan was funny in this sense.
Meng Xuan, stretching himself: “ahh, yeah. I finish sleep already! That’s all my sleep! Come let’s play bridge!”
And, it was back to the usual. Bridge is a poker card game, by the way.
The weather was getting drier. Drier than ever since we checked into the chalet. It wasn’t long before everyone would notice this, and this opportunity simply had to be seized: the barbeque was going to be started, immediately. We took out the charcoal and stuff, to get the fire going. But as luck would have it, it started drizzling –again. This made it incredibly difficult for the fire to get started, so we just covered it up, and went back in. They played poker. I decided to watch the drizzling stop. It just had to. So I sat on the stairs, looking out the door, watching if the drizzling would stop. It was at this time Grace would come back. She had already noticed the barbeque pit.
It approached evening fast, and at around 4PM, I asked them if they could consider continuing the barbeque. It was pretty much smooth sailing from here, although this was coupled together with measures to make sure we were prepared for the rain…if it were to come back for good. The barbeque carried on smoothly, and the food lasted us all the way till dark.
After all the food was cooked, and when the last of the food was going to be done, Meng Xuan, and some others who did not manage to catch OCH at 4AM in the morning were dying to see it. So, 4PM in the evening, we went to OCH, AGAIN. It didn’t look very spooky in the day, but still. Was disturbing, really. Meng Xuan was tired from climbing the entire 5 stories of that place.
Meng Xuan, panting away: “Ramesh, I know why you sweat already.”
Lol, I was sweating again. It wasn’t because of the stairs, it was because, I was getting freaked out again.
This time round, when we were at the top floor, we managed to get the roof access open. I didn’t manage to get to the roof along with couple of others because there wasn’t enough space on the roof. But, however, it managed to do one thing: more people, than ever, were convinced that the sunrise could be seen clearly from that building. Admittedly, the horizon looked beautiful, even from the fifth storey. The Old Changi Hospital was the highest point at that area. Rumor has it that the Japanese used the hospital to look over the sea to lookout for incoming ships.
Kenneth pointed out that the some of the graffiti was freaking cool. I had to agree with this guy. While some of the graffiti were plain random sprays, some of them were actually works of art. Really good ones, at that.
Back at the chalet, we all ate the barbequed food and enjoyed ourselves. After that, a group of us went out to look out for a bike rental shack. We found one, and we all got bikes. Plan was, we were going to ride the entire night away.
While I love riding bikes, I would have to say, the bike riding experience wasn’t exactly a very pleasant one for me. Guys, I’m sorry for what happened.
Anyway, we had fun riding around nonetheless. You would not believe what we saw!
we saw…
Prostitutes!
Yes, actual prostitutes! I couldn’t believe my sight! But there they were, disgustingly dressed ladies, trying to get every driver’s attention who were driving out of the carpark over at change village. Yuck, get a life! I’ve always thought Prostitutes were some kind of “underground” business, but NOOOOO. They were right there, before all of our very eyes. It wasn’t certainly underground, this was actually on the “surface”!
Ernest and Ching Siang made up a joke of how those prostitutes would say “$50!” in a low, deep voice if you ask them. Sure enough, this joke was true. Because when I cycled past them, they were conversing, and they sounded like MEN. GOD. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing AND seeing. Shit.
So, after spending the entire night cycling, we reached back at the chalet at around 4AM. I was drop dead tired, so I just slept on the sofa at the TV room.
DAY 3 (14/11/08)
I woke up pretty late, and when I woke up, it was already preparations for leaving the chalet. We were going to return the bikes, and eat at the coffee shop. I ate Nasi Lemak, and we returned the bikes. We all took a long, long walk by the shore back to the chalet. At the chalet, we all packed up and got out.
Ernest came out carrying a couple of toiletries, demanding whom they belonged too. NO one owed up, and they were thrown away. Joseph and Alger played with it, haha. You wouldn’t believe what they did!
So, the chalet’s door was finally closed. We took a few last minute pictures together, and set off. Boarded the bus. At the interchange, the girls and some others went off separately to take a taxi ride back home. Ernest took the bus 67 from tampanies all the way back to Chu Chu Kang, and the rest of us, including me, took the MRT back home.
Well, guys, it has been a fantastic run with you all for the past 4 years. It's amazing that we've changed so much and come so far. I love every single one of you all, and each and every single one of you have earned, one way or another, a place in my heart. And it isn’t likely to go away anytime. Personally, I feel honored and extremely fortunate to be a part of this, and guys,…
Don’t forget 2/7 ‘o6. Don’t you ever.