it was one of those perfect evenings for walking. at 6.30pm, hardly any breeze, but a still coolness, strolling in kallang riverside park, watching a wakeboarding girl fall repeatedly into the water, and random anglers dropping lines. a mild-tempered sky, no flashy sunsets, only soothing pale light.from kallang mrt we took the underpass to the park, and followed the river until we hit nicoll highway and had to go under the highway, walking on a narrow concrete ledge with only a rusty fence on one side to hang on to, and cutting across the kallang water sports centre (probably trespassing). banners announce the national schools' dragonboat competition to be this weekend, and in the water several dragonboats can be seen hard at work. find the idea of dragonboating as an official sport somewhat strange. what does qu yuan think about it anyway? across the water rise condominiums in the tanjong rhu area. very beautiful, with a riverview. not that i am dreaming of a penthouse overlooking water though. it'll be very nice and i would be pleased, but i think i'm ultimately a land-bound person. my ideal house is one of those le corbusier type white boxes with ribbon windows, or a geometrical and mostly white de stijl box, with trees in the garden, like darkpink frangipani. erm. friend asked how it is possible that i live on an island and do not care for swimming (actually, what he said was more in the vein of "you can't swim and you live on an island?", which, i shall hereby indignantly, and for the record, state that i can too swim. it's just that i regard knowing how to swim as a means of getting back to shore in the event i do end up in the water, and not a reason to go rushing into the water. i especially loathe swimming pools. they're so blue, darn it. you avoid water? hmm then what do you do about baths? ah, that's a different matter, provided there are lots of suds and handsome men involved.
we end up at the stretch of river before the indoors stadium, which looks rather impressive. it's been years since i've been to national stadium or the indoors stadium. kallang theatre i am still at often, but the area has always been so dingy (leisurepark!) that it's always out of the cab and into the theatre, and then the other way round. but the new stadium waterfront is very pleasing, and a new bridge links tanjong rhu across the river to us. there are bazaars here on weekends, though i'm glad this isn't a weekend, the quiet is more enjoyable, and several expensive looking restaurants on the waterfront. decided to go to the old fish and chips place down the road (it is gone. the last time i was there was in '98, just after the un mock conference, with a crammed carful of hissoc ppl that had got separated at bugis junction with the other car of hissoc ppl) had to walk back to leisurepark around all the mrt construction (circle line) while having metallic bonding explained to me. the bubble tea place in leisurepark has food items and bubble tea that come in absurdly big cups at cheaper than yi pao er hong prices. almost 9 when we got back to leisurepark, we've walked two hours and it didn't seem in the least long. after being chucked out from the tea place at 10, we wandered across the bridge and tried to find our way to suntec city from tanjong rhu, couldn't find a way to get onto the highway, met a dead end, had to turn around again, all the time me explaining latin declensions to friend. we estimate it'll be past midnight by the time we could possibly find ourselves back in civilisation again, at least, bus-ed or mrt-ed civilisation. returning were as tedious as to go over. fortunately, a cab was just coming out of one of the condos, and we got ourselves back to kallang mrt. on the way out of the area, we realise that we'd been heading in the wrong direction for the expressway bridge anyway.
the beginnings of the geylang food streets beckons invitingly. up for rochor beancurd? tempting, but too full of bubble tea pearls. end of the night? could have taken a straight bus from the mrt, but that seemed like a too abrupt end. when i start walking, i want to keep walking. ended up walking along nicol highway, in the direction of town, for a while, and the trains ran overhead, so close you almost think you can touch them, as they begin to disappear underground. the kallang to lavender stretch of the mrt is one of my favourites, coming up of course, a sudden burst of light and river, first stop outside of orchard and vicinity. but i've let 3 buses go by, and my phone was going to start ringing soon and the pater asking "when will you be home". also, i had no keys with me, and though they are nice about it i don't like having to call to ask someone to come down and let me in. i get on the bus. coming home on a crowded number 80 spoilt it all. squeezed into a window seat and then wedged beside a bulky man i had to freeze under the aircon vent that was shooting small streams of cold air at my bosom. so, not good, but i came home in a decent temper. tomorrow morning i'm meeting yeen teck for breakfast. i should get sleep.