Shingaboomz 1st Outing @ Marina Barrage

I'll have to type fast. I have yet to complete one more tutorial that's due the first thing after lunch. Maybe I'll refer a little?

Woke up at 7.45am, had breakfast, changed, packed my camera, sandwiches, and left for the floating platform at Marina. The journey was alright, but I was getting worried about the worst case scenario at the Standard Chartered 8th Anniversary Race Pack Collection. Queues as long as an MRT train. However, I got there rather early, at 9.20am(even by taking my time). I was surprised. I was 7th in line. 10 minutes later, it started to drizzle a little, and we were let in for shelter. Another 10 minutes later, the counters were open. Something I wasn't expecting was the cheers of the volunteers at the counters as we were brought in. By now, the queues were getting longer, but not as bad as I had expected. The whole process for me, took FIFTEEN seconds! I passed her my IC, before she went in. In a jiffy, she was out with my race pack. Checked the number and name, confirmed it, and I went in search of the verification counter. I was congratulated by an official, who said I was the first to get my race pack. WOW! He directed me to tun to my left, where I passed my chip to a volunteer to verify it, before heading off. The rain had stopped.

I went to the bus stop, took a peek at the contents, before placing the whole pack into my bag(seems like it has gotten smaller this year compared to last year), and unpacked my DSLR. At 10am, I began on a long walk toward the Marina Bay MRT Station. If I was walking in the right direction, I would arrive at the station at 10.50am. Along the way, I stopped at the Merlion Park to help a tourist couple get a shot of them with the Fullerton Hotel in the background, before moving off. So far, so good. OK, so I'll make a left turn into Marina Boulevard. I walked on until, I came to a guard house at a T-junction. On the map, it was the shortest possible route toward the train station, and I was almost halfway there! Considering that only tipper trucks and concrete mixers were passing through, I decided to use an alternative route, which would cause me to arrive at the station, at least 40 minutes later, at 11.10am. Since it was the first outing, it might not be a good thing to be late, for I'll never know if the bunch of them would be the kind who would stick strictly to the 11am meeting time. I headed to the Raffles Place MRT Station, took a short tour of the underground shopping mall, before taking a train to the destination at 10.45am.

I arrived at 10.50am. There were less than 5 others at the station, none of whom I knew. It's alright, maybe I'm too early, as always. I went up to the ground floor, and was greeted with the best surprise! I saw the same building I was near earlier on! So, I spent about a dollar, just to complete a distance I could walk in barely 20 minutes, by taking a train? Went to take a little walk around the small concrete 'island' that was surrounded by roads and construction sites. It was 11am when I went back down to wait, and shortly after Shen Faye arrived. Just as I made a call to Jaemeng later on, Angsiang also arrived! I found out he was already there when I arrived, just that he was waiting at the platform(only that I walked too fast to have noticed him). I made a call to Lionel, only to find out that he was waiting for us at the Barrage! Oh my. Jaemeng arrived at 11.45am and Jorge came soon after at 12pm, just moments before we boarded the shuttle bus. That was when I found out he, too would be taking part in the full marathon the next weekend.

One there, we took even more photographs, not forgetting to meet Lionel who was waiting there alone for the past 1 hour! We went to the rooftop, to set up our picnic spot at a corner. It was getting really hot after awhile, so we moved into the shelter. We played Blackjack, except that the loser does a forfeit of truth and dare, while the winner asks the questions. Lionel was the only one who got out unscath, while everyone of us lost or won at least twice. Of course, there were secrets being revealed, and hopefully they wouldn't leave the place. Shen Faye left some time later. Lionel left shortly 10 minutes after Rachel arrived, by taking the long way up. More photographs were taken, before we went for a round of Frisbee, and were greeted by a passing shower.

At 4pm, Cardus was on the way from Vivocity after getting the kites. We took photographs, ate, drank, talked, lazed around and went for some Frisbee for an hour, before Cardus arrived with the main dish, desert and 3 kites. So, we celebrated Rachel's 17Th birthday (if I'm not wrong), followed by dinner, served by Cardus. I simply love the pasta he brought for us, even without the sauce, it was damn good! Flied kites till 7pm, before Rachel left for a family gathering after taking lots and lots of photographs.

Just as we were about to leave, I met the members from the Photography Club, who were having their outing there! Like Jorge who knew he had friends who were at the Barrage on the same day as it was a coincidence, mine was similar. All I knew was the club was having an outing on that same day, but I never expected them to be there too. If I had known, maybe I could have joined them for 30 minutes, before going back to join the others with the celebration and photo taking after Cardus had arrived.

We went to Frolick at Serangoon for supper, via Toa Payoh, as Lionel was back to join us! Along the way we took even more photographs, so that we would not fall asleep. Once there, the yogurt looked really tasty! The temptation was almost irresistible! We talked about exotic food and overseas trips, as well as possible plans about where and how the next outing would be held. Angsiang, Cardus, Jaemeng and I took a bus back to Ang Mo Kio, to the usual bus stop, the same way the camp ended for us. Angsiang walked to the MRT station, while Jaemeng accompanied us to wait for the bus. There we talked about the people from the camp, as well as plans for the next outing. The bus came, and we reached Bukit Batok Interchange, where I managed to catch the last bus home.

I uploaded more than a third of the 900 photographs taken that day, before having the best sleep since the term started. I went on a visit to Dreamland from 2.30am till 11.30am this morning, dreaming only 1 dream, of how that day would be like, if all 11 of us were present for the outing. A dream like that, felt too great to be true.

Tomorrow's going to be a long day, and I have completed only half of what I was supposed to have completed a week ago.

Photo albums that are up on facebook:
The morning walk from the Floating Flatform to Marina Bay MRT Station
First Outing at Marina Barrage(11am to 5pm)
First Outing at Marina Barage(5pm till 7.45pm)
First Outing at Frolick(Marina Barrage to Serangoon via Toa Payoh)

Photographs would be uploaded to Picasa over the weekend.