ubin trip

Last Friday I went to ubin with my close friends. It was an interesting experience. Well we had known each other for around 10 years or so. We have been to many chalets, bbqs, countless movie and dinner outings and numerous “chill = out” sessions where we would just talk.. and talk.. and talk… well you get the drift. This was the first time we went camping together. All of us have completed our national service. Among the four of us, only imran and I have any outfield experience. Ariff was in police force and elmi was in admin side. Even though our camping trip is not comparable to NS outfield, it was still something different.

For some reason, ariff was really looking forward to It, and was pretty excited when we were doing our shopping. I really wanted an authentic out-field experience, so l brought solid fuels and all. Haha. But in the end we used mini portable stove. imran brought. We met at 12.30pm at changi and after some last minute buys we were off to ubin

Our plan was simple, we would camp out and chill the first day, and then we would go cycling and explore the other parts of ubin the next day.

Once there, we made our way to Nordin beach. I wanted a secluded place, so we bashed deeper along the beach and found a secluded camp site. During high tide, the only way to reach the place was thru bashing. (it made me pretty happy, as it means no disturbance)

We unpacked and settled down. Ariff and imran prepared for fishing.

Elmi and I went around looking for fire wood. After that we cooked our lunch/dinner.. We realised that we brought too much food for one day. As we planned to clear our entire ration by the next day so that we could lighten our load for tomorrow bike ride.

We actually ate a lot. Haha.. I went to explore the surrounding area, was pretty relaxing, then we set the groundsheet by the beach and lay down, waiting for fish to bite ..And snacking, playing cards.

As day light fade away we realised that we don’t have enough firewood…so ariff and I quickly went around finding as many branches we can find.

I started on the campfire while imran was seriously fishing(caught 3 fishes, a crab and a starfish) took a long time for the fire to get going, pretty much all the wood we collect were damp. Luckily I had solid fuel to rely on. Hhaa.. Once we got the fire going.. We were roasting marshmallow.. haha.. Then cooked the fish imm and ariff caught, and then the crab..

That was pretty much it for the day..
We just lay down and talked, then slept.

Our dear friend ariff have problem sleeping at night. Initially he was sleeping beside the shelter, followed by elmi, imran and me. In the middle of the night, he woke up and squeezed in-between imran and I. in the morning he told us that he was not very ‘comfortable’ sleeping at the side anymore. Haha..

Anyway, in the morning we had to clear a lot of food. Imran was our chef. He cooked for us hotdogs, tuna, eggs and his version of smores. (Toasted bread with nutella and softened marshmallow- which was cooked in butter- yum yum)

It wasn’t healthy, but hey that was the last meal in ubin for us.

After packing up, we made our way to the jetty and rent bicycles. We wanted a good one, so we took a while to choose. Then we made way to chek jawa. It wasn’t easy riding up the slope, especially when some slopes were 45 degree. Imran’s bike had problem. The chain kept coming out. He was so pissed. Haha… we eventually we made it to the top.

Check out our ‘shaag..faces’

We were on foot in chek java. We dozed off at one place, walked around the trail (where elmi had his little accident) and climbed the tower to get a birds eye view of the whole place.

After chek java, it was just cycling.. Cycling and cycling. It was so much fun. We just cycled around the whole place.( Then, my gear wire broke and had to change my bicycle. ) we stopped at some places to snap away. Then we tried out the mountain biking trail. It was a lot harder and a lot of fun. If only it was the first think in our agenda we would have had a lot more energy to ride.( some slopes were just too tough and we just pushed our bike.) Later, at about 6pm we made our way to the jetty with sore limbs and very sore butts, but we (not sure about ariff though.) would definitely wanna do that again.

(imm doing a ' matt parkman' haha)

After washing up, we left the place, we had to go back to the reality and start worrying about the every day issues that we managed to escape for two days. Hope we can do it again in November.